Banding Together

Charities that team up to raise money find such partnerships can yield big benefits, but many remain leery

If Priscilla Savary could write a want ad to help fulfill her dream of raising more money, it would read something like this: “Nonprofit organization seeks like-minded charity to plan joint fund-raising activities; in search of a team player who likes to share and won’t try to take all the credit.”

As executive director of the Colorectal Cancer Network, in Kensington, Md., Ms. Savary has spent years searching — in vain — for the right fund-raising partner. Such an ally, she says, could give both groups access to a bigger, more diverse group of donors, but unfortunately, nonprofit groups “spend way too much time on protecting our territory and not on collective efforts. It shouldn’t happen that way, but it does.”

Shared campaigns, joint special events, and other collaborative efforts to raise money are indeed still relatively rare in the nonprofit world. But when charities find ways to work together, such projects often produce big benefits for the organizations involved.

For small groups, fund-raising partnerships can bring in more money than the organizations could produce on their own — and they involve less strain because the work and expenses are shared.

Bethesda Cares, a Maryland group that serves the homeless, teamed up with another charity in its city that serves the needy, A Wider Circle, for a joint fund-raising auction in 2004. The event was so successful that the two groups held a second auction last year, raising $30,000 that they split evenly; now they are planning a third auction to be held later this year.

“A fund raiser takes a lot of hours, but this was fairly easy for us by doing it together,” says Sue Kirk, executive director of Bethesda Cares. Her organization has no fund raisers on its staff, so she says it couldn’t pull off such an event without outside help.

Large organizations can benefit from fund-raising collaborations too, especially if they can convince donors that the result will be expanded programs or services.

That is the hope of two of New York’s most prestigious arts organizations. In December, Carnegie Hall signed an agreement with the New York City Center, a performing-arts theater, to increase both groups’ offerings. The first step is a $150-million campaign to renovate the center, adding a 2,200-seat theater that will be used by both organizations.

Many joint fund-raising efforts result from the lack of any other alternative.

In the late 1990s, after three cultural organizations in Sioux Falls, S.D., became frustrated as each one failed to raise enough money to upgrade its buildings, the groups decided to band together with other local arts groups in a joint campaign to pay for a state-of-the-art facility with space for all the organizations.

The result of the drive, concluded in 1999, is the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, a $35-million building that is home to the Husby Performing Arts Center, the Visual Arts Center, and the Kirby Science Discovery Center. Covering an entire city block, it has become a major destination for residents and visitors, drawing more people every year than the groups had attracted separately.

A Single Gift

While some donors support joint campaigns because they are persuaded that programs and services will improve, others simply like the idea of making a single gift rather than responding to multiple solicitations. That’s why Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, an Arlington charity that provides free legal assistance to needy people, and the Dallas Bar Association have conducted a joint campaign for the past nine years.

“This works for one reason — because we go to major firms and private lawyers and say, ‘This is the one time this year we will ask you to write a check for legal aid,’” says Sam Prince, Legal Aid’s director of development. The money raised, $450,000 last year, helps pay the charity’s cost of providing the free legal aid.

Some groups work together for years on joint programs before deciding that they should also collaborate to raise money.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation of Michigan, which grants wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses, has recruited patients from DeVos Children’s Hospital, in Grand Rapids, for more than a decade. But it wasn’t until four years ago that it also decided that the two organizations should raise money together. The groups hold joint events, such as galas featuring a silent auction and a sneak movie preview.

The most recent, coinciding with the opening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, drew some 700 guests and netted about $70,000 for each organization. That’s enough money for Make-a-Wish to fulfill the wishes of 10 children, says Cara Ontiveros, the charity’s special-events manager.

“The public likes the fact that we do a fund-raising event with the hospital,” she says. “In a competitive world, it’s nice for people to see that two organizations that might compete for dollars can come together.”

The same spirit of collaboration among potential competitors can occur even when two charities are worlds apart in the size and scope of their fund raising.

For instance, the nearly 100-year-old Philadelphia Foundation, with $300-million in assets, and the three-year-old Delaware County Community Foundation, which has less than $50,000 in assets and is located in an area already served by the Philadelphia Foundation, have decided that working together will help both funds.

The Philadelphia Foundation wants to raise more money for charities in fast-growing counties that surround the city, including Delaware County. Meanwhile, the Delaware County fund wants to reach more donors but has a small staff and few other resources. The two foundations are now working together to raise $5-million in Delaware County by 2010; all of the money will be used to benefit organizations in the county.

Under the arrangement, the Delaware fund’s executive director and board members will meet with donors and make solicitations with help from the Philadelphia Foundation’s fund-raising staff, which will provide training, advice, and materials such as brochures and pamphlets that are reprinted with the Delaware County fund’s name and contact information. The Philadelphia Foundation will manage the funds raised, while the Delaware County board will decide how the money will be distributed.

“Our hope is that other smaller foundations will consider similar partnerships,” says R. Andrew Swinney, the Philadelphia Foundation’s president.

But so far, the Philadelphia Foundation has been rebuffed by other funds that fear “getting swallowed up” in such a collaboration, says Mr. Swinney. He says they worry that his foundation will poach donors or dictate how contributions will be used in their region.

Hard to Share

It can be difficult to find an organization willing to share fund-raising projects; potential partners fear they could lose employees, donors, or visibility to the other charity, experts say. Other nonprofit groups are simply unwilling to try a different approach.

“It’s just easier to work in your own house rather than collaborating,” says Suzanne Callahan, a Washington consultant who works with nonprofit arts organizations. “Collaborations take time. There is a lot more documentation and communication that needs to take place. It becomes more complex to make decisions.”

The biggest barrier to joint fund raising, however, is charities’ fear of losing donors to another organization.

But that fear, which can run deep, is usually unfounded, says Geoffrey Peters, president of Creative Direct Response, a Washington direct-mail consulting company. “We often ask our clients to team with other organizations to do something they haven’t been able to do before,” he says.

In some cases, that means joining forces with another charity to provide services. For example, American charities are often able to raise a lot of money to buy medicine for children in developing countries, but an overseas group would be better able to deliver the medicine efficiently and cheaply.

If the American charity decides to give the overseas group some of the money it raises, Mr. Peters says, it should not be afraid to let donors know that their gift will be used by more than one organization. “Anything that shows charities are thinking about a smart way to get things done gets a positive response from donors,” he says. Charities, he adds, need to stop thinking that they open themselves to competition if they share resources or fund raising.

“This idea that your donors are only interested in you and only give to you is not true,” Mr. Peters says. Most donors don’t look at their philanthropy as being exclusive to one organization, and charities stand to win more donors than they lose by joining forces, he says. “You are actually helping your brand.”

Still, organizations that decide to join forces for a fund-raising event or campaign do need to weigh the risks, says Edith Falk, president of Campbell & Company, a Chicago fund-raising consulting group. Officials from the participating charities should discuss and agree early on how the work will be split, how the fund raising will be monitored, how the money is allocated, and how the groups will approach donors, Ms. Falk says. Otherwise, each charity runs the risk of taking on too much of the work, not getting its fair share of proceeds, or losing donors.

In Sioux Falls, where the cultural groups banded together in a capital campaign for a new shared space, the effort worked because the three organizations took the time to do detailed planning and create good systems to manage it, says Trudy Peckham, a volunteer and donor who helped organize the drive.

The coalition, she notes, created a separate board of representatives from the charities to provide oversight of the joint campaign, a separate committee to raise money, and a shared fund where all contributions were deposited and monitored by the groups.

Just as important, says Ms. Peckham, was the participants’ willingness to put shared fund-raising goals ahead of — or at least equal to — any one group’s quest for donations. “It can’t happen,” she says, “unless people work together and put their individual interests in the background.”