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from The Boston Globe, Dec 21, 1997, page G1
The Wish List
It looks more like a corporate annual report than a
retail catalog – printed on heavy stock instead of lightweight clay paper,
rectangular instead of more nearly square, containing decorous black-and-white
photographs of people and places instead of beautiful young models in colorful
clothes. But “The Catalog for Philanthropy” turns out to be less a report
than a wish list for potential gift givers, organized in the fashion of far
more familiar wish books of the 1990s – those that arrive in the mailbox
from L. L. Bean, J. Crew, Land’s End, Talbots and so on. Instead of sweaters
and shoes, however, the gifts on offer are participation in philanthropies:
100 of the best small nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts. (There are more than 8,000 in all.) The objective is to stimulate the passion for giving among
persons for whom the 1-800 number has become the standard of convenience, and
one stop shopping the norm.
As a self described experiment in philanthropic marketing, the
300,000-piece distribution that went out last month to citizens of the Bay
State – the first ever of its sort in the nation – is emblematic of an
important and often overlooked trend in U.S. society: the restructuring and
regrowth of the nonprofit sector. The
Catalogue for Philanthropy is only one of many departures taking place among
those to whom nonprofit organizations offer challenging and promising careers.
But it is especially well designed to take advantage of the fundamental
transformation in US life to which The Boston Globe’s Daniel Golden called
attention in a trenchant series last week .The control of more than 10
trillion in assets will be transferred form one generation to the next during
the coming decade or so. Tastes
are changing as the Eisenhower Generation gives way to the Kennedy Generation. A significant fraction of that sum will find its way into
charitable giving.
The catalog showcases the Tocquevillian sweep in which Americans
organize themselves to do good. For
example: Casa Iris in Jamaica Plain was begun by Iris Rivera in her home to
give AIDS support to Latina women. The
1637 Fairbanks House in Dedham is the oldest surviving timber-frame house in
North America. The New England Wild Flower Society, with its “Garden in the
Woods,” organized a corps of volunteer rare-plant monitors.
The Boston Center for the Arts is recognized as on of the leading
community arts centers in the nation. The
Connecticut River Watershed Council has looked after the entire 410-mile
length of the waterway since 1952.Mediation Works in Kingston serves troubled
adolescents and their parents. And
so on.
These have been carefully divided into categories so as to exhibit the
full range of philanthropic giving. All
10 of the state’s community foundations are there – its infrastructure.
So are 90 specimen charities, each devoted to some widely differing
aspects of preserving nature, promoting culture, or providing human services.
Special attention is given to what is euphemistically known as
“fulfillment” – getting the shopper what it is hoped he or she will want
in exchange for cash. There is a
single sophisticated giving form, allowing the donor to specify the
application of funds (project, endowment, general operations, or institutional
development) for each of the hundred listed charities.
The form allows you to give to unlisted charities as well.
There is a toll free number. There
is an office uniquely able to handle the gift of appreciated securities to
make it easier to spread the securities around.
Unless your family makes $100,000 or more, however, chances are that
you haven’t seen it in your mailbox. The report was mailed to 194,000
households from a purchased list of well to do families.
The Globe, through its Community Newsdealers unit delivered another
102,000 copies at cost to subscribers in 34 towns irrespective of income.
The idea was to reach additional givers, and to provide a control group
of sorts. The catalog is the
result of a collaboration among a number of foundations, corporations and
individuals. In recent years, the
Boston philanthropic community – close if not exactly tight knit- has become
increasingly mindful of the need to do something to jump- start charitable
giving in the region. Though Massachusetts once was by far the nation leader in
charitable giving- invented here were such staple institutions as the Perkins
School for the Blind, the public library, the teaching hospital – the state
has sunk to 49th in the nation a “generosity index” compiled by
a local journal of philanthropy (before-tax income compared to charitable
giving.) New Hampshire was 50th,
Connecticut 46th, Rhode Island 45th, Vermont 41st and
Maine 39th. The
numbers are suspect, since they are based on itemized deductions; patterns of
church-giving, for example, are distorted.
But the suspicion is widespread that New Englanders may be laggards
when it comes to the passing of hats. So
support gradually coalesced for a new approach to fund-raising.
Direct mail raises huge sums for a few charities, but at the cost of
alienating many givers. The United Way is a powerful mechanism for supporting
a broad array of activities, but there are many potential givers it does not
tap. For charitable giving as for
retailers, the last 45 days of the year are far and away the most productive.
So the decision was taken to go head to head-to-head with L.L. Bean and
J. Crew in full holiday season. “The
Catalogue for Philanthropy” is the result.
The early returns of the experiment are unclear.
The first 30 gifts yielded $18,260, with four major gifts and an
average of $609. The experiment
is being watched nationally. It
is easy to imagine that it is a harbinger of things to come.
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