Hunger-Relief Group Aims to Cut Fundraising Costs and Raise More Money

Larry Jones was for 30 years the fundraising force behind Feed the Children, his heart-rending infomercials helping to build the charity into one of the nation’s largest.

But with Mr. Jones’s ouster in 2009 amid an ugly dispute over control of the charity, the Oklahoma City group is seeking to recharge its relationship with donors by emphasizing not a persuasive frontman but its work to alleviate hunger.

“We’re going to be mission-focused, the way all the other organizations out there are,” says Matt Panos, who joined Feed the Children last October as its chief development officer.

The charity also plans to pare some fundraising costs. In 2011, it ended its contract with the company that bought airtime for its televised appeals, a deal that cost the nonprofit as much as $40-million in some years, or a third of its total cash budget.

Small Gifts

Giving to Feed the Children has slowed in the past few years, but not to a dribble. In 2012, Feed the Children raised roughly $72-million in cash. Three years earlier, the group received $123-million.

Fundraising experts say the charity has assets—like the pool of 820,000 people who have given in the past year—that could help it succeed. Roughly 9.3 million people have donated in the past decade.

“That’s a big bunch of people,” says Bob Carter, a fundraising consultant, of the charity’s active donors. “As long as they’re confirming their mission and have new innovative leadership in place and with appropriate transparency, they will probably do fine, though it will likely take some time to accelerate.”

Feed the Children plans to woo back a share of those supporters but also reach out to new people, as well as to foundations and the U.S. government. The charity is also looking for larger gifts, says Mr. Panos. Right now, its average gift from first-time donors is a meager $13 and in the low $20s for all supporters. By contrast, at World Vision, another big Christian aid group, those numbers are $54 and $84, respectively.

Says Mr. Panos: “Ask small, you get small.”

The nonprofit also intends to focus on child sponsorship. Right now, Feed the Children’s sponsors—people who make monthly contributions to support children in its programs—number only 2,000. (World Vision has 749,000).

Feed the Children recently signed a dealt with the band Sister Hazel to underwrite some of the group’s concert costs; in exchange, the band publicizes the sponsorship program. Mr. Panos has developed such agreements at other charities and says he wants to expand the artist-recruitment program at Feed the Children. The arrangement costs the charity roughly $100 per new sponsor.

To some nonprofit officials, Feed the Children’s fundraising appeals, featuring teary-eyed children, have been too weepy, too focused on problems rather than solutions

“A lot of people will respond to that initially, but over the longer term you want to think that you’re doing something to change the situation and show how a reinvestment will help do that,” says Mr. Carter.

Mr. Panos agrees that Feed the Children shouldn’t go overboard in blanketing donors with sad images. But he says they do provoke a response.

“If there’s a little girl crying,” says Mr. Panos, “I wouldn’t want to hide that.”