Tag Archives: generations

Life aside, art imitates our economy

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By JEFFREY BYRNE

Only a handful of performing arts centers have opened in recent years across the country. Last fall the $366 million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts debuted in Kansas City, Missouri with back-to-back sold out performances.  An early pledge over $100 million through Julia Kauffman contributed to fulfill her mother Muriel’s original vision.

Two months later Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Arkansas. The last time a museum opened with this caliber of an American art collection was a half century ago. Once again the money came from private sources, namely Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune, who funded the museum and its acquisitions, Walmart, which is sponsoring free admission for the foreseeable future and the Walton Family Foundation, which endowed $800 million—the largest cash donation on record to a U.S. art museum.

What is even more remarkable than the theater and museum being constructed during a recession and opening in cities many in the art circle consider the most unlikely of places is the fact that the arts are being funded again. Life aside, art imitates our economy.

According to the Giving USA™’s report on 2011 charitable donations, overall giving increased for a second year in a row. Giving USA estimates total donations at $298.42 billion in 2011, reflecting similar gains across the economy. The numbers represent a 4 percent growth in current dollars and .9% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Giving USA categorizes charities into 10 sectors. All but two sectors, religion and foundations, experienced gains.

“America’s charities have been traveling down a very rocky road in recent years, as evidenced by the data in our annual estimates and reports from those working in the field,” said Jim Yunker, Ed.D., chair of Giving USA Foundation™. “Our Board members are cognizant of that reality but also see a bright spot–charitable giving, like other spending categories in the average American household budget, seems to be climbing out of the trough that resulted from the Great Recession, much like some other indicators measuring the state of the economy.”

Traditionally patrons of the arts are high net worth individuals and Kauffman and Walton could arguably epitomize the definition of high net worth. Granted the Kauffman Center and Crystal Bridges are extreme examples. Of course economic hardships do not impact the wealthy’s daily lives like they affect most of us, not even close. However, a recent study shows we regular folk have something in common with high net worth families when it comes to charitable giving.

The 2010 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy, which tracks shifts and trends in the giving behaviors of our nation’s wealthiest donors, revealed that economic uncertainty affects their financial decisions too. The study found 71.2 percent of wealthy households report they give when they feel financially secure.

Charitable donations overall took a double digit hit from 2007 to 2009. Service-based organizations were stretched to the breaking point just to provide basic essentials as demand skyrocketed. Funding the arts seems frivolous when people are losing their homes and livelihoods in record numbers.

Giving to arts, culture and humanities, the least funded philanthropic sector during a recession, increased 4.1 percent in 2011. Research at the Center of Philanthropy at Indiana University also suggests a correlation between charitable giving and the economy. In an abstract way the Kauffman Center, Crystal Bridges and the estimated $13.12 billion donated to the arts last year signals a stabilizing economy and better times right around the corner for the 99% living on Main Street.

Jeffrey Byrne is Founder & CEO of Jeffrey Byrne & Associates. Since 2000 his firm has assisted nonprofits across the U.S. in raising nearly one billion dollars. Jeffrey is a thought leader in philanthropy and his firm is a member of Giving USA, the fundraising and philanthropic arm of the Giving Institute:  Leading Consultants to Nonprofits where he is Second Vice Chair. 

 

 

The Powerball Winner: Sharing in Good Fortune

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By Jennifer Furla
Executive Vice President

Recently, a convenience store customer in Minnesota won the Powerball – at $229 million. While the lucky winner had not yet revealed himself, accompanying the story was the ubiquitous security cam picture of the transaction that suggests it was a 30-something male. The winner has one year to present him/herself and can take the winnings in installments over a 30-year period, or take a lump sum of $123 million.

As fundraisers, we often dream of finding that lottery winner among our donor prospect pool. With strong values of giving, I suspect that many of us dream of what we would do if we were to purchase that winning ticket? In our house, we’ve talked about it as a family. Give to our favorite causes. In my case, possibly help complete a campaign goal for a lucky client?

For this week’s winner, $123 million after taxes — even invested in simple CDs at 1.55% — will generate some $600,000-plus per year.

I met a lottery winner not long ago. Sitting on the wharf outside our hotel for the Giving Institute and International AFP Conference in Baltimore, I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who sidled up to me with his family, all dressed in matching athletic suits. Turns out they were in town for the man to receive medical treatment for a highly complex medical condition at Johns Hopkins University.

He talked about winning $150 million in the Canadian Lottery. He was from Ottawa, on the western side of the country and was among the First Nations peoples of Canada – the native, aboriginal peoples, akin to the American Indian.

He talked about how it changed his life and his family’s. In Canada, he said, all winnings are immediately paid out, lump sum and tax free to the winner. He purchased a new home for his family. He paid to fix up the homes of near relatives. Of course, took a couple of once-in-a-lifetime, memory-making trips (to Disneyworld in Orlando, if I recall correctly). His good fortune was paying for the trip and treatment at Johns Hopkins.

Then there was charity. He built schools for the children of his Indian Nation and endowed those schools so they could maintain the new buildings and populate them with programs and staff. He established a Trust that will provide scholarships for the youth of the Nation. He made a large gift to the Tribal Council to help families in need.

At the hotel, he became interested in another conference that was taking place there – for families of children of autism. “How could he help, he asked?” He understood what was “enough” for his family and him and wanted to share his good fortune.

I do not know if the connections he made that day resulted in support for the autism group, but can only imagine the number of causes this man and his family have since sought to help – and will in the future. For us in the profession, this lottery winner serves as an example of unselfish philanthropy – love of brother.

As my son would say, “Now, those are real heroes. People like that.”

Tweet-Tweet … hey … Blog-Blog

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A friend had just returned from Dell Social Media Boot Camp and was sharing some ideas. She’s smart, stays current with the latest marketing trends, and sits on some high-profile nonprofit boards.  When My Friend speaks, I listen.   We talked about how nonprofits want to engage in social media, but are largely behind the curve in their ability to “drive the discussion,” and unsure of who is their market, message, or how to use the tools to connect with donors.

Not so with one organization My Friend serves as a board member. This well-run performing arts organization that hosts national productions “under the stars” is blogging and twittering to patrons about everything from upcoming performances, to special ticket opportunities, to pre-show dining opportunities weather, parking and road closures.   They have a “Behind the Curtain” show on YouTube with an engaging 3-minute piece that tells the theater’s history and takes you onstage to learn about how shows are produced. 

How do they do it, you ask?  For the ??-something’s for whom Tweet-Tweet, Blog-Blog conjures up more of a familiar Donna Summer tune than a way to connect with friends and associates, that is the challenge.

This group smartly invited a couple of local philanthropists to invest in an internship program where two 20-somethings tweet and blog ’round the clock.  They bought a couple of mini web cams to produce the material that populates their YouTube channel page.  They invite patrons and donors to “Connect with Us” on their website (right above “Support Us”), have their mission posted on YouTube and Tweet Twitpics of concerts so absent fans can catch a glimpse of the action:  Jacks Manniequin just stepped onstage. Not too late to catch the show. .. Next up, The Fray.

OK, so you’re not a performing arts organization with a mission and programs that relate easily to Twittering.  We all have missions that we care about deeply and a whole host of issues surrounding those missions.  You have something to say.  And if you have a laptop and the Internet, you have the tools to engage in the conversation.  How are you doing that? 

Comment and let us know how you are (or aren’t) using social media to further your mission and connect with donors.

In 2009 How Will You Use New Technology to Reap Rewards?

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By Jennifer Furla
Executive Vice President
Midwest Region

Despite being part of the Boomer generation, where my grade-school son thinks “Mom and Dad” are decidedly uncool in trying to rap to his new-styled dance and hip-hop music, I still consider myself young and “hip.” So I answered incredulously when my much-younger cousin, in connecting with me by email over the holidays, asked if I knew what Facebook was.

Know it? I have a page!

Facebook was a common thread in emails and chance meetings among friends, relatives and acquaintances over the holiday break. It seemed that a whole new batch of us had awakened to this new technology of social networking and were anxious to try our hand at it.

In keeping with our promise to not only know state-of-the art, but to be state-of-the-art, our firm has made a commitment to ramp up our collective and individual aptitude for new technology, the likely audiences that will connect to it, and how all of this can impact your nonprofit fundraising. Continue reading →