It’s an interesting time to be a philanthropist. On the one hand, the sector is slowly emerging from a debilitating economic downturn. On the other, opportunities for innovative and other promising solutions are giving organizations reason to hope for the future. It certainly is a complex time but thanks to KCI‘s latest edition of Philanthropic Trends Quarterly, fundraisers can gain valuable insight on the newest trends in philanthropy in pursuit of their next steps.
Expand your horizons
This issue, as the ones before it, is based on interviews with members of the Philanthropic Trends Advisory Board as well as a cross-section of clients and colleagues from across the country, ensuring the study is well-represented geographically and sectorally. The first trend that many mentioned, one certainly giving the sector reason to pause, is that of diversification. Expanding the pursuit of prospective donors to include the younger generations and a multiplicity of ethnicities will prove imperative to an organization’s fundraising success.
It’s partly a wake-up call that is leading the emergence of this trend, says Nicole Nakoneshny, senior consultant at KCI and editor of Philanthropic Trends Quarterly. During the recent recession organizations had no choice but to open their eyes to how vulnerable their traditional position left them. “Fundraisers had such a big focus on major gifts but they weren’t as diversified as they should have been to weather the storm,” she says.
Of course the growing importance of technology is helping propel this trend forward as well. Generally speaking, says Nakoneshny, “if you look at where money comes from, it’s still pretty white Anglo-Saxon, and of course that’s not what’s happening demographically.” Fundraisers are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that if they’re really going to grow philanthropy in Canada, they need to go beyond the traditional measures and approaches. And technology is going hand-in-hand with a newfound potential to reach mass audiences.
Mobile philanthropy, for example, was vital to relief efforts in Haiti, providing the ability to reach out to large numbers, expanding well beyond any traditional narrow donor base. “This is not new, they’ve been thinking about it for a while but they’ve been dabbling in it as opposed to really investing time and money into how we broaden engagement,” she adds. And technology will be front and centre in that that discussion, whether by reaching out to younger people or to the multiplicity of ethnicities that this Canada is known for.
How do I engage thee?
Which brings us to the next trend: engagement. Again, it’s not a completely new movement but economic difficulties have a funny way of surfacing some latent issues. Donors are emerging from the recession questioning whether simply writing a cheque is good enough, says Nakoneshny. Getting more involved in charities they support and getting involved for the long term is looking like the better approach. As the KCI Philanthropic Trends report states, “Among major and transformational level donors, the trend is towards a deeper and more meaningful involvement.”
Truth is, the newish trend is less about engagement as it is about transparency, she adds, sharing an example from ShareLife, the fundraising arm of the Archdiocese of Toronto. While in the past the organization saw its donors happily — and with nary a question — drop their change into the collection plate at church, trusting that it will be used for good, that type of relationship is less common these days. “It’s no longer good enough for even folks with a really good relationship with the church,” says Nakoneshny. “They want to know what’s going on.”
Impactfully yours
It’s no surprise that increased desire for engagement is related to the next trend called impact. People want to know outcomes, how they are helping, how they are making a difference. And for fundraisers the trend translates to adopting a different approach in their pitch to prospective major donors. “They need to think about being able to demonstrate, ‘we will know we’re successful when,'” Nakoneshny offers. “And that’s a challenge.” It requires them to think beyond money going into a pot. They need to demonstrate that they’re measuring what happens with the money, that they are paying attention.
The trend is certainly evident across the major gifts spectrum but the generational element is adding a new dimension. Generation Y, for example, is typically more savvy than early generations, prone to say, “convince me why I should give you my hard-earned income as opposed to other great causes. Show me what you do that will make it worth my donation.”
Strength in numbers
In pursuit of maximizing impact, yet another trend has emerged. An increasing number of organizations are deciding to eschew traditional working relationships for those of collaboration. The trend follows the notion that sometimes it’s simply better to work together than alone, whether that means working in conjunction with funders, charities or even other sectors. The example provided in the report is very telling. Teen Zone is an after-school program for youth aged 11 to 16 organized by a group of funders, including the City of Calgary, Burns Memorial Fund, UpStart, and The United Way of Calgary. Each organization had reason to believe that funding this type of programming was essential to reducing potentially destructive behaviours among youth, like poor academic achievement, criminal activities, and alcohol and drug abuse. Yet they also recognized that responding to the problem effectively would necessitate a group effort. So the funders partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Calgary and came up with an integrated response. Necessity is the mother of invention, or rather, collaboration.
Now what?
So now that we know the four trends emerging in the sector, what can organizations do in response? “It’s really about taking a very thoughtful approach, not forgetting what your organizational strengths are,” Nakoneshny says. Organizations need to remain open to new opportunities but always do their due diligence. They need to recognize both the advantages and limitations of prospective approaches before making a decision to integrate anything new into their repertoire. Keep in mind, certain fundraising mechanisms lend themselves better to certain causes and not others, she adds. Slow, steady, thoughtful and open is the way to go. “This is definitely not a matter of abandoning long-held and still relevant fundraising principles to jump on the bandwagon of a new way of doing things.” And always remember one important truism: “there are no silver bullets.”
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.
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