Posts Tagged ‘Kansas City’

Giving USA event in Kansas City July 22

Hear more about the latest Giving USA findings
from one of the report’s lead collaborators!

Brought to you by

Giving USA Foundation logo Nonprofit Connect logoJBA logo

July 22, 2010

8:30 – 11:00 a.m.

UMKC Pierson Auditorium

Presentedy by

Patrick M. Rooney, Ph.D., Executive Director, Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University

Register Now

Admission is free, but space is limited.

Giving USA Foundation and its research partner, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, recently announced that estimated charitable contributions in 2009 fell to $303.75 billion, down from $315.08 billion for 2008 – a 3.2 percent drop in current dollars.

  • Why are these numbers encouraging?
  • How are donors changing the way they view their role?
  • What lessons can Kansas City nonprofits draw from the report?

Get answers to these questions and more from Giving USA Foundation members Jeffrey Byrne & Associates at this FREE workshop. Learn what’s behind Giving USA 2010 report highlights and how to use this information to strengthen your fundraising in 2010 and beyond.

  • The inflation-adjusted drop of 3.2 percent is not as severe as the decline in 1974-75, when giving fell by 5.5 percent or in 2008 when the drop was 5.7 percent.
  • Corporate giving rose to an estimated $14.1 billion, up 5.5 percent adjusted for inflation, taking corporate giving to within 1 percent of pre-recession levels.
  • While overall giving declined, many donors made special efforts in 2009 to respond to humanitarian needs.

“Given that 2009 represented the worst recession since the Great Depression, the stock market’s biggest drop in many years, 10 percent unemployment, two wars, the housing market bottoming out and the political uncertainty of healthcare reform, the fact that giving fell only a few percentage points is very strong testament to Americans’ willingness to give.

When you serve a mission and that mission has a need, you simply can’t wait for better times.Successful fundraising continues under all economic conditions.”
~Jeffrey Byrne, President
Jeffrey Byrne & Associates

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Tweet-Tweet … hey … Blog-Blog

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.

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Kansas Citians Among Most Generous

Giving in Kansas City report

Giving in Kansas City report

Released July 9 to an audience of more than 300 Kansas City-area nonprofit professionals, and in special sessions with grantmakers, board volunteers and philanthropists, Giving in Kansas City 2008 gives us statistical support for what many of us have suspected all along: Kansas Citians are a very generous lot.

So much so that household giving outpaces national averages by a range of 50% to as much as two times greater for various demographics. And, across all income levels, Kansas Citians give more per household than others across the nation.

Benchmarked against Giving USA, the authoritative source for tracking philanthropic giving in America for more than half a century, and researched by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Giving in Kansas City received tremendous attention in local media. Visit our site, as well as the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and Kansas City’s Nonprofit Connect to download a copy of the report, the July 9 presentation on Giving in Kansas City and Giving USA, and to connect to links to KCUR’s coverage on Up to Date with Steve Kraske and front-page coverage in The Kansas City Star.

Starting July 15, the Kansas City nonprofit community can register to attend one of six sessions co-sponsored by JB&A and Nonprofit Connect, along with the Community Foundation, this Fall to look at specific sector data and to share our collective experience with fundraising and how we are reponding to challenges in the current economy.

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