Adventures in Joint Fund Raising

More charities are working together, but approach has limits, experts say

One day each September, visitors to the Sacramento (Cal.) Zoo are treated to the spectacle of dancing animals.

ALSO SEE:

Philip Morris Program Encourages Arts Patrons to Help Food Banks

The “animals” are members of the Sacramento Ballet performing “Peter and the Wolf,” “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” or other family favorites at a fund-raising event to benefit both the zoo and the dance troupe. Ballet enthusiasts mingle with zoo-goers, many with young children, to watch the show.

When the performances are over, the dancers step down from the stage to show the children basic ballet steps, and dance with them around a maypole. A zoo wagon makes its way through the crowd carrying a red-tailed hawk, a blue-and-gold macaw, various reptiles, and wildlife artifacts for people to see up close.

“Dance in the Wild” raises only about $2,400 a year. More important, however, it has helped the two organizations reshape their images in ways neither group could have done on its own.

Sally Rice, a regular volunteer for the ballet, came up with the idea three years ago because she thought people had misperceptions about both groups.

“People were saying the ballet was stuffy,” says Ms. Rice, who coordinates the joint event. And the zoo had received bad publicity because several animals had died there within a short period of time.

But Ms. Rice says the event “changed a lot of opinions” and attracted more donors to both organizations.

Joint fund raising has been growing in popularity over the past few years. More and more charities are collaborating on special events and other fund-raising activities such as direct-mail campaigns and grant proposals.

“People have been experimenting with ways to do it, and funders have been pushing it,” says Kim Klein, co-founder of Grassroots Fundraising Journal.

Working together offers several benefits, experts say. Joint fund raising allows small charities to hold events and plan other activities they could not afford otherwise. It can reduce the number of solicitations sent to donors — many of whom are annoyed that they receive so many appeals already. And it helps charities gain exposure to potential donors.

Fund-raising collaborations can also increase the number of volunteers available to charities, as well as the likelihood of their receiving donated products and services.

For all of the benefits, however, raising money with other charities has its limits.

Joint fund raising is not likely to win over an organization’s most loyal donors to a new cause, says Ms. Klein. People who give a lot of money to a particular charity because they care passionately about its work are not going to become loyal donors to another group just because those two charities team up for a fund-raising dinner, she says.

The collaborative fund-raising effort, Ms. Klein says, has a slightly different purpose: It appeals to individuals and grant makers who like the idea of supporting more than one group at the same time and who want to encourage charities to work together to share resources and expertise.

In seeking a fund-raising alliance, some charities choose the wrong partners. The best collaborations occur between charities that have distinctly different missions, says Ms. Klein. “If two shelters for battered women raise money together, it blurs their identity,” she says. “If people are already giving to one, they probably won’t start giving to both of them.”

When the Clark County Law Foundation, which supports programs to deter crime, tried to raise money with the Clark County Pro Bono Project — an organization that offers free legal services to the poor — the groups found that their donor lists were too similar, says Patty Blakeman, the foundation’s executive director. “Both of us were going after the legal community,” she says.

Ms. Blakeman’s charity eventually found a good match in the University Medical Center Children’s Miracle Network. The collaboration, on a dinner and magic show that netted $45,000, began after the groups realized that they were each planning events at the same place and time.

Although the two organizations have distinct missions and donors, both were raising money for children. Proceeds to the law group went to a program that tries to deter first-time juvenile offenders from committing a second crime, and proceeds to Children’s Miracle Network, which supports children’s hospitals in North America, helped purchase pediatric medical equipment.

But even with an appropriate partner, other problems sometimes arise. One group may grumble that it has done more than its fair share of the work, and disagreements can erupt over how to split the money.

What’s more, collaboration requires more time and compromises than does going it alone, since decisions usually need the approval of someone from each organization.

That has been the case with a fund-raising alliance formed by Tiny Tim Developmental Preschool, Meals on Wheels, and the Coalition to End Family Violence, all in Longmont, Colo.

The three groups joined together to raise money two years ago and hired a part-time fund raiser, Diane Turner, to seek foundation grants for the individual charities, as well as common grants to benefit all three.

Although Ms. Turner’s efforts yielded $107,500 in new grants last year, the charities’ leaders say that maintaining the alliance, dubbed “Troika,” has been time consuming. Troika’s advisory committee is composed of the executive directors and two board members from each charity, and its meetings have added about four hours of work a month for the charity leaders, who still raise money for their own individual organizations.

Winning grants for all three groups has also been a challenge, says Ms. Turner. Even though many foundations say they want to encourage collaborations, submitting joint proposals narrows the field of potential grant makers, she says.

Ms. Turner conducted research on 28 Colorado foundations that supported all three missions and found that only 10 were willing to accept a joint proposal.

One foundation was even put off by the fund-raising alliance. It gave money in response to Troika’s proposal, but sent three separate checks with a letter asking that the charities apply separately in the future.

This year Troika plans to seek corporate grants and is already planning a joint fund-raising event for next year. But charity officials worry about overloading their volunteers. Teedee Keister, executive director of Tiny Tim, says her volunteers are already giving “150 per cent” of their time to the preschool’s annual auction and dinner, which will be held this month. She’s not sure she can ask them to take on another major project so soon.

Holding a joint event also means that each group will have to share its treasured donor list with the others, which won’t be easy, says Ms. Keister.

“There’s a piece of you as an agency director that kind of wants to hold that list close to the vest,” she says.

Even with such difficulties, many charities are reaping significant gains by combining their fund-raising efforts. Among them:

Non-monetary benefits. Ever since the YWCA in North Tonawanda, N.Y., started raising money with the nearby non-profit Riviera Theatre, more families have been taking advantage of YWCA programs, says Lynn Shaftic-Averill, the Y’s executive director.

The two groups began their joint effort when the newly restored non-profit theater reopened after having been dark for years. They rented the movie Babe, charged 50 cents for admission, and sold snacks at the concession stand. Moviegoers lined up around the block to see the show, which netted $1,200.

The idea was such a hit that family movies are now a regular fund-raising event. Shows are scheduled twice a month from April to September, and admission has been raised to $1. Each time, one charity gets the proceeds from ticket sales and the other benefits from concession-stand sales. The next time, they switch.

The collaboration has been a boon to the YWCA, which in the past had specialized in adult services, such as family-violence prevention. Many people didn’t realize it offered a much wider array of activities, says Ms. Shaftic-Averill.

Now families visiting the theater can pick up YWCA brochures and other materials, and many have discovered children’s programs, tai chi classes, and other activities they never knew about. “People say, ‘I didn’t know you have a rummage sale. I have something to donate,’” says Ms. Shaftic-Averill.

As the employees and volunteers of the two organizations have worked together, she adds, they have collaborated in more ways than expected. When the theater was squeezed for space, the YWCA agreed to store some of its equipment. And when the Y needed new lighting in its gymnasium, a retired electrician from the theater’s board offered to do the wiring.

Discounts and other savings. Many charities that raise money together find that they can increase the number of discounts, free services, and donated items that are available for events and other activities.

The Greater Nashua Council on Alcoholism, in New Hampshire, and the New Hampshire Teen Institute, in Concord, found several ways to cut costs when they conducted a direct-mail campaign together. Both groups work to combat alcoholism, but the council concentrates on helping people stop drinking, while the Teen Institute focuses on preventing addiction.

Each charity sent appeals only to people in its own town, but when the campaign ended they celebrated with a joint reception that included wrapping a wide red ribbon around the State House.

The campaign, which netted $14,200, cost the groups $4,500 — far less than it would have cost for two separate drives. The groups teamed up to buy supplies such as ribbon in bulk and had one brochure designed for the event, which shaved off a third of the paper and printing costs.

And when the event was publicized with a full-page ad in the local newspaper, the groups got a double discount because they were two separate charities, says Janice Brown, director of development at the Greater Nashua Council on Alcoholism. Instead of paying $4,000 for the ad, they paid only $2,748.

In addition, each group had different contacts who provided free supplies or services. The wife of a Teen Institute staff member was a graphic designer who donated her time to design the brochure. And a former chef who worked for the Bureau of Substance Abuse provided catering free, and the food at cost.

Affordable events. Because most special events take many hours to plan and often absorb a lot of the money raised, the Volunteer Center, a clearinghouse in Portland, Ore., organizes a walk and run each year called the Human Race. Social-service organizations are invited to participate — and raise money for themselves — by recruiting runners who ask family and friends to sponsor them with donations.

The Volunteer Center secures the location, recruits sponsors, handles registration, and arranges for food, entertainment, and prizes.

The event is a boon to very small charities that can’t afford the time or money to organize their own events.

Checks are made out to the Volunteer Center, which gives charities 75 per cent of the money raised by the race’s participants; the center keeps the remaining 25 per cent.

Last year the Alagille Syndrome Alliance, a fledgling all-volunteer charity that helps people with a rare genetic liver disorder, took part in the race for the first time. Cindy Hahn, the group’s president, says all she had to do was to put an announcement in her group’s newsletter and send out fliers.

Because her organization’s members are scattered across the country, only Ms. Hahn and her family actually ran in the race. But 35 people sponsored them in the event, which netted more than $500 for the organization. An additional 25 people sent $1,500 in donations directly to the charity as a result of the publicity.

“It was phenomenal for my budget,” says Ms. Hahn. “And it was a neat way to do our first major fund-raising event.”