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).