August 18, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
In recent weeks, as record stock-market swings and concern about a double-dip recession fanned fears about the economy, some organizations have decided to press ahead with plans for ambitious fund-raising campaigns anyway.
Edith Falk, president of Campbell & Company, a Chicago fund-raising consulting firm, said that she attended a meeting last week with one client–a large urban organization that she declined to name–during which key volunteers decided to recommend a new capital campaign to the board. “There was quite a bit of conversation about the economy,” she says. “There was anxiety around the room, but the vote to move forward was unanimous.”
“They felt they could not delay any longer,” she says, adding that the organization had slowed fund-raising efforts during the downturn of 2008 and 2009. “They have a vision of where they want to be in five years, and they just need to move forward.”
It was the second client to give the green light to a big campaign in one week, says Ms. Falk, who also withheld the name of the other organization.
Such charities may be feeling confident enough to proceed with big campaigns because they listen to financial experts, such as those at Commonfund, a Wilton, Conn., organization that helps colleges, hospitals, and other charitable institutions manage endowments and other invested assets.
Commonfund executives have predicted continued ups and downs in the stock market and poor growth in the economy at large, but they are also betting that the U.S. will avoid a double-dip recession so soon after the meltdown of 2008 and 2009.
But even if campaigns to raise money for buildings and other capital projects manage to thrive in the soft economy, nonprofits probably won’t have the same success with drives to raise money for endowments as long as the stock market remains so volatile, predicts Elliott Oshry, a Pittsburgh fund-raising consultant who works on seven or eight big fund-raising campaigns annually.
“Endowment fund raising is a real problem,” because investment assets in an endowment plunge along with big dips in the market, says Mr. Oshry. “People don’t want to transfer an asset to something going down,” he says. “Their gift seems to be lost in the violent abyss.”
