Philanthropy This Week

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Good morning.

Despite charity complaints that donor-advised fund gifts often come without the donor’s identity, only 5 percent are intentionally anonymous.

That’s a surprise finding from an analysis by the DAF Research Collaborative, which interviewed DAF donors and fundraisers to understand why nonprofits so seldom receive information they can use to say thanks and develop a relationship, reports Drew Lindsay.

Among the reasons it found: The default setting on the giving platform may hide the donor data; some gifts come with the donor’s name but no contact information; and sometimes donors check a box that requests their gift be anonymous, hoping they can stay out of the public eye, not necessarily hide from the charity.

Sometimes the information is included with the gift but in a place that isn’t obvious.

“Gift-entry people are not as well trained as they could be on donor-advised fund gifts,” Danielle Vance-McMullen, of DePaul University, told Drew. “And so information is actually there, but it’s not getting recorded.”

To counter that problem, the DAF Research Collaborative is developing a program to help development staff understand gift paperwork.

Here’s what else you need to know:

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Charities often neglect soliciting planned gifts in favor of going for more immediate donations, but that’s a mistake, say experts.

Planned gifts are usually unrestricted, and the resulting ties with those donors often translate into more contributions in the near term, too, reports M.J. Prest. And as overall charitable contributions have dipped recently, planned giving has remained strong.

If you want to start or expand a planned giving program, experts have some tips:

Consider assets besides money, like a vacation home, shares of stock, or artwork; team up with peer nonprofits to offer appeals that give donors a range of causes to support; and don’t limit your requests to older donors.

“We’re definitely seeing the next generation coming through,” veteran fundraiser Meg Roberts told M.J., “and even people in their 30s and 40s as they are having children and making their wills.”

Above all, be patient: It can take seven to 10 years for a planned-giving program to produce results.

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Foundations pay higher salaries, are more diverse, and have more women in leadership roles than last year, a new survey has found.

Pay at community, private, and corporate foundations is expected to rise 4.3 percent in 2024, according to the Council on Foundations survey, which was conducted in March — not quite as much as the 5 percent bumps of the previous two years, reports Alex Daniels.

More people of color work at foundations, especially in leadership roles. The number inched up less than a percentage point among full-time staff but rose from 14.9 percent to 17.1 percent for top leadership positions.

Likewise, the number of women in CEO and presidential roles climbed 2 percent, but the gap in salaries between men and women in those roles grew — women made 85.3 percent of what men made in 2023 but 83.5 percent now.

Said the council’s Nicole Bronzan: “As with the rest of society, there were bumps in the road.”

Paul Vernon

Want to move up into a nonprofit leadership job? First rack up some experience as a fundraiser.

That’s the advice of executives and consultants, who say that leaders need to be adept at dealing with prospective donors and meeting big fundraising goals, reports Jie Jenny Zou.

“When you think about expectations on an executive director or CEO of a nonprofit, a vast majority of their responsibility is generating enough revenue for them to function year to year,” Don Hasseltine of Aspen Leadership Group told Jenny. “Anywhere from a quarter to half their time is spent on raising money.”

A mentor gave Matthew vandenBerg that advice when, at age 22, he set his sights on becoming a college president. Now president of Ohio Wesleyan University, he says the only real training to become president is being a president, but, he adds, “I use all the skills I have developed as an advancement professional every single day in this role.”

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

Russian disinformation campaigns, boosted by African activists and influencers, are targeting U.S.-funded anti-malaria efforts on that continent. Without evidence, one prominent pro-Russia activist has claimed that a Gates Foundation project in Burkina Faso has driven up rates of malaria and dengue fever while taking advantage of illiterate villagers. The villagers dispute both notions, and a local imam said the incidence of malaria seems to have fallen. Officials say the aim of the campaigns is to weaken Western interests in Africa. The Gates Foundation’s top official in Africa said the false claims “detract from the critical goal of saving lives.” (New York Times)

Two wealthy Harvard alumni are lobbying their fellow donors to join an effort to change the university’s priorities and governance. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman and former Facebook executive Sam Lessin have circulated slide decks saying teaching at Harvard has become too politicized, its endowment has been mismanaged, and that the school should pursue types of diversity beyond race and ethnicity, among other criticisms. Lessin said donors have been “too blindly supportive and trusting” of the school. Risa Lieberwitz, former general counsel of the American Association of University Professors and a professor at Cornell University, said academic freedom must be protected from donor influence. “That attempted interference is completely inappropriate,” Lieberwitz said. (Boston Globe)

Darren Walker, the outgoing president of the Ford Foundation, will become the next president of the National Gallery of Art. Chosen by the gallery’s Board of Trustees, Walker said he intends to expand private fundraising for the museum, which gets 75 percent of its budget from federal funds. He said he sees art’s power to teach empathy as essential to creating a more just and equitable society. (Washington Post)

A small Washington, D.C., abortion fund faces an existential crisis over its unfolding reaction to the war in Gaza this past year. The D.C. Abortion Fund’s sole Jewish employee resigned last year amid tension over whether and how to react to the October 7 attacks on Israel and Israel’s military response. After the former staffer took her story public, donors started pulling their contributions en masse, and the nonprofit’s chief fundraiser said it will eventually have to begin turning away people seeking help to pay for their abortions. It is a conflict that has repeatedly played out over the past year in progressive nonprofits that see a duty to condemn injustice and abuse whether or not it is directly related to their missions. (Slate)

Bill Gates has given $1.2 billion worth of stock to his former wife, Melinda French Gates, bringing her fortune to an estimated $30.2 billion. It’s not clear if the transfer was part of the $12.5 billion French Gates was to receive upon stepping down from what was then the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is now the Gates Foundation. French Gates has “committed to donate $1 billion over three years to support women’s and girls’ rights.” (Forbes)

A philanthropy-funded experiment in Tulsa, Okla., is luring remote workers in an effort to stop the city’s brain drain. For the past five years, about 3,300 people have taken up an offer of $10,000 from the George Kaiser Family Foundation to move to Tulsa for at least a year. Researchers have found that the remote workers “saved an average of $25,000 more on annual housing costs” than a control group and brought in nearly $15 million in annual income tax revenue and $5.8 million in sales taxes. One researcher said, “Every heartland mayor should pay attention to this [program],” which the foundation said it would continue to fund “so long as it demonstrates to be a community-enhancing opportunity.” (New York Times)

Nepotism, self-dealing, and conflicts of interest are rampant among the nonprofits that run New York City’s extensive network of homeless shelters, a city investigation has found. The probe found “hundreds of problems” among 51 of the groups, which numbered about 70 when the investigation began. Some of the nonprofit executives gave jobs to family members, ignored competitive bidding requirements, and rented buildings from or awarded service contracts to companies they had interests in. Executives at 13 of the organizations made more than $500,000 per year, and in some cases more than $700,000. New York City’s shelter program, the largest in the country, costs about $4 billion per year to house an average of about 86,000 people per night. (New York Times)

With youth homelessness on the rise, a Birmingham, Ala., nonprofit is busier than ever helping young people find places to live and build stable lives. Youth Towers, launched in 2011, long helped those who had aged out of foster care or otherwise had nowhere else to go, before the pandemic robbed hundreds of thousands of children in the United States of their primary caregiver and left many homeless. Run by two women, the nonprofit helped 65 young people find their own homes in the past three years. Relying on individual and business donors, as well as a few grants from the federal government, the organization helps find housing and pays deposits and some rent. (AL.com)

Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.

Women’s Health: Action for Women’s Health is a $250 million global open call launched by Pivotal that will fund organizations around the world working to improve women’s mental and physical health. Flexible funding between $1 million and $5 million will be awarded to an array of organizations — of diverse geographies, sizes, perspectives, and approaches — united by their work to improve the mental and physical health of women. Grants range from $1 million to $5 million; deadlines are December 3 for registrations, and January 10, 2025, for applications.

Youth Sports: The mission of All Kids Play is to increase quality youth sports participation in the United States by providing financial assistance to families and communities that lack sufficient resources and provide education on safe and healthy sports-related play. All Kids Play’s Youth Sports Grants for organizations support nonprofit organizations, school sports programs, or government-run programs (i.e. community park districts) in low-income communities that provide community-based recreational level sports for kids in grades K-12. Grants for individuals are also provided.