Faith Based/Religion/Churches

July 30, 2009, Reuters — Philanthropy does not seem to have been hit by the global economic downturn. Contrary to some initial fears after the stock market plunge last year, giving by the rich to charitable causes seems to be rising as younger donors get more active in the field. But the report by Barclays Wealth, the wealth management arm of the British bank, says faith-based charities face falling donations because they’re not in step with this new generation of philanthropists.

NEW YORK, July 6, 2009, JTA — The umbrella organization of the North American Jewish federation system has hired Jerry Silverman, a key player in raising tens of millions of dollars for Jewish summer camps, as its next president and CEO.

June 24, 2009 — The Helen Bader Foundation has announced that it will commit at least $10 million over the next decade to create a permanent endowment for the Helen Bader Scholarship Fund, which has helped low- and middle-income families with the cost of tuition at Milwaukee-area Jewish day schools for nearly 19 years. When mature, the endowment will be administered by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Inc., marking the largest single gift in the Foundation's history.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 29, 2009 — The Social Investment Forum (SIF) today launched a first-of-its-kind guide to encourage religious investors to become more engaged in the practice of “community investing“ --the fastest growing area of socially responsible investing.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference hopes to mobilize 50,000 people in the Mississippi Delta this summer in a campaign to draw attention to the poverty of a region where some Americans still live in homes with dirt floors and brown water flows from their faucets.

Can an 85-year-old Roman Catholic human-services organization reach out beyond its traditional donor base without compromising its strong spiritual identity?

The answer is a resounding “yes,” according to a successful series of fundraising mailings for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen that was launched this past year in greater Detroit by the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph.

Many groups with upcoming fundraisers are wondering how to proceed when the need after Hurricane Katrina is so great. Many wonder if they can ask for money for a theater or for children overseas when tens of thousands of people in this country have lost their homes and livelihood.

The answer is yes, they can.

Has your organization planned for federal or state legislation addressing financial governance of charities?

For almost 200 years, the American Bible Society has provided Scripture to needy individuals in almost every country in the world. Like many nonprofits in the 1990s, ABS was using elaborate, premium-based acquisitions to attract new donors via mail. Renting several million names each fall, ABS would mail a single acquisition and garner several hundred thousand new donors at a crack.

Unfortunately, the organization spent the rest of the year wondering if those new donors gave because they felt connected to the mission or because they liked the premiums.

With a languishing donor-acquisition program and shrinking applicable-list universes, Catholic Relief Services prudently mined its own data in search of answers.

And for good reason.

The 61-year-old international-relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic community relies heavily on the private sector for donations; in 2003, CRS netted $484 million, 20 percent of which came from private-cash contributions. What’s more, the organization’s direct-response fundraising program accounts for roughly 50 percent of all donations from private contributors.