February 4, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
While many charities reported a strong year-end giving season, which some see as a sign that donations will be strong in 2011, other groups—especially those that focus on social services—say fund raising is getting worse.
And that just might be a sign that the economy is on the mend, painful as it may be for the groups still struggling to meet increased demands for services from people who are jobless or are suffering other economic troubles.
United Way Silicon Valley, in San Jose, Calif., for example, expects to raise less than $14-million this fiscal year, which ends on June 30—substantially less than the $15.7-million it received in fiscal 2010.
Carole Leigh Hutton, United Way’s president, says that a big reason for the decline is that several donors who stepped in to make extra-large gifts when the recession first began are not repeating those donations.
“There is such a thing as compassion fatigue where people get tired of hearing about the need, and the grand gestures have fallen by the wayside,” she says. “There is all this talk about economic recovery, but people have not gone back to work. There is no return to low unemployment levels. We are not awash in recovery here, and there is no abatement whatsoever in the need.”
Similarly, the Salvation Army’s Kentucky and Tennessee Division, in Louisville, Ky., saw donations to its recently concluded holiday Red Kettle campaign decline by 11.5 percent. As a result, it is asking its local units to go back and reduce their budgets for the coming year by that same percentage.
“Historically we tend to maintain during tough times. It is when the economy starts to improve that we see donations drop off,” says Christopher McGown, the charity’s development director.
But like Ms. Hutton, Mr. McGown sees no corresponding drop in the demand for services by needy individuals and families.
“We can continue to say we’ve had more people in our shelters than ever, we are feeding more people through our soup kitchen than ever,” he says. “It’s been that way for so long, but the need no longer has the emotional impact. It is almost seeming routine now rather than something worthy of compassion.”
Both the United Way and the Salvation Army are focused on meeting social-service needs.
Could it be that declining gifts to social-service groups on the front lines of serving the poor is actually a sign of a growing economic recovery, as Mr. McGown suggests? Let us know your thoughts.
