After United Way Rejected Them, Seven Charities in Philadelphia Join Forces to Raise Money

Many charities have improved their odds of surviving the downturn by collaborating to reduce “back office” and other operating expenses. Seven charities in Philadelphia are taking the concept a step further: They are collaborating on an advertising campaign to seek increased year-end donations.

The seven large charities banded together on the campaign, called Give Philly, after each lost annual support from the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which has adopted a new approach and now raises money mostly for grass-roots organizations.

The members of the Give Philly partnership are the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of Greater Philadelphia, the Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia, Settlement Music School, Travelers Aid of Philadelphia, United Cerebral Palsy of Philadelphia & Vicinity, and the YMCA of Philadelphia & Vicinity.

The charities are spending a total of $100,000 on a joint year-end advertising campaign. Each charity chipped in $10,000, and an anonymous donor and a corporation contributed another $30,000. (Previously, the charities spent virtually nothing on year-end advertising.) In addition, a retired advertising executive who serves on the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs donated time to help create the campaign.

The Philadelphia Foundation, a community foundation, is processing and distributing the gifts at no cost, which allows the group to tell donors that 100 percent of the money they donate will go to the charities.

More Than Money

The Settlement Music School, a community school for the arts that serves 15,000 students per year, received $140,000 annually from the United Way, about 2 percent of the school’s operating budget, before that support ended in June. Some of the other charities had received even more from the United Way.

“What we’ve lost more than the money is that broad reach into the community that none of us can afford to do on our own,” says Robert Capanna, executive director of the Settlement Music School, and a spokesman for the group.

The seven charities collectively work with 370,000 children, adults, and families per year. The campaign ads, which are running in local papers, and on radio and TV, describe the charities as “Philadelphia’s leading youth and family-service organizations” and urge donors to “give here.”

“We’re trying to communicate the message that it’s important to support the organizations that support your community,” Mr. Capanna says.

On the group’s Web site, donors can choose to make a gift that will be split equally among all seven organizations, or they can give to one or more of the groups.

As of December 1, 20 gifts totaling about $1,000 had been made through the site, according to Mr. Capanna, and several of the charities had received direct gifts from donors who cited the Give Philly campaign as a factor.

Mr. Capanna says the group is also exploring other areas in which it might collaborate, including accounting, human resources, and purchasing.