Exploring Measurement and Evaluation Efforts in Fundraising New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, Number 41

by Hager, Mark A.

• ISBN13: 9780787972707
• ISBN10: 0787972703
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-19
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

This issue addresses a variety of issues regarding the measurement and evaluation of fundraising costs and activities. Topics examined include watchdog groups and the effect of their ratings on public perceptions; emerging data on workplace solicitation of federal employees; and summary results from a national study of nonprofit fundraising and administrative costs. Contributors present innovative concepts such as a vision for using the price of outcomes to encourage funder support of particular social service delivery programs as well as cautionary satire against using simple ratios to gauge fundraising efficiency that can mask the "ill-intentioned fundraising abusers" who place profit above mission. The culminating chapter presents the findings of a trio of nonprofit accounting professors who analyze professional fundraising firms, demonstrating that solicitation firms often keep most of the contributions in most campaigns. Taken together, the chapters reflect three major themes in evaluation and measurement of fundraising today. First, research on fundraising has the definite benefit of teaching students of the field what the field looks like. Secondly, the issue' s contributors explore the quality of information we have when we seek to measure and evaluate charities and their fundraising activities. Finally, this issue sheds a much-needed light on the kinds of decisions people make from evaluation of fundraising and argues that the result is that the bottom line and financial efficiency have become the measures by which we assess charities in the United States. This is the 100th issue of the Jossey-Bass quarterly journal "New Directions for PhilanthropicFundraising.

Author Biography

MARK A. HAGER is a research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, a social policy research organization in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Editor's Notes	1	(6)
Mark A. Hager
1. Effects of watchdog organizations on the social capital market	7	(20)
Jordan E. Silvergleid
Private regulatory organizations such as the Better Business Bureau seek to provide donors with information about charities. Do these watchdog evaluations influence decisions about which organizations get charitable contributions?
2. Workplace giving: A case study of the Combined Federal Campaign	27	(12)
Woods Bowman
Many federal workers donate money to their favorite charities each year through payroll deductions organized by the Combined Federal Campaign. This chapter provides an overview of the campaign both nationally and in Chicago.
3. Current practices in allocation of fundraising expenditures	39	(14)
Mark A. Hager
Major corporations are not the only ones with accounting problems. Many public charities fail to report their costs of fundraising to the Internal Revenue Service every year.
4. Using prices to help obtain human-improvement results	53	(16)
Terrence R. Colvin
More venture philanthropists would emerge if nonprofit service providers could document their successes and the social costs of future inaction. One way to do this is to price the services and let philanthropists purchase the returns.
5. Charitable fundraising for fun and profit: A satire	69	(10)
Bill Levis
If you want to get rich, start a professional fundraising firm. To control these kinds of firms, we need to come up with new methods of regulation.
6. Cost-effectiveness of nonprofit telemarketing campaigns	79	(16)
Elizabeth K. Keating, Linda M. Parsons, Andrea Alston Roberts
A contract with a professional fundraising firm can be a great deal for charities-just sign on and wait for the cash to roll in. But how much of this money stays with the solicitor, and how much actually gets to the charities?
Index	95