Few Wealthy Philanthropists Make Big Gifts to Social Services Even as Needs Grow

While social-service groups have not typically been beneficiaries of big donations, fund raisers at those groups see an opportunity for cultivating huge gifts as hunger and unemployment rates surge.

Nine gifts from individuals on The Chronicle‘s Philanthropy 50 annual ranking of America’s most-generous donors went to groups helping the needy, but none of the donations those people made last year were worth more than $10-million. Among the biggest was a $7.6-million bequest to the United Way of King County, from Richard W. Weiland (No. 11), one of the first Microsoft employees, and $5-million from the banker Adrienne Arsht (No. 39), to the United Way of Miami-Dade.

Patricia Hvidston, senior director of development at Catholic Charities USA, says she thinks it is “quite possible” that her organization’s mission could appeal to the wealthiest donors and prompt a gift of $25-million or more. Catholic Charities’ largest gift from an individual in the past five years was $1-million.

Some of the country’s larger social-service groups are putting more resources into cultivating gifts from big donors. Feeding America, the national network of antihunger groups formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, recently hired a fund raiser to focus more attention on very wealthy donors.

Shelter Needs

To date, the Salvation Army is one of the few such groups to receive a very large gift, a $1.5-billion bequest in 2003 from the McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc, who led The Chronicle’s rankings of generous donors that year. But that gift was earmarked for the building of recreation centers, and Maj. George Hood, national community-relations secretary at the Alexandria, Va., charity, says he doubts it would ever get a large, unrestricted donation.

“It would surprise me to get a gift of $25-million or $30-million dedicated to delivering services to the poor and forgotten,” he says. But, he adds, “right now we could use a gift of that size just to expand our homelessness sheltering.”

Familiar Causes

Even so, few donors on The Chronicle‘s list say the economy has prompted them to rethink the causes they support or drawn their attention to new causes. Instead, most say they are focusing more attention and money on those charities with which they have had long-established relationships, and trying to ensure those organizations’ financial health.

“The economic downturn reinforces people’s interest in supporting the causes and organizations that have been the most important to them,” says Bruce Boyd, managing director of the Chicago office of Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, which counsels wealthy donors. “Given the scarcer resources, they want to make sure they continue to support those organizations.”