Growing Ranks of Fund Raisers Haven't Increased a Key Measure of Giving

By THOMAS J. BILLITTERI

The number of charity fund raisers has grown dramatically in

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recent years, but the increase has, in some ways, failed to pay off in higher levels of giving.

Membership in the National Society of Fund Raising Executives grew fourfold, to nearly 20,000, in the past 14 years. Membership in local councils of the National Committee on Planned Giving rose tenfold since 1987, to 11,500.

And yet, while the total amount of charitable contributions has risen over the years, the share of personal income that average Americans devote to donations has changed little from a decade or two ago.

Theories abound as to why the rapid growth in fund-raising personnel hasn't produced a commensurate increase in generosity. Some experts point out that the sheer number of non-profit groups has increased sharply in the past decade or two, swelling the ranks of fund raisers. And even among groups that have existed for a long time, many more are competing for donations today than in the past, experts note.

"Much of the growth in new fund raisers is in social-service agencies, the arts, and a lot of other non-profit organizations that traditionally have relied on government support or United Ways," says Patricia Jackson, vice-president for education at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, which represents college and private-school fund raisers. "People might still be giving away 5 per cent of their income, but they might be giving it to more organizations than they were 10 years ago."

Observers also say that many charities have hired additional fund raisers to position themselves for the future, when trillions of dollars are expected to pass from the hands of the World War II generation. "There is a lot of interest in trying to insure that philanthropy gets its share of that transfer," says Alan J. Abramson, director of the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, a Washington unit of the Aspen Institute.

What's more, observers say that the rise of complex planned-giving techniques has led many non-profit groups to hire additional fund raisers with discrete skills in such areas as charitable remainder trusts and gifts of real estate or stock.

Social changes also have helped spur demand for new fund raisers. For example, Americans are far more mobile than a generation ago, making it more difficult for charities to establish lasting relationships with potential donors, experts say. More and more fund raisers may be needed simply to attract the same share of Americans' income as in prior years, they say.

And rising membership totals for fund-raising organizations -- one of the few sources of data on fund-raiser employment -- may simply reflect the fact that the job of attracting charitable dollars has become more formalized than in past years.

"A generation ago, you may have had people who did fund raising but didn't consider themselves to be fund raisers," says Ron Carroll, a Washington-area Boy Scouts of America executive and past chairman of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. "They were executive directors or other members of the non-profit community."

Still, changes in society and in the charity world don't entirely explain why Americans' generosity in some ways remains stagnant despite a steep rise in the number of fund raisers. Some experts also point to the fund-raising profession itself. Too many fund raisers, they say, are tyros at using sophisticated financial and estate-planning tools -- tools that are widely employed by for-profit companies that compete for a share of Americans' income.

"To be a chief development officer, you can be innumerate," asserts Richard Steinberg, who directs the master's program in philanthropic studies at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

"The standard education of fund raisers does not include what any finance major would get: training in the present value of money so you could compare planned versus current giving, advanced statistical techniques to refine your campaign design, portfolio analysis so that you know how to diversify your appeals."

Although some development officers have become adept at using computer software and other state-of-the-art techniques to woo donors, many are too busy -- or unwilling -- to adopt a more sophisticated approach to raising money, Mr. Steinberg says.

"One of the things I'm working toward is making sure that the next generation of fund raisers is a little less scared of learning these tools."