Data-driven Feasibility Studies???

05/03/2012

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Weren't they always?  This new buzz-phrase has me scratching my head a little bit.  Not to cast aspersions on data, analytics or any of those good things (which I love to use, by the way -- making an ask of a donor without information is guaranteed to be an "epic fail".)

Feasibility studies are all about collecting data, including what my friend and colleague, T. Scott Smith of Stonehill Consulting, calls "fugitive information."  That's the kind of information that can only be sussed out by talking to people one-on-one.  And, it's also the information that is usually crucial to the study outcomes.

I'm not so old school as to believe that on-line surveys don't have a useful place in studies -- by all means, they are a great way to reach a larger constituency, such as employees, certain less-connected community members, or lower-end donors who truly  love your organization but have
low giving capacity.

Feasibility studies are also only as good as who is interviewed.  One must interview the right people, not the usual suspects.  And the questions used cannot be the same ones used in the last feasibility study. 

This is why it's wise to steer clear of consultants who promise a good feasibility study for a relatively low price.  It will cost you, whether with flawed study results and a failed campaign, or with much higher campaign consulting fees.

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Giving & the Super-Rich

04/27/2012

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It’s a truism that statistics can be used to prove any point -- it just depends on the spin one puts on the data.  And while hands may be wringing that the super-rich are giving less (at least, the data says they did in 2009), there are some points worth pondering.

Not too long ago, I ran across a talk given by Adam Meyerson, president of The Philanthropy Roundtable, at the conservative bastion, Hillsdale College in Michigan.  Entitled “The Generosity of America” (and reprinted in the January 2010 edition of Hillsdale’s monthly Imprimis) Meyerson makes some important points about individual giving.

First, he states that Americans from all walks of life -- not just the very wealthy -- have given generously throughout our nation’s history.  And, Meyerson points out, the group that gives the most to charity as a proportion of their income, are the working poor.

Let’s take this information in context.  First, the IRS shows that 90.4% of all tax-paying Americans (which means just about all of us!) fall in the category of earning under $100,000 per year.  What was that the Occupy folks were saying?  Hmm.

Another 7.4% earn between $100,000 and $200,000 per year. Slightly over 2% earn between $200,000 and $1 million per year. The top .2% the statistical pyramid is occupied by people with an annual income of $1 million or more.  (Hmm.  Sounds familiar.  Sort of like President Obama’s contention that the “very richest” people in our country earn over $250,000 per year.  What?  The IRS bears this out.  Quick!  Call Fox News!!)

Of those earning under $100,000 per year, 42.4% give to religious causes.  Almost 61% of those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 give to religion.  Three-quarters of those making between $200,000 and $1 million each year give to religion, and 71% of the $1 million-plus “club” give to religion.  Sounds great, until you realize that the poor and middle class actually give $60 billion to religious causes every year, which pales in comparison to the $8.64 billion given by the very rich.  You can read more of the 2010 Bank of America study on high net worth individuals here.

So, in this area, Meyerson is correct.  However, in terms of overall impact for an individual organization, Meyerson is -- I would respectfully suggest -- quite wrong.  

If Hillsdale College, for instance, were to enter into a capital campaign to renovate, say, a few buildings on is 150-year-old campus, they would definitely want a handful of their most wealthy donors to give “transformational gifts” -- the kind of large, major gifts that result in a dramatic change.  Once those gifts were made, they could then pursue their usual, smaller donors and, quite rightly, be grateful for every penny, dollar, or Andrew Jackson that fell into their coffers.  Hillsdale, by the way, prides itself on receiving no "government funding".  I recently visited a similar campus in North Carolina, but that bears another post for another day.

As always, when politics enters the fray of discourse surrounding philanthropy, statistics can be tweaked to prove whatever point one espouses. 
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