November 24, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have made a big impact on donors’ plans for giving, but few charities are changing their approaches as a result, according to a pair of new studies of donors and fund raisers.
Forty-two percent of 555 fund raisers surveyed by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Alexandria, Va., said they believe hurricane-relief efforts had no effect at all on their organization’s ability to raise money for causes not related to the hurricanes.
Eleven percent said they believed the fund raising for relief efforts had caused them to raise at least 30 percent less than they did the previous year, and only 3 percent said hurricane-relief efforts improved their fund raising by 30 percent or more.
The association surveyed its members in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas, states where membership is highest. Among the respondents, only 7 percent said they thought the hurricanes and related relief efforts had a significant short-term impact on fund raising, and even fewer — 2 percent — thought their groups would experience any important, long-term effects from the hurricanes.
When asked about the future, 48 percent of the respondents said they expect to raise more money this year than they did in 2004. According to a new survey by Cone, a marketing and communications consulting company in Boston, one-third of donors said they plan to give less to charity this holiday season because they already gave to groups raising money for hurricane relief. The company polled 1,027 people around the country.
While that finding could indicate donor fatigue, other factors, such as higher gas and heating prices, prompted 70 percent of the donors to say they will have to limit the amount they give to charity this season. Still, 52 percent of those polled said they planned to buy a holiday gift in support of a charitable cause this year.
“When you see all the news about the poverty the hurricanes caused, and all the humanitarian issues the disaster brought up, it has definitely created a heightened awareness this year,” said Mindy Gomes Casseres, a senior associate at Cone.
Key findings from the Cone study will be available in coming weeks at http://www.coneinc.com, or for additional information, contact Mindy Gomes Casseres at mgomescasseres@coneinc.com.
The results from the survey conducted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals can be found at http://www.afpnet.org.
