When Board Members Aren’t Rich

Trustees who lack deep pockets turn to inventive techniques to raise money for charities

When Daniel S. Guillory joined the board of the Central Y.M.C.A. in San Francisco, he was just one year out of law school and about $90,000 in debt. He hardly seemed to be the kind of board member who would bring in big money for the Y.

But in the past two years, he has provided more than $5,000. Although he could not afford to write such a big check himself, he decided to throw three fund-raising parties at Bay Area bars and charge revelers $5 to $10 at the door. He also passed the hat on the dance floor for additional contributions.

Many charities try hard to recruit board members who can afford to make big gifts themselves and who have no qualms about tapping their wealthy friends for comparable donations, but they do not always succeed. Often, small and medium-sized groups end up with board members like Mr. Guillory: People who are enthusiastic, committed to the organization, and capable of giving at best a few hundred dollars.

As a result, a growing number of charities are encouraging their trustees to be creative in coming up with fund-raising events and other ways to bring in dollars. Such events are often a good way of tapping new donors and usually cost the board member little in out-of-pocket expenses.

Clifford Pearlman, who heads the development committee for the board of the Farmers’ Market Trust in Philadelphia, says most board members are happy to be presented with alternatives to soliciting a big gift from a colleague. “It is a challenge for the major part of the universe to sit down and ask somebody for money, whether it be three figures or five figures,” he says. “Except for born salesmen, I don’t know anyone for whom this is easy.”

Fund Raising by Necessity

Necessity has forced many board members to learn to hold fund-raising events.

The Bay Area Ridge Trail Council in San Francisco relied on foundation and federal support when it got started 10 years ago on its efforts to build a 400-mile trail. It came as a shock to the organization when that money dried up and it had to find new sources of financing.

“The organization was founded by a bunch of trail activists,” says Marcia J. McNally, vice-chair of the Board of Directors and a landscape-architecture teacher at the University of California’s Berkeley campus. “It’s not the kind of group that automatically says big bucks.”

Even so, some of its members used their ingenuity to come up with ways to bring in small amounts. Ms. McNally, for instance, organized an outing on the half-completed trail for a group of artist friends. They spent the day painting and then auctioned their paintings off to one another. The event brought in $500.

“It was completely painless,” Ms. McNally says. “How taxing? We have to go outside and paint and drink wine.”

Other board members who have taken fund raising seriously have been equally creative. One person returned all her duplicate wedding gifts for cash and then donated the money to the trail council. Another board member sent friends an invitation to a “rubber chicken” dinner, in which people were encouraged to send a contribution instead of attending an event. And several board members have organized hikes on the trail, where they ask participants for donations.

Even so, some board members of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council continue to have a strong distaste for fund raising. “Many of the people in the old guard continue to ignore their responsibilities,” Ms. McNally says. “They feel like they are doing a lot already.”

Southwest Women Working Together, a charity in Chicago that works to improve the lives of women, has faced a similar reluctance from board members when it comes to raising money. “They’re all working women, and they did not come on this board to raise funds,” says Shelley Crump, the charity’s executive director. “They came on to work with the programs, to do the policy, and they thought that the role of fund raising was up to the executive director.”

To ease board members into fund raising, Southwest Women Working Together has persuaded them to throw parties at their homes and then make a pitch for the organization to their guests. The first year the parties were held, trustees raised $10,000; last year they brought in $14,000. Ms. Crump says that the parties have also been instrumental in expanding the number of individual donors to the charity from 120 two years ago to close to 800 now.

Variations on Events

Some charities have encouraged their board members to organize variations on one type of fund-raising event.

Amos House, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Providence, R.I., has turned its “Souper Bowl” parties from an event run mainly by the staff to one that board members and other volunteers conduct. The idea started when the charity served soup in a downtown square on the day of the professional-football championship game and solicited donations from people who came to eat.

Over the years, board members began throwing their own Souper Bowl parties, and eventually their friends latched onto the idea as well. “It’s taken on this wonderful life of its own,” says Deborah M. Brayton, executive director of Amos House. “It’s now branched out to where people are having Souper Bowl parties for their birthdays, or for their anniversaries. My mother runs one for St. Patrick’s Day. Whatever celebration is meaningful for them, they throw a party.”

Ms. Brayton says that some of the Souper Bowl parties raise no more than $300, while others bring in more than $5,000. The proceeds provide a significant chunk of Amos House’s $650,000 operating budget, says Ms. Brayton, although she said she did not know exactly how much they raise each year.

One reason the Souper Bowl parties have become so lucrative is that they have received much free publicity. Local radio and television stations have run free advertisements encouraging people to throw parties, and a local bank and newspaper have in the past underwritten the cost of some posters and postcards that were used to publicize the parties.

Those in-kind donations from businesses can provide a big lift, since board members often end up paying on their own to produce events. Board members often pay for invitations, food, drinks, party decorations, and other such items.

Even so, for most board members the financial cost of organizing a fund-raising event is relatively small. At Mr. Guillory’s parties for the Y, for instance, local bars were so happy to find a way to attract a steady flow of customers that they didn’t charge him anything. Board members who spend their own money on buying food and other items for fund-raising events often keep track of their expenses so they can write them off as charitable donations on their income-tax returns.

Working With Other Groups

In some cases, board members do not have to organize their own events but can work with religious or civic groups, such as Kiwanis or Rotary Clubs, to obtain money for their charities. Those organizations often raise money for charitable purposes but do not always have firm plans for how they will spend it.

Contact Cape-Atlantic, a telephone hotline in Somers Point, N.J., last year benefited when a board member persuaded his church to donate the proceeds from its annual golf tournament to the organization, which provides counseling to people dealing with depression, domestic abuse, or other crises. The tournament netted $4,000 for Contact Cape-Atlantic, which has an annual budget of just $60,000 and had been struggling to pay its bills. “It saved our lives last year,” says C. Richard Sauer, the charity’s executive director.

Leaders of small charities say they generally follow the same rule with their boards as do the heads of multimillion-dollar charities: All board members must give money themselves-whether $10 or $10,000-before they undertake any major fund-raising efforts.

“If you have a board who themselves do not give dollars, how are they going to ask someone else to contribute?” asks Joyce A. Love, a program officer at the Chicago Foundation for Women who works with grantees to improve their fund raising.

Many non-profit experts say too few charities make fund-raising and giving obligations clear to board members.

“Charities are so wanting to get the right person for the board position that they’re likely to promise them anything,” says Jim Cummings, a consultant in Pennsauken, N.J. “And the most common promise is, You won’t have to do any fund raising.”

Contact USA, a national umbrella group of 60 telephone crisis hotlines, not only doesn’t make such promises, but it tells every prospective board member that he or she will be expected to donate or raise at least $1,000 a year.

Alan J. Kemery, national executive director of the Harrisburg, Pa., group, says the organization began taking the direct approach because people who joined its board had little experience raising funds. Most of its trustees are volunteers at crisis telephone lines-people who were much more accustomed to listening to people’s problems than asking them for money.

Waiving Reimbursements

“The type of volunteer that comes to our program is not the type of volunteer who is going to go out and run the big fund raiser and get their picture in the paper,” Mr. Kemery says.

To encourage board members to think more broadly about how they could make a financial contribution, the charity asked them to waive reimbursements for travel to board meetings and to consider their expenses as a donation.

In addition, the charity has developed sample letters for trustees to send to friends who might be willing to donate. The only thing that board members have to do is sign their names.

“When you’re introducing fund raising to a board, you can’t just sit down with them the first day and say, I want you to go out and ask for $25,000,” Mr. Kemery says.

Mr. Kemery and other charity leaders say that some board members are never going to be effective fund raisers, and even those who do learn to throw special events will not necessarily solve the money problems at their organizations.

“For a small non-profit, life is spent on the edge,” Mr. Kemery says. “It is not just a matter of meeting this year’s targets or goals. It is a matter of keeping the doors open and lights on.”

“And it is the board that must make it happen.”