FEBRUARY 1996
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 6 / $5.00
New opportunities
Tar Heel nonprofits looking to offset federal cuts
This is the third installment in a
series examining the response
of nonprofit leaders to the new
priorities of policy leaders in
Washington and Raleigh. The
topic also is the focus of
Philanthropy ’96, the state’s
annual nonprofit conference,
sponsored by the Philanthropy
Journal of North Carolina.
By Sean Bailey
Federal budget or no federal bud
get, nonprofits that have depended on
money from Washington now must
face the cold, hard realities of the new
political order: The money is no
longer there - either cut completely or
reduced from last year. And the hkeU-
hood of it returning any time soon
seems sUm.
Those nonprofits now face a new
competitive world in which the many
good causes far outnumber the avail-
THE NEXT REVOLUTION
able dollars to support them. And the
continued health of some nonprofits,
formed for the express purpose of
delivering federal aid, seems shaky
A fundamental shift in philan
thropy, based on the current poMtical
climate in Washington and Raleigh,
means that many nonprofits will be
competing against each other for sup
port.
“I’m anticipating that there’s
going to be a much greater pressure
to contribute to basic human needs
for food, shelter and health care, and
that that is going to impact on things
such as historic preservation, the
arts and some aspects of education,”
says David Winslow, a Winston-
Salem-based fundraiser and consul
tant.
Nonprofits face a simple, difficult
challenge: “They’ve got to figure out
some new things if they want to con-
David Winslow
tinue fulfOling
their missions,”
says Winslow.
He and oth
ers in the
fundraising and
foundation
fields suggest
that nonprofits
steer away from
the highly com
petitive field of
foundation
grant-seeking and look to build
longer, more stable sources of fund
ing.
Winslow says that the private sec
tor holds some promise for nonprofits
seeking support. But he doesn’t mean
traditional philanthropic dollars. He
thinks nonprofits should build
alliances with the marketing depart
ments of corporations. Those busi
nesses are eager to share in some of
the considerable pubhc good will that
nonprofits have garnered over the
years.
“We think the key to making up
some of the shortfall ^ be in the cre
ative use of ...the marketing dollar.”
In some ways, the times ahead are
a return to the 1980s when the
Reagan administration began to
reduce federal support for human
services and education.
Whitney Jones, a Winston-Salem-
based consultant and professional
fundraiser, says nonprofits will have
to do now what they did then: find
ways to increase and diversify their
fee-based services.
In addition, he says, nonprofits
are going to have to accept the need
to “partner” with other nonprofits. He
cites, for example, the collaboration
of 10 hospices in North Carolina that
have banded together to contract
with managed care providers.
One new strategy for improving
the future financial picture of a non
profit is the development of endow
ments by nonprofits that have not
Whitney Jones
normally pur
sued that
approach in the
past.
Endowments
typically have
been vehicles
used by larger
nonprofit insti
tutions such as
universities and
hospitals. Now,
smaller human
service nonprofits are heading in that
direction. Fbr instance, Jones says.
Family Services of High Point, a non
profit that delivers a variety of family
counseling and protective services, is
developing its own endowment
“More and more organizations are
raising endowment money because
that’s part of the survival for the
future,” Jones says.
Foundation money is probably not
Look for NONPROFITS, page 5
Completing the circle
Partnership targets
teacher training,
development
A collaborative initiative involving
four school systems and the
School of Education at UNC-CH
aims to improve the teaching
profession.
By Todd Cohen
Chapel Hill
Jill Fitzgerald has come full circle.
After receiving her undergraduate
degree in English in 1969, Fitzgerald
landed a job as a third-grade teacher
- without having been a student
teacher.
“I learned the hard way,” says
Fitzgerald, now a professor at the
School of Education at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fitzgerald taught public school
for seven years, then earned a doc
torate in education and began to
teach future teachers at UNC-CH.
Several years ago, however,
standing in front of an undergraduate
class, she realized she was “teaching
teachers to teach in ways I never
taught myself.”
EDUCATION
So this year, under a new program
at the School of Education, she’s back
in a public school classroom, teach
ing first-graders at Siler City
Elementary School in Chatham
Connty. The school is a world apart
from Chapel Hill, sitting oft a two-
lane country road two miles west of
Siler City’s main street. The mooing
of cows in an adjoining pasture
echoes over the school’s playground.
Fitzgerald’s specialty is literacy.
She teaches teachers how to teach
students to read and write better.
And as a professor of education, she
aims to connect research and prac
tice so her students understand not
only teaching techniques, but also the
theories and research behind them.
Yet standing in front of her Siler
City first-graders, Fitzgerald has dis
covered something about the reality
of teaching in a classroom that she
had not gleaned from her research.
‘You can’t practice the ideal, at
Fitagerald, a professor at UNC-CH, is teaching this year at Siler
City Elementary School as part of a collaborative initiative to improve
teacher training and development.
Photo by Elaine Westorp
least I haven’t been able to practice
my ideal,” she says, “in large part
because I don’t have unlimited time.
The amount of time I have is like a big
pie and there are a lot of pieces of
that pie that have to be devoted to so
many other things, particularly daily
health issues and hearing and sight
problems and things you don’t really
think about when you’re thinking
about ideally how to set up a writing
program. I didn’t consider these to be
as significant as they are on a day-to-
day basis.”
Her experience this year, she
says, “will help me figure out how to
talk about theoiy and research that
maybe will be more understandable
to the [School of Education] students
and maybe bring it into their world in
a better way than I did before.”
Lessons like those Fitzgerald is
learning are the goal of an innovative
partnership among four Triangle-
area pubhc school systems and the
School of Education at UNC-CH that
aims to improve the training and pro
fessional development of public
school teachers.
The partnership, which could
Look for PARTNERSHIP, page 5
Making an impact
invests in
nonprofits
The Michigan foundation created
by a cereal industry fortune is
heiping to strengthen North
Carolina’s nonprofit sector.
By Barbara Solow
One of the country’s leading foun
dations is playing a key role in build
ing North Carolina’s nonprofit infra
structure.
The WK. Kellogg Foundation - the
nation’s third-largest in terms of both
GRANT AAAKING
assets and grantmaking - is now fund
ing 25 projects in the state worth $15
mUhon, and has completed another 24
projects worth $8.8 million since the
early 1980s.
That amount is only a fraction of
grants awarded by other large foun
dations to Tar Heel nonprofits. In 1994
alone, the Charlotte-based Duke
Endowment gave out $41.7 million in
North Carolina grants, while the Lilly
Look for KELLOGG, page 7
Connections 3
Grants and Gifts 16
In February 16
Job Opportunities 20
Opinion 10
People 17
Professional Services...! 8
; NONPROFIIS
FOUNDATIONS
VOLUNTEERS
! CORPORATE GIVING
. FUND RAISING
Saving open spaces
A major gift
Helping students
Recycling history
A hand to nonprofits
Mushrooming growth in the
Charlotte region has led a
coalition of nonprofits to
work to preserve open spaces
and greenways.
The estate of a quiet philan
thropist will deliver a major
gift to the Charlotte-based
Foundation tor the Carolines
to help meet educational and
recreational needs of area
residents.
A new incentive program will
guarantee needy high school
students a scholarship to
Central Piedmont Community
College as part of the Cities
in Schools volunteer initiative.
One week after a
Greensboro-based textile
company announced it was
closing a plant in Edenton, a
citizens group began an effort
that led to the donation of a
cotton mill for preservation.
The Self-Help Development
Bank is offering loans to
North Carolina nonprofits to
assist them in accomplishing
their missions in an era of
reduced government funding.
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