Youth Group Asks Loyal Donors to Remove Strings on Their Gifts

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, which has seen its budget double in the

past five years, is anticipating a difficult 2002.

The group already has taken steps to reduce its $10.7-million budget by $500,000 this year through such measures as freezing hiring, trimming travel expenses, no longer underwriting staff-development costs — even eliminating food at board meetings. And it is preparing contingency plans to make an additional $500,000 cut next month, should such action become necessary.

“The next step would mean making some decisions about what is core to our organization,” says Kristine Laping, vice president for development, “and many people already feel that everything we are currently doing is absolutely essential to our mission.”

Like many other charities, her organization is feeling the pinch from the recession, which has hit some high-tech companies in the Boston area particularly hard. “We depend on private philanthropy for 70 percent of our budget,” she says, “so we are very vulnerable to changes in the economy.”

Corporate sponsors account for a significant portion of receipts from the Boys & Girls Clubs’ two major fund-raising events, a Partners for Youth dinner in February and an antiques show in April. One major sponsor has indicated it would be trimming its donation by 20 percent, and others may have even less to offer. “A few said they are regrouping and can’t yet make decisions,” she says. “But corporations that are having layoffs are unlikely to sustain their previous levels of support, so we’re bracing ourselves for more news along those lines.”

Multiple-Year Gifts

In response, the charity is asking some of its most dedicated donors to change their giving patterns. “We are trying, with some of our longtime foundation supporters, to ask them to consider giving us general operating support, rather than money for some new and sexy program,” says Ms. Laping. “Some of them are willing to rethink their grant making. Whether there will be a long-term change is unclear. But there’s a feeling that everyone is in this together, and that we all need to pull together.”

The charity has also been asking some of its major donors to make multiple-year commitments, so that it will be better able to plan its programs with a reliable stream of support. “It started a couple of years ago on a small scale, specifically in the venture-capital community, but now has become part of our broader development strategy,” Ms. Laping says.

So far, she says, two board members have made significant commitments, one over two years and the other over three years.

“We all feel we have to be more persistent, more creative, more out there in talking with the people who have been generous to us in the past,” Ms. Laping says.

Such measures will help the Boys & Girls Clubs maintain its current services through the economic downturn, she predicts. But the charity, which serves 8,000 children in Boston and Chelsea, Mass., may lack the resources to expand its programs if some smaller youth-service groups have to cut back on their after-school programs or other offerings.

While it waits to see how it will fare in the final quarter of 2001, the charity has many questions about the months ahead. Says Ms. Laping: “Issues around anxiety and uncertainty are just as important as any economic impact that people are feeling.”