How Charities Tweak Their Approaches to Stand Out in a Difficult Climate

As angst about the economy continues to suppress donors’ charitable impulses, officials at the country’s largest charities are trying an array of strategies to encourage generosity. Among their suggestions:

Seek donors overseas. Boston University (No. 255 on the Philanthropy 400, The Chronicle’s ranking of the charities that raise the most from private sources) celebrated its best fund-raising year ever in the fiscal year that ended in June, raising $85-million, nearly 15 percent more than in 2009. Scott G. Nichols, vice president for development and alumni relations, expects a bright 2011, too, in large part because of support from overseas donors. The two largest donors to Boston University’s yet-to-be announced capital campaign are from the Middle East, he says.

Mr. Nichols says it’s a mistake for fund raisers to project their pessimism about the economy to all parts of the globe. “It was a way we got over our depression of going to New York or California, where the moods aren’t necessarily great,” he says. “Try Shanghai or Mumbai.”

Mix science with art. Several charities on The Chronicle’s list of the top 400 fund-raising organizations say they are stepping up their efforts to use data and information on donors. Kansas State University Foundation (No. 335), in Manhattan, is trying to recruit a staff member who can focus on statistical modeling to determine which donors are most likely to give. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (No. 332), plans to run all 25,000 donors to its recent capital-campaign through a predictive-modeling computer program.

At Save the Children (No. 66), in Westport, Conn., the focus is on conducting mini-surveys of donors to learn what they like and what they don’t like and on testing new approaches of working with individual donors in certain cities before taking them nationwide.

“We are really good at the art of fund raising, and we’re hoping to boost the science part of it,” says Julie Lea, a spokeswoman for Kansas State University Foundation.

Show donors how their money would help. Direct Relief International (No. 109), in Santa Barbara, Calif., is using mapping software and other new technologies to highlight exactly where donors’ money and supplies are going. When the charity talks with medical companies, for example, it can display a map of where supplies are most needed, how much medicine remains in each area, and how additional medicine would be allocated and delivered, as well as the impact it would have on people’s health.

“The new technology allows us to take fund raising from the ethereal world of philanthropy—that you should give because it is important and for all the emotional reasons—to the realm of the very practical,” says Thomas Tighe, chief executive. The nonprofit, which relies on a mix of cash and product donations, saw gifts increase from $165-million to $341-million in the fiscal year ended in June.

Fight the Kiva effect. The desire on the part of donors to see exactly how their money is spent doesn’t always serve charities well. People increasingly favor giving money through a Web site like Kiva, which purports to connect donors directly with individual small-business owners; donors are less inclined to help a charity keep its lights on or improve its ability to respond to disasters that haven’t happened.

But Save the Children, among other nonprofits, is trying to explain to donors why they should. Once a person gives to Save the Children, that individual receives mail and e-mail communications emphasizing the importance of unrestricted gifts. This year, all donors who gave at least $1,000 will be invited to participate in a telephone call with the charity’s chief executive and other top officials, who will make that case.

Groom volunteers as fund raisers. A bright spot for Livestrong (more formally known as the Lance Armstrong Foundation) (No. 358) has been events organized by people who don’t work for the Austin, Tex., nonprofit. This year the charity set aside $50,000 for “venture events,” fund-raising efforts being conducted on its behalf that raise a lot of money but, with some help, might raise even more. It’s also assigned a staff member to spend part of her time working with organizers of those events. With a little help from Livestrong, an annual bicycle ride in Charlotte, N.C., that benefits the health organization and a few other charities raised $1.3-million this year before expenses; in 2006, the event raised $350,000. Altogether, Livestrong expects to raise at least $1.7-million from such events this year, about five times what it anticipated.

Leave the office more often. The National Philanthropic Trust (No. 42), a Jenkintown, Pa., group that manages donor-advised funds, has a bell that rings whenever a staff member attracts another million-dollar donation. In 2009, with low expectations about the economy, the trust decided to allow a joyful peal with each new $100,000 gift. But it wasn’t really necessary: Donations that year grew by 33 percent.

Eileen Heisman, chief executive, says part of 2009’s success might be because she and other senior officials got out of the office and helped persuade big donors to give. “Having the president call or visit can make a difference,” she says. “In uncertain times, you can’t sit at your desk.”

Spread out to cover more ground. With donations falling in 2007, Christian Blind Mission International (No. 178) decided to transition to a “virtual organization.” The group, which aids blind and disabled people around the world, pared its staff of generalists and hired new employees with specialties in such areas as marketing, online giving, and government relations to live and work in cities where they could be closer to medical-supply companies, government agencies, and other major donors.

Stronger results from its direct-mail and e-mail campaigns, plus many more face-to-face meetings, resulted in a turnaround in 2009 and 2010. Gifts, the vast majority of which are products, grew by nearly 173 percent in 2009, to $109-million, which Ron Nabors, who joined the charity as its chief executive in 2007, credits to better communication.

“Donors love it,” Mr. Nabors says of the charity’s staff, which went from 18 people in its Greenville, S.C., headquarters to just four there now, with other employees, some of whom work part-time, spread around the country. “They don’t see their money wasted on bricks and mortar and throngs of people.”

Noelle Barton, Marisa López-Rivera, Alex Richards, and Maureen West contributed to this article.