A Social-Service Charity Attracts a New Pool of Well-Heeled Potential Donors

Social-service groups nearly always finish behind colleges when it comes to raising money, in part because they lack the legions of prosperous alumni who are easy to find and solicit.

But Catholic Charities’ affiliate in Brooklyn and Queens has found a way to appeal to 150,000 alumni of 200 Catholic colleges by tapping their desire for professional and social connections.

The charity gets in touch with alumni-relations officials and volunteers from colleges around the country and asks them to invite all their graduates who live in the New York metropolitan area to a cocktail party where they will have a chance to mingle with friends and meet new people.

At each party, Catholic Charities takes a few minutes to talk about its work and encourage people to give and volunteer.

It also asks a pianist, a client of one of the charity’s community centers for older people, to play jazz in the background. “People don’t want boring sit-down dinners,” says Sephora Rosario, a Catholic Charities marketing associate.

In some cases, the charity shows a video to showcase its work. At the last reception, it invited an executive from Home Depot to explain why the company supports Catholic Charities.

And the charity always hands out “cool giveaways—headsets or a disc drive, maybe a water bottle with our logo on it, a fun thing, not just an annual report,” Ms. Rosario says.

Sell-Out Interest

College alumni pay $25 apiece to get into the party, and at the event officials ask them to give another $25 or more each month for a year.

The social-service organization’s last alumni reception sold out, with 350 people attending the two-hour event. And 20 percent of them, or 70 people, agreed to make monthly gifts. The charity gets more than donations from the events: Some people contact Catholic Charities to volunteer to work on a project for the organization with other people who graduated from their institutions, Ms. Rosario says.

The headquarters of Catholic Charities has also found a way to parlay its college ties into significant sums.

A former board member of Catholic Charities USA who also supports the University of Notre Dame suggested that the two organizations could work together to fight poverty.

Officials of Catholic Charities USA asked Notre Dame officials and a local Catholic Charities in Fort Worth, Tex., about possible projects. [Editor’s note: The previous sentence has been corrected to show the location of the Catholic Charities affiliate.]

They came up with the idea for a new national center that will combine the rigors of academic research, advocacy, business, and theology to help people avoid poverty. Their vision inspired a wealthy donor who had previously supported the Fort Worth Catholic Charities to make a $2-million gift this year to start the center.

“This has helped change our mind about how we raise money,” says Candy Hill, executive vice president of external affairs at Catholic Charities USA. “It’s about more collaboration and bigger ideas. There are donors who give locally and are looking for broader opportunities.”