Need to Know
— Corporate contributions that were earmarked for racial equity in 2020
Corporate giving to racial-equity causes has far outpaced donations from foundations and individual donors since George Floyd’s killing in May, according to the philanthropy research organization Candid. Companies donated or pledged about $8.2 billion of the $12 billion in total contributions that were earmarked for racial equity — the “first time direct corporate giving to racial-equity causes has reached this magnitude” — Andrew Grabois, Candid’s corporate philanthropy manager, told reporter Haleluya Hadero. Hadero covers philanthropy for the Associated Press, which is working with the Chronicle to expand coverage of the nonprofit world.
The trend signals a shift for large corporations, fueled by the evolving expectations of younger employees and consumers about corporate responsibilities to social causes. Advocates say the corporate money won’t be enough to soon achieve the racial equity in hiring, housing, and policing or the investment in Black communities and institutions that they’ve sought. But it marks a start.
Plus:
- Providing support for professional development opportunities that help fundraisers connect and learn from others in the field is one proven way to improve employee retention. But such opportunities are often unavailable at smaller nonprofits, write Sarah K. Nathan, Heather A. O’Connor, Genevieve G. Shaker, and Pat D. Janin, all faculty or doctorate candidates at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Based on their new research, they suggest that peer mentoring networks — informal relationships or networks that provide coaching and opportunities to share knowledge and resources while also offering personalized attention, friendship, and a safe space to recharge — are an important option for supporting small-shop fundraisers. They offer tips on how fundraisers can get started and how leaders can support these peer groups.
$5 Billion and Counting
Facebook and Instagram users have now raised more than $5 billion dollars for nonprofits and personal causes, the company’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.
Giving through the platforms has accelerated in recent years. Facebook hit the $1 billion mark in November 2018 and $2 billion in September of 2019.
Most donations are less than $25, a company spokesman said. This has always been the case and remained so during the pandemic.
Women, especially, have embraced the social-media giant’s donation tools. In 2020, women created twice as many fundraising events on Facebook as men and made twice as many donations. Sixty-four percent of the total money raised came from women.
Has Facebook had a major impact on your organization’s fundraising? Let me know how the platform and its giving tools have or have not changed how you raise money.
Foundation Steps Up Digital Fundraising Support
In the early days of the pandemic, nonprofits that were behind in their digital fundraising operations faced an especially dismal future. A long-standing complaint among many nonprofits is that foundations don’t provide grant dollars specifically for technology assistance. But as my colleague Alex Daniels reports, the pandemic and the move to working remotely for many nonprofits may have gotten some grant makers to pay attention to those needs.
Mari Kuraishi, president of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, knew that a captivating presence on Twitter and Facebook was a key part of a successful digital fundraising operation. So as part of a larger push to help nonprofits become more proficient with technology, the Jacksonville-based foundation offered grantees crash courses in social-media fundraising leading up to GivingTuesday last year.
“It became increasingly clear that we needed to help them shift wholesale into a digital environment,” Kuraishi says. “If they didn’t have social-media experience, if they didn’t have digital fundraising, it was a ‘you’re-going-out-of-business’ type of situation.”
DuPont worked with Lightful, a technology company that developed Bridge, a technology training program that uses webinars, sharing of ideas with other participating nonprofits, and one-on-one coaching for nonprofit leaders who want to improve their ability to attract donations online. DuPont spent about $2.3 million on the program. Nonprofits that participated were eligible for matching grants of up to $50,000 if they attended most training sessions and if they attracted higher numbers of donors. All told, the participating nonprofits raised $3.1 million during #GivingTuesday, not including the duPont match.
The Jacksonville Humane Society was one participant for which the training really paid off. The group saw its online #GivingTuesday results leap 40 percent, after years of single-digit growth. The society raised money from 863 donors, a huge increase from the 493 people who gave on #GivingTuesday in 2019. Donation totals surged from $62,000 to $107,000. Plus, it got a $50,000 match from duPont.
Through the training, the Jacksonville Humane Society developed a digital campaign called “Let Love Lead” that stressed the connection between people and their pets. It directed cat and dog owners to the society’s pet-food banks with a simple, relatable message that stressed the connection between people and animals, says Denise Deisler, the nonprofit’s chief executive.
“We fancied ourselves decent at digital fundraising but had never really had to be as reliant on it as we had to be during Covid,” she says. “We may have had a broader audience, but I don’t think we would have converted that broader audience to donors were it not for this assistance that we received.”
