Change typically comes slowly in America, but there are times when social movements upend public opinion with startling speed.
So when issues like immigration rights, surveillance and privacy, and mass incarceration gained momentum during the last few years, fundraisers at the American Civil Liberties Union were ready to seize the moment.
The ACLU was suddenly raising seven-figure gifts for those issues, contributing to a big leap in its rank among the nation’s charities that raise the most in private support.
“There’s an opportunity for change that there wasn’t previously on so many of the issues we have been slogging year over year,” said Mark Wier, the charity’s chief development officer. “These issues that are really difficult to fundraise for are suddenly capturing donors’ attention.”
United Way is pushed from the top rung of The Chronicle’s annual ranking of U.S. charities as a young upstart surges into the lead — signaling big changes for philanthropy. Plus: What drove big gains at some of the year’s notable organizations.
That’s partly down to media attention, he said. Mass incarceration, for example, has come into the public consciousness in a way that is helping the ACLU galvanize support. Bipartisan backing in Washington for prison reform is encouraging donors to open their wallets. “There’s a sense of hope that there hasn’t been before that change is possible,” Mr. Wier said.
The ACLU is able to remain relevant in the eyes of its donors, in part, because its programs address such a wide range of issues, he added.
“When there is a specific program area that is getting a lot of media attention, we’re able to pivot and take advantage of those moments in a way that some other organizations that are more single-issue focused have less flexibility to do.”
‘The New Generation’
Since 1991, public-affairs charities have consistently brought in a small share of total giving to groups on the Philanthropy 400 list — less than 1 percent. This year, just seven such organizations appear on the list.
A handful of very big gifts to the ACLU have boosted it to No. 142, with $184 million raised in fiscal 2015, up 23.3 percent from the previous year. The organization is working toward a goal of raising nearly $1.3 billion by the time it celebrates its centennial in March 2020.
The campaign, which will be formally announced in 2019, has already drawn more than $700 million in gifts and pledges.
Bringing in major gifts, for both the ACLU’s legal work and the legislative and political advocacy supported by its 501(c)(4) arm, is the focus of the comprehensive campaign’s quiet phase, which began in April 2014.
Heading into this first phase, the ACLU wanted to put together a leadership panel that represented “the new generation of philanthropy,” Mr. Wier said.
In its previous capital campaign, which raised $400 million, most of the lead donors fit the older, whiter, mostly male profile of traditional philanthropy. Historically, more than half of the organization’s donor base has been male.
The tide may be turning with this campaign, all six chairs of which are women:
- Laura Arnold, who, with her husband, John, ranked No. 13 this year on The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the nation’s biggest donors.
- Quinn Delaney, founder of the Akonadi Foundation and a major Democratic donor.
- Angela Filo, founder of the Yellow Chair Foundation.
- Tracy Higgins, a law professor at Fordham University and co-director of the college’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice.
- Susan Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain.
- Gwendolyn Sontheim, director of the Aqualia International Foundation and heiress to the Cargill Inc. industrial fortune.
A series of gatherings hosted by the ACLU across the country have emphasized the power of women donors and the leadership of the six co-chairs. These “salons” have been very effective at bringing more women donors into fold, said Mr. Wier.
With a laugh, he added, “We welcome men, too.”
