by Robert I. Evans
It’s that time of the year for my wife and me, too. Time to decide about year-end charitable gifts … culled from the accumulated batch of seemingly endless mail appeals we have received in recent weeks and which I have stacked for review. We note that most of the mail represents organizations – Jewish and not – where we have at some time succumbed to positive decisions and made a donation. The organizations range from our common alma mater to our synagogue, the Jewish Federation and a plethora of other worthwhile causes.
So what do we do?
Like you and so many others, we have to make decisions about worthwhile organizations. We have a limited pool of dollars, even though I have calculated that our total giving to date for 2010 far exceeds what we gave last year. But with the year-end deadline upon us, we felt that we must review all requests and make a “thumbs-up or thumbs-down” decision on each. Also know that my wife and I disagree passionately about certain causes or organizations. And like the shoemaker’s son, I know so much about the internal workings of so many legitimate non-profits that my thinking is not necessarily in sync with that of others … including my wife’s.
So we started with the organizations that we both felt we should support. Then created another pile that represented some causes/agencies that were near and dear to my wife while a third stack was the agencies important to me. The fourth stack represented organizations we had supported with small gifts prior to 2010 and which we had a lagging interest in, but which we may support if excess dollars remained. And then the big pile of rejections. This bothered us because we believe that these agencies probably have credibility and legitimacy, but unfortunately they just don’t resonate with us and therefore we did not choose to support them.
While we like to believe that we are making intelligent and strategic decisions, we know that our thinking is skewed … definitely in favor of Jewish organizations and one or two causes that our friends have asked us to support. Politics aside, we also looked at certain organizations advocating in various ways for Israel.
I know that countless other generous Americans are tackling the same decision-making process right now … especially those who will ultimately make relatively small gifts. Last year, Americans truly responded to an improving economy and showed that donors will continue to support non-profits generously, even during challenging times. Giving USA, for example, indicated that total giving for all of 2009 was only down about 3.6% for the year, but at Thanksgiving in 2009, total projected giving was down more than 6%. The last weeks of the calendar year saw an almost unprecedented outpouring of generosity and in all likelihood, the same will happen in 2010.
So our dining room table has now been cleared, the stack of envelopes have been filled with checks, and are now ready to be mailed. Some of the causes include a special matching gift form because of the generosity of my wife’s employer, where each dollar will be matched. A few causes will receive gifts because of our donor advised fund, but the bulk of our giving will be in checks or online payments. Nothing via Facebook or Twitter (we’re old, or perhaps too traditional, for that type of giving, I guess) but we recognize those venues are the future for small gifts (primarily those under $125).
And tomorrow when I put the traditional envelopes in the mail, my wife and I will be satisfied that we have made some wise, yet difficult decisions to support projects that we deem as worthwhile.
The ones that we discarded ended up in the wastebasket for a number of reasons: one large organization that we have supported for more than 30 years angered us with a poor strategic decision and another agency’s financial reports raised our eyebrows because of some perceived reckless expenditures.
But one part of our conclusions was certainly satisfying: we believe that our total charitable giving will truly make this a better world for all human beings but especially those of us who are passionate about our Judaism and our Jewish heritage. We hope and pray that our children and their children will make similar decisions and will keep the non-profit world vibrant, responsive to all kinds of needs, and able to serve important causes that truly make an impact.
How have you and your family members tackled year-end giving? Share your thoughts with all of us so we can all be intelligent and strategic donors.
Robert I. Evans, Managing Director and Founder, of The EHL Consulting Group, of suburban Philadelphia, is a frequent contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy.com. EHL Consulting works with dozens of nonprofits on fundraising, strategic planning, and non-profit business practices. Become a fan of The EHL Consulting Group on Facebook.
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Our family discussed our ideas for philanthropy over the Shabbat dinner table with our two still-at-home teenage children. We asked them whether there were charitable organizations that they thought were critical and meaningful, whether local, national or international. They named a handful and why they thought we should support them. My husband wanted us to include some projects where the amount of support we could provide would be significant and impactful. Our final list included local Jewish and secular organizations where we had personal experiences, as well as national and international projects which we individually or collectively felt were making a difference.
I took my spreadsheet of projects and the amounts that we designated for each, and spent some time on the web making our donations. There were one or two projects where we preferred or needed to write a check. The ability to effectively use an organizations website to make a donation, when that was provided, impacted the experience of making our donations.
In a few cases we had targeted project gifts because an organization had indicated that project through their solicitation. For some organizations, the project descriptions and accomplishments as well as the impact of support were well articulated. That information, in conjunction with the clarity and ease of the donation page, made the giving experience that much better. In one case, where an organization regularly asks for support for one of its projects, the page describing the project was limited, the ability to clearly designate to the project difficult, and the primarily means was to give to general unrestricted giving for the overall organization. I had already made an unrestricted gift; it impacted my decision about how to support the specific project.
Whether donors write a check or give on line, donation pages and forms are as critical a part of an organization’s marketing as their homepage, letter or brochure. The final strokes of the pen or the key should enhance, not detract, from feeling that one’s donation is meaningful.