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10 • Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina Opinion July 1998 Philanthropy Journal 'The Pkilmitkrop’i/Journal is a monthly publication of the Phiiantbropy New'S Network, a 501(c)(3) private foundation in Raleigii, KC. httpy/www.pj.org EDITOR AND PUBLISHER TODD COHEN — (919) 899-3744 tcohen (ffiHtindspring.com MANABINB EDITOR MICHAEL R. HOBBS — (9)9) 899-3755 iiirijobbs@nimdspring.coin DIRECTOR OF NEW MEDIA SEAN BAILEY - (919) 899-3747 seanbaUey@inindspring.com DIRECTOR OF EVENT SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENT SHANNON LESKIN — (919) 899-3758 shaimonl@mindspring.com DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING DENISE DOYLE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING UEE SMITH — (919) 899^756 ldare@inindspring.coffi BUSINESS MANAGER ERIC MILLER — (919) 899-3740 «ri4nniUmr@)nilndspring.com STAFF WRITERS JOAN ALFORD — (919) 899-3746 ]e^J@mindspring.com EMILY BREWHR — (919) 899-3754 einUybrewer@mtndspring.c(Hn PATRICIA B. COURTRIGHT (919) 899-3752 pcourtright@mindspring.com ■■LAYOUT-i:... ■ MARK WORRELL - (919) 899-3755 WEB DEVELOPER JONATHAN HART — (919) 899-3753 pj2@mindspring.com GRAPHICS ARTIST JUSTIN PARISI — (919) 899-3753 jmpari$i@uiu ty.ncsu.edu NEWS INTERNS ^ AU & LAUREN MATTHEWS (704) 372-9667 DIANA ORNTTZ — (919) 899-3749 domltz@yahoo.coin MANAGER, DISPLAY ADVERTISING LAURA SYLVESTER - (919) 899-3757 sytvest@mind£^ring.com MANAGER, CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING MARILYN ROSE - (919) 899-3757 marilynrose@mindspring.com MANAGER, EVENT PRODUCT SALES SHARON SHELTON (919) 899-3748 sheltonsiiati>n@mindsprtng.com MANAGER, CORPORATE RELATIONS ALLISON TURNER — (919) 899-3745 aIlisontumer@mtndspring.com MANAGER, EVENT SERVICES OPERATIONS SHANNON OKERBLOM - (919) 899-7759 CONFERENCE COORDINATOR NANCT KELLY - (919) 890-4121 nnikellyifi mlndspring.com MARKETING ASSISTANT KRISTA WELSCH - (919) 899-3713 krislainw@mindspring.com DIRECT-MAIL COORDINATOR REBECCA BKITT -- (919) 699-3741 rebbritt@mindspr!ngjcom SALES INTERN USAGRANT EVENTS INTERN HEATHER GREER ' Board of Directors Raising money the old-fashioned way Nonprofits must team how to ask Charities must feel like kids in a candy store — but with their hands tied. In the face of a massive buildup of wealth, nonprofits remain poorly equipped to tap that wealth. The prospects for raising charitable dollars are enormous because of the boom on Wall Street and the unprecedented transfer of an estimated $10 trillion from the generation that came of age in the Depression to the baby boomers. Despite the increasing sophistication of the fundraising profession, however, nonprofits have just begun to prepare themselves to seek, find and secure charitable dollars. And wealthy people don’t know enough about the needs of nonprofits, or about how to take advantage of planned giving opportunities that can benefit nonprofits. EDITORIAL Nonprofits also find it tough to raise money from foundations and corporate funders that increasingly are asking nonprofits to be more business-like and entrepreneurial in managing their organizations. And because of hmited resources, many nonprofits lack the organiza tional capacity to manage themselves efficiently — making it doubly hard to raise money. Professional fundraisers say that the main reason Americans do not give more to charity is because no one asks them to. But nonprofits understand only too well that it’s tough to ask when you’re not prepared to ask. Nonprofits can do a lot to better equip them selves to raise money; • Begin to think and act more like business es, operating efficiently so they can make the case to potential funders that financial support will be used wisely. • Become educated quickly about the broad range of strategies and vehicles available for charitable giving, particularly planned giving. • Either hire development officers or train existing staff to raise money. • Persuade funders to pay for creating a pro fessional development operation. • Make clear to board members that they are expected to be active fundraisers, and edu cate them about how to raise money • Ask. Fundraising is hard work. It’s also essential if nonprofits are to fulfill their missions of making our communities better places to live and work. Making a difference Time for foundation action on tobacco Reading a recent Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation annual report and absorbing its messages of inclu siveness and the foundation’s com mitment to convening interested parties on various issues, I could ndt help but wonder why the foundation does not create a “focus category” on the most obvious of contempo rary North Carolina concerns: tobacco. p Understandably, tobacco is a | ticklish area for discussion due to I the foundation’s origin and long- | term family connections. Making this suggestion is equally tickhsh for me because the foundation w'as good enou^ to award me one of its 1992 Nancy Susan Reynolds Awards for community service. I do not want to appear ungrateful or to be biting the hand that fed me so graciously but, in the spirit of those awards and the community challenges they encourage, I do think it is time for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and other tobacco-originated foundations to address Monroe Gilmour is coordinator of Western North Carolina Citizens For An End To Institutional Bigotry and may be contact ed at PO Box 18640, Asheville, N.C. 28814 or Tel: (828) 669-6677Fax: (828) 669-8862 e-mail: mgilmmr@igc.org. MONROE GILMOUR tobacco head on. From choice to race to land-use to the very makeup of our democracy, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation has plunged in and made a differ ence in North CaroUna. To address hog farming, poUtical financing, racism, illegal drugs and other key societal issues while being silent on tobacco, especially in North Carolina, diminishes the foundation’s otherwise superlative credibility Today, the challenge for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and other tobacco-created foundations in North Carolina, is to explore openly and forthrightly the environmental, economic, health and politi cal impact of tobacco on North CaroUnians now and in the future. With daily revelations of how the tobacco industry misled the public about tobacco’s addictiveness, manipulated ad campaigns to attract young people to smoking, caused untold deaths and sickness, and caused numerous other deleterious impacts on the community the foundation’s voice on this issue at this time would be constructive. True, the foundation no longer has tobacco stocks, but the association, perceptions and some level of ethical accountabihty are still there. The greatest action the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation could do in 1998 is to develop a “focus category” that addresses tobacco issues in Ught of today’s altered environment. For example, the foundation mi^t consider the following activities: • Convene a series of conferences around the state titled “North Carohna: Whither Tobacco?” Or perhaps “Tobacco; Whither North Carolina?” The purpose would be to examine tobacco’s pos itive and negative contributions to North Carolina past, present and future. Economic, environmental health, social and political aspects as well as the dilemmas these create could be explored and an action plan developed to position the state to the new reaUties sur rounding tobacco. • Encourage innovative alternative crops and farming strategies for North Carohna’s many tobacco farm families caught in the middle of this controversy. • Encourage cutting-edge education projects to discourage youth smoking. • Encourage nontraditional education projects to discourage smoking among expectant moth ers and any people with chfidren in the home. • Be proactive in letting grassroots organiza tions working on tobacco issues know that then- grant proposals are welcome. look for GIIMOUR, page 11 Cutting through the bull Movies offer food for nonprofit thou^t Frank Daniels Jr. Mel Finch Jr. Patricia Woronoff Todd Cohen Nonprofits can profit from the messages of two movies showing on screens throughout America, “The Truman Show” and “Bulworth.” Truman is a carefree insurance salesman who gradually discovers his entire life has been the subject of a 24-hour-a-day cable TV show. Realizing he’s a prisoner of the media, he fights to free himself. Bulworth is a jaded U.S. senator so fed up with the lies and payoffs of poUtics, he takes out a contract on his own life. Liberated by his ' impending death, he begins to speak with naked honesty about our rawest wounds, particularly race, and about the influence-peddling that keeps us from healing those wounds. Both movies beckon us to stop being victims and to take our fate in our own hands. We sim ply feed the money-grubbing frenzy of poUtics and the media by buying the products they hawk, whether political candidates, tabloid fare or the commerce on which poUtics and the media depend for financial support. Unlike Truman’s world, wtdch was created by a benevolent TV director and is filled with actors who are not what they seem, and Bulworth’s, which is riddled with the excesses of hardball politics, the nonprofit world mainly ABOUT CHANGE consists of hard-working people with good intentions. Yet the nonprofit world can be just as suffo cating as the worlds of Truman and Bulworth. Despite their lofty aims, nonprofits face down- to-earth financial needs that can prompt them to fall prey to the same pandering and manipu lation that infect poUtics and the media. The nonprofit world, for example, can seem like an exclusive club, with financial support often a function of who you know and how well you play the game. Nonprofits, for example, tend to avoid honest criticism of the foundations, corporations and government agencies on whose support they depend. Md while nonprofits talk the talk of collaboration, behind the scenes they often snipe at one another over turf. For their part, foundations, corporations and government espouse openness and risk-taking. Yet they can be arbitrary and locked in the trends of day in the programs they fund and in the rules they ask nonprofits to follow to win support. And nonprofits just play along, doing what they must to get what they want. Nonprofits shoulder the tou^ jobs in our communities and serve as society’s research- and-development arm. At a time of growing social needs and rising competition for resources, people working in tM nonprofit world can move beyond their acceptance of business as usual. They can be more honest about themselves and their supporters, and about the problems that ail us. And they can be more innovative, collaborative and entrepreneurial in attacking those problems. Depending on how it’s handled, for example, the new statewide group that foundations are forming to advise Gov. Jim Hunt could improve communication among funders and with non profits, or it could simply reinforce an existing system that favors savvy insiders. “Truman” and “Bulworth” are far-fetched fables about American politics and media. But their insists into the need to cut through the bull and be true to one’s principles suggest practical steps nonprofits can take to make change happen. Todd Cohen
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.)
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July 1, 1998, edition 1
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