Philanthropic Field Research: John List from the Univ of Chicago

Is a Donor in Hand Better than Two in the Bush? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment Landry, Craig, Andreas Lange, John A. List, Michael K. Price, and Nicholas G. Rupp American Economic Review, (2010), forthcoming This study develops theory and conducts an experiment to provide an understanding of why people initially give to charities, why they remain committed to the cause, and what factors attenuate these influences. Using an experimental design that links donations across distinct treatments separated in time, we present several insights. For example, we find that previous donors are more likely to give, and contribute more, than donors asked to contribute for the first time. Yet, how these previous donors were acquired is critical: agents who are initially attracted by signals of charitable quality transmitted via an economic mechanism are much more likely to continue giving than agents who were initially attracted by non-mechanism factors.

Research: Best Places to Find Information on Catholic Philanthrophy Best Practice

It is important that Catholic Philanthropic leaders know where to go for suggested research and and information about stewardship education. Below is a laundry list of some of the best places to look when trying to research best practice in Catholic philanthrophy. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops At www.usccbpublishing.org (Under Catalog: Leadership; Stewardship) (Publishing Services, USCCB, 3211 Fourth St. NE, Washington, DC 20017-1104) (1-800-235-8722) • Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response (Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on Stewardship, available in both English and Spanish) • To be a Christian Steward (Summary of Bishops' Pastoral in pamphlet format) • Stewardship and Young Adults: An Invitation to Change the World (Pamphlet geared to young adults in promoting stewardship) • Stewardship — A 3-D Way of Life: Not for Adults Only (A videotape that explains and promotes stewardship among teens of your parish) • Stewardship - A 3-D Way of Life: Money Back Guarantee (A videotape to explain and promote adult stewardship in the parish). International Catholic Stewardship Council (ICSC) At www.catholicstewardship.org (202-289-1093) (Materials are available in both English and Spanish) Stewardship: Disciples' Respond - A Practical Guide for Pastoral Leaders (A manual for parish and diocesan leaders for the purpose of promoting stewardship as a way of life) • Children's Stewardship Manual (A manual for parish and diocesan leaders who are interested in promoting stewardship for children) • Keeping Stewardship Alive: Proven Stewardship Ideas (A manual and CD of creative and practical ideas submitted by parishes, dioceses, and individual contributors for the purposes of promoting stewardship beyond the first years) • Matthew R. Paratore, Former Secretary General of the International Catholic Stewardship Council, has written a series of reflections on stewardship. They can be found on the ICSC website. Liturgical Press At www.litpress.org (keyword: stewardship) (1-800-858-5450) • Called to be Stewards: Bringing New Life to Catholic Parishes (A book by Patrick McNamara with examples of bringing a stewardship approach to funding and ministry) • Creating a Stewardship Council (A booklet detailing the development and formation of a stewardship committee) • Grateful Caretakers of God's Many Gifts: A Parish Manual to Foster the Sharing of Time, Talent and Treasure (A manual by Msgr. Joseph Champlin to help foster stewardship in the parish) • The Heart of Stewardship: Sacrificial Giving (A short video by Msgr. Joseph Champlin and Dutch & Barbara Schultz to promote stewardship as described in the Pastoral Letter) • Parish Stewardship Manual (Step-by-step timetable with examples of letters, prayers, and bulletin announcements; packets with reflection guides, posters, and sample mailings are also available) • Sharing God's Gifts (A small educational reflection guide that explains the meaning of stewardship) • Sixty-second Stewardship Sermons (A resource book for pastors and deacons in preparing stewardship homilies. These short "sermons" on stewardship can also be used in newsletters and parish bulletins.) • Sustaining and Strengthening Stewardship (A book by Jim Kelley with bulletin announcements, stewardship Scripture passages, and questions and answers on stewardship) • A Way of Life (A booklet by Msgr. Joseph Champlin with four faith-sharing sessions on stewardship). Our Sunday Visitor At www.osv.com (1-800-348-2440) • Why Catholics Don't Give, And What Can be Done About It (A book by Charles Zech, Chair of the Economics Department at Villanova University) • Best Practices in Parish Stewardship (a book by Charles Zech, based on surveys of stewardship parishes across the country) • Grace in Action (Newsletters that can be used as bulletin inserts with feature stories on stewardship) • Stewardship by the Book (English and Spanish available in both CD ROM and Paperback, this book by Sharon Hueckel, has stewardship bulletin announcements that reflect the Sunday Scripture readings) • Living Catholic Stewardship: Joyful Generosity (An informative reflection guide written by Sharon Hueckel on stewardship) • Living Catholic Stewardship: Discerning Your Gifts (A reflection guide on discernment for discovering an individuals gifts and talents by Lorene Hanley Duquin) • What the Church Teaches: Stewardship (A short concise reflection guide on the Church teachings regarding stewardship) • Taking Care of God's Gifts: Stewardship A Way of Life (K-2) (A stewardship coloring and activity book for children in grades K-2 by Laurie Whitfield and Robert Cammarata) • Taking Care of God's Gifts: Stewardship A Way of Life (3-5) (A stewardship coloring and activity book for children in grades 3-5 by Laurie Whitfield and Robert Cammarata) • Catholic Stewardship: Sharing God’s Gifts (An informative paperback booklet by Colleen Smith that is sure to motivate people to a better practice of stewardship) • Living Catholic Stewardship Conferences, sponsored by Our Sunday Visitor, provide outstanding speakers and presentations on the various topics of stewardship. For more information go to: www.osvenvelopes.com (under Stewardship Products & Services; Conferences & Events)

Charles Collier: Hall of Fame Fundraiser

http://philanthropyjournal.blogspot.com/2012/02/charles-colliers-therapeutic.html Charles Collier’s therapeutic fundraising By Todd Cohen The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates famously likened his job to that of a midwife. Just as a midwife works to help women bear children, Socrates saw his role as helping people give birth to their own answers to life’s questions. For over 35 years, Charles Collier served as a philanthropic midwife, helping donors create gifts that would make an impact on causes they cared about, while at the same time protecting the financial security of their families. Collier, who was diagnosed two years ago with Alzheimer’s disease, retired in December as senior philanthropic adviser at Harvard University, where he worked for 25 years and advised the school’s wealthiest donors. His illness, now in the early-onset stage, may have slowed his speech a bit but not his thinking. Reflecting on his career, Collier sees two key abiding strategies for generating major gifts and planned gifts, regardless of the size of the charitable organization or the gift. The first is to understand donors and their connection to the organization, and the second is to understand the problems and concerns facing donors’ families. Fundraising for the Ivies Collier spent most of his career raising money for higher education, including four of the Ivy League’s eight schools. After majoring in religion at Dartmouth and receiving a master’s degree in divinity from Harvard, Collier initially worked as a teacher and coach at Proctor Academy in New Hampshire before embarking on his fundraising career. His first fundraising job was at Dartmouth, where he worked for a year for the annual fund before serving for three years as a major-gift officer at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., his alma mater. He then spent two years at Brown as a planned-giving officer, and five years at Princeton, where he was head of planned giving, before joining Harvard in 1986 as director of planned giving. Five years later, Harvard named Collier to the new post of senior philanthropic adviser. Gratitude as motivation The length of time it takes to engage a donor and secure a gift typically is shorter for a university, college or independent school than for a nonprofit “because people either went to the schools or their children have,” Collier says. “And this has been important to their life story, and so gratitude is a huge motivation. So a major-gift officer can “go straight to talking about what the organization did for you or your family,” he says. That is an approach that a fundraiser at any nonprofit can use, he says. “Find out their life story, and what was meaningful to them,” he says, “and build on the things that were really important to them.” Collier says major gifts and planned gifts, regardless of how a nonprofit measures them, take longer to develop, and require more work with a donor. “That means you want to have a relationship which in my view should be deeper than money,” he says. Family wealth, anxiety In Wealth in Families, a book he wrote that Harvard published in 2001, with over 114,000 copies distributed, Collier talks about a family’s human and intellectual “capital.” Taking that perspective is “not just a way to be with donors,” he says, but it also is a way “to help them make important decisions.” A big question and concern for many wealthy people is how much money to give to their children or spouse, says Collier. A son or daughter still may be in college or facing personal problems, for example, and his or her financial future may not be clear. A parent also may want to make sure not to give a child too much money, or too little. For many donors, Collier says, concern about finding the adequate level of support for children or a spouse can be the major obstacle to making a major gift, or making it significantly larger. “Family comes first,” he says. In the face of those concerns, he says, many fundraising professionals simply may push the donor to make a gift immediately. But his advice is to think about a major gift as a long-term process. That requires having a “difficult” conversation, but that kind of conversation “builds a bond with the donor,” he says. “If you ask good questions, they will figure it out for themselves.” Collier credits his study of family-systems theory as helping to engage in those tougher conversations with donors. Once described as a “financial therapist,” Collier says he is not a therapist. “But I ask therapeutic questions,” he says. “A lot of money in a family is an object of anxiety,” he says. “So you have to address that anxiety and think about it.” Fundraising trends Collier has seen several trends in major-gift and planned-gift fundraising, including an increasingly more complex aspect to the technical side of creating a gift, the importance of collaboration on the part of the fundraising professional, and a desire on the part of the donor to want the gift to make a big impact. Those trends reflect what is happening at nonprofits of all sizes, regardless of what they consider a major gift, he says. Donors want to know who will be responsible for developing and carrying out a project they are funding, for example, as well as the reason and aspirations for the project, the logic and evidence behind it, what its impact will be and how that impact will be measured. That effort requires a team approach, including not just fundraising professionals, but also program staff, a nonprofit’s legal advisers, and the donor’s professional advisers, including lawyers, accountants and financial planners. “When you’re doing bigger gifts, a lot of people are involved,” Collier says. “It’s a team.” Making a difference He says his career gave him the opportunity to “work with colleagues and donors who are wonderful people” in trying to help make a difference. “It’s really meaningful that you can make the world a better place,” he says. And his focus on planned giving gave him a chance to engage in “a little bit deeper conversation” with donors about their personal and philanthropic aspirations, and their families, he says. Collier now is helping to raise money for a gift to Andover from his class, which celebrates its 45th reunion in June. He also is volunteering for the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. “What I’m doing is probably not much help for them,” he says, “but just being with them has been really helpful to me.”

Catholic Philanthrophy: The Missing Resource

“To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power, but to decide to whom to give it and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy manner. Hence, it is that such excellence is rare, praiseworthy, and noble.” Aristotle Philanthropy is a missing resource in the Catholic communities that live in poverty within the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, poverty is the state in which people find themselves when their income falls below a designated level, which has been determined to be the amount of income required to provide what is needed to live (2005). Linda Lobao, professor at The Ohio State University defined poverty as living in a society without sufficient assets to carry out normal existence within that society (Lobao, 2001). With so many cities in the eastern United States witnessing Catholics as being in a condition of philanthropic poverty, it is first necessary to define the role of philanthropy and to establish what philanthropy is available in the broader society. Bremner (1994) defined philanthropy as that which is given “to prevent and correct social and environmental problems and improve life and living conditions for people and creatures” (p. 99). For Bremner, then, philanthropic giving and the level of poverty should be related but inversely. What is the role of philanthropic assets and why is their low level a concern to those working in community and economic development as well as the field of philanthropy within the US? Philanthropy is important as it is the resource necessary for “building the bedrock institutions of American society in education, religion, and politics” (McCully, 2000, p. 20). Philanthropy is 1 of 3 sectors of economic activity. Most are familiar with the first two: the private sector (business) and the public sector (government). But in the third sector, known variously as the nonprofit, voluntary, tax exempt, or, most commonly, independent sector lies philanthropy (Pifer, 1987). According to Pifer, in this sector, “we accomplish some of our nation’s most important purposes” (p. 122). The independent sector carries out its work in the space known as civil society. Within this space between individuals and government, voluntary associations are formed for the purpose of promoting belongingness, inclusiveness, and diversity to increase the capacity to act (Learning About Civil Society, 1997). In civil society are “the community, social agencies, informal and formal activities such as sports clubs, volunteering, caring for neighbors, [sic] and so on” (White, 1997, p. 3). So why philanthropy? The case can be simply stated: If economic development requires a physical infrastructure of water mains and power lines so that factories, schools, and houses can be built, then community development requires a corresponding civil infrastructure for institutions to work, programs to function, and problems to be solved. This includes Catholic schools, missions, hospitals, and other ministry offices. Foundations depend on strong religious societies for their objectives to be met. If religious societies are weak, grant makers will invest in secular infrastructure. (Mathews, 1995, p. 42 - 43). Therefore, philanthropy plays a central role in creating the Catholic and religious infrastructure that supports the work of a civil society.

Catholic Tide as a Research Source?

Catholic Tide is a Catholic news and opinion aggregator and a directory of Catholic resources on the Internet.

Their goal is to find the latest and best Catholic blog posts, Catholic news, Catholic video and Catholic resources and present them in an organized and easy to use format.

Catholic organizations that are seeking philanthropic support need to get serious about their research. A rigorous research work ethic is the only way to insure success in your stewardship and major gift giving efforts.

Time on task is the best measurement of success. Time spent researching your Catholic philanthropic data and information; and time spent in prayer that your efforts will succeed. A winning formula.

Catholic Demographics

What is the Catholic demographic profile in the United States? Take a look at some surface data that describe where our country's 75 million Catholics live, their gender, income and other core demographic data.

Make note- 40% of US Catholic are in the age range that they should be preparing their estate plan. Is the Church in their plan?

In what regions of the U.S. do Catholics live?
29%
Northeast
24%
Midwest
24%
South
23%
West


What is the age distribution of Catholics?
18%
18-29
41%
30-49
24%
50-64
16%
65+

What is the gender composition of Catholics?
46%
Male
54%
Female

What is the racial and ethnic composition of Catholics?
65%
White (non-Hispanic)
2%
Black (non-Hispanic)
2%
Asian (non-Hispanic)
2%
Other/Mixed (non-Hispanic)
29%
Hispanic


What is the income distribution of Catholics?
31%
Less than $30,000
20%
$30,000-$49,999
16%
$50,000-$74,999
14%
$75,000-$99,999
19%
$100,000+


What is the educational distribution of Catholics?
17%
Less than high school
36%
High school graduate
21%
Some college
16%
College graduate
10%
Post-graduate

Action Steps To Increase Steward Engagement and Satisfaction

When Pope John Paul II lit up an arena packed with cheering throngs of teens and 20-somethings in downtown St. Louis nearly two decades ago, I was teaching at a Catholic School in St. Louis.

Most of my co-teachers at Chaminade, who were baby boomers and self-professed secular humanists, were stumped by the Pope’s popularity. Why, they asked, were young Catholics stampeding to see this frail, palsied pope who sermonized about sexual purity and self-sacrifice? Isn’t youth the time to rebel against religious authority? What’s with young people today, anyway?

Today those same boomers will help insure the long term sustainability of the Church and the PF by coming back home. Like the youth on fire during John Paul’s tenure, the more boomers can be emotionally and viscerally connected to the good works of the PF, the more successful the fundraising efforts will be.

Catholic leaders point out that through use of social media, blogs, XM channel 129 (Cardinal Dolan utilizes 129 and all the social media components that I mention) we can directly connect prospective donors, stewards, their families and others with the efficacy of the grants and support the Catholic Church provides the various missions and ministries that spread the Gospel.

Action Steps:

-Follow-up with surveys in your parish or community to get a sense of what current benefactors want in terms of information, communication, and other on-going connection to the Church.

-Utilize emerging social media technology to provide benefactors with real-time information about the various projects that Foundation is supporting. Videos of buildings, health care services being provided, and other similar social media outreach can connect donors directly to the projects they most care about.

These are basic, fundamental steps that Catholic organizations can use to stimulate increased engagement and insure your benefactors are satisfied with the use of their financial support.

Opportunities That Will Grow Your Endowment

Ever hear the saying make hay while the sun is shining?

For Catholic educational organizations, missions, and other ministries the time is now. It is clear from a demographic analysis that the optimum time for a sustained, long term (8-10 years) endowment campaign is now. This is true because of the demographics of the American population and the anticipated spiritual maturity that the “baby boomers” will experience over the next 15 or so years.

First, consider the raw demographics. There were actually 76 million births in the United States from 1946 to 1964, inclusive, the 19 years usually called the baby boom. By contrast, there were only 66 million births, in a larger U.S. population, during the 19 years following the baby boom, which included the baby bust of the 1970s. Of the 76 million born, about 4 million had died by April 1, 2000 (when Census 2000 was taken), leaving some 72 million survivors.

One can use these figures to approximate the number of Catholic baby boomers — the millions of US Catholics who grew up wearing Davy Crockett-style faux-raccoon hats, or the millions that participated in Catholic sports and other programming – that will transfer an enormous amount of wealth onto future generations (WICHE, 2011). The vast majority of these students were educated in US Catholic schools and participated in the life of their home parish.

In Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America, author Marc Freedman puts forth the thesis that “a new kind of aging” is before us, as baby boomers continue to be actively involved in civic life after they retire (Freedman, 2009). With the wisdom of a full life, new time on their hands and the wealth to finance their lifestyle, baby boomers will have an unprecedented chance to reengage with the Catholic Church.

As the aging Catholic boomers reconnect with their Church and faith life, the time is now to ask them to structure their estates to fulfill acts of philanthropy that will support the Church.

When you consider the appropriate market share of the billions in wealth that will transfer between parties over the next 15 years, the amount that should go to Catholic organizations is staggering.

Your local Catholic organization should take time to locally analyze and quantitative research on your potential market share, but clearly the opportunity is there to substantially increase your endowment and resources. Still not convinced?

During the stock market boom of the 80’s and 90’s, boomers were in their peak saving years. Retirement accounts became a feature of many Americans’ financial lives. This came about from a combination of increased wealth, technological innovation and creative individuals. These same trends are affecting philanthropy today as Catholic boomers move from saving for retirement to post-retirement lifestyles. How long might it be before donor advised funds and other Catholic philanthropic vehicles become as common as a 401k? Gifts from donor advised funds already eclipse the giving of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates combined. With a steady stream of retiring baby boomers entering their “giving years”, the philanthropic landscape is on the verge of massive change.

There is no better time than now to launch a longer term, planned giving fundraising initiative, no matter what the exact final monetary target turns out to be. This is also true in terms of the length in years of the campaign.

Action Steps Catholic Leaders Should Consider:
-Initiate a demographic research analysis to determine total market potential from US Catholics for both major gifts and bequests.
-Quantify fundraising targets in terms of potential number dollars, potential number of donors and forecast yield rates necessary to achieve your longer term fundraising targets.
-Create an adhoc Advancement Committee within your organization to collaborate in creating a 5 year strategic action plan to market and position the your Catholic organization with key constituents identified in the demographic scan.

Consistory of Cardinal Tim Dolan: Personal Reflections

This past weekend was the Consistory of Cardinal Timothy Dolan in Rome. It was a powerful, moving, and overwhelming personal experience. On the plane ride home I tried to capture in words the reason why Cardinal Dolan is such a powerful presence.

At his core, Cardinal Dolan is a priest, preacher, moralist, and a decent human being. Dolan’s contributions to the US Catholic Church are so simple and clear, but also so dramatic and meaningful that they are universally appreciated.

Part of his universal appeal is that his philosophy of life is joyful, accessible, easily understood, recognized, and accepted by those that hear him. He challenges those committed to negativism to look inside themselves and to make things better.

Tim Dolan is a compassionate, honest, warm and wise individual with a clear sense of purpose, self-definition and internal balance. His warmth can confuse people. It is sometime difficult to appreciate the magnitude of his greatness. He has many gifts, including an eloquence of speech that reaches out to millions of people the world over. He is loved by the wealthy and affluent; the oppressed and those who hope for a better life.

He is calling a nation, and our people, to live out the true meaning of our Catholic existence. It is hard to be around Cardinal Dolan and not be infused with his love of people and his joyful, but powerful determination to change the world.

His views and thoughts are breathtaking, yet simple. His vision spans the whole of human conduct, and he has strength born of humility; he is a man of his times, for all times, and all nations.

And his time could not come at a better time for New York, the United States, and the Church world-wide.

Journal of Catholic Philanthrophy: Invent and Create New Systems

Catholic education is at a pivotal time in history. With a weak national economy, fluctuating endowments, and reduced government support, Catholic educational organizations must become more financially resourceful and entrepreneurial (Barone, 2010). While traditional state and federal government funding resources are drying up, the cost to remain a technologically sophisticated educational organization is rapidly increasing (NACUBO, 2010). The reliance on fundraising to produce resources for institutions is more critical than ever (CASE, 2010).

For Catholic philanthropy professionals this means constantly prospecting for major philanthropic gifts to meet the challenges inherent in sustaining the institution’s mission. As a result, the field of institutional advancement, fundraising and development has grown exponentially over the past 30 years.

Why concentrate on major gifts as an integral within a comprehensive institutional fundraising program? The answer is in the data on the income and wealth holdings of the top 5 percent of the population of the United States. As of 2008, the top 5% own more than half of all wealth in the United States (Ip, 2007). In 1998, the top 5% owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively (Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 2010). This is a very concentrated distribution that produces more donors with the capability of providing a major gift than any time in our country’s history since 1929 (Reich, 2008).
Some organizations are finding success. The finances of some nonprofits are growing stronger as they solicit and receive major gifts from the nation’s wealthy who stepped up their multimillion dollar gifts in 2011. The biggest gifts announced by Americans totaled more than $2.6-billion, compared with $1.3-billion in 2010 (Di Mento, 2011).

But 2011’s total was still disappointing. The 2011 result was not as strong as 2009’s $2.7-billion sum. Further, it was nothing close to 2008’s $8-billion (CP-IU, 2010). A clear sign of the increased emphasis on transformational gift solicitation is in the number of donations of $100-million or more last year. Ten people committed that much, an increase from 2010, when only six philanthropists gave $100-million or more, and from 2009 when seven donors announced gifts of that size (Di Mento, 2011).

To be competitive for major gifts Catholic organizations that did not succeed need to reconsider their major donor identification and research techniques. Fundraising professionals need to consider improving the rigor and nature of the qualitative research that is part of their donor relationship management plan. New thinking is called for and reconsidering the practical qualitative measurements of determining donor motivation (Panus, 2011).