Katrina causes donation drought for local charities

Virginia Business
December 2005

The Martinsville-Henry County chapter of the American Red Cross settled on its budget long before this year’s hurricane season. Now, after a string of national and international disasters, the organization predicts a funding shortfall of $75,000, more than 25 percent of its budget.

The shortfall ironically is the result of donors’ generosity. “People have given and given and given,” says Sharon Hill, the organization’s executive director. “A lot of them just don’t have any more to give.” The chapter already has forwarded nearly $180,000 in local donations to the Gulf Coast to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Hill worries about how the donation drought might affect local services this winter. The Red Cross and other charities oversee relief for victims of fires, floods and other disasters and provide financial assistance for low-income residents who could be facing a harsh winter with high fuel costs.

“Between tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, we’ve been on this perpetual-motion disaster machine for the past 12 months,” says Jim Quist, chairman of the board of the Red Cross of the Blue Ridge in Staunton. “The response has been great, but the other side of the coin is that we have not stopped providing services to the local community, and we still need funding.”

Getting that money is proving to be a tough task, says Phil Cangelosi, who handles direct-mail fund raising for the Virginia State Police Alliance and other charity groups. “Every fundraiser for every nonprofit association across the board is having trouble raising money,” he says. Donations from his mailings are down about 20 percent from last fall.

Karen Cleveland, executive director of Habitat for Humanity’s Northern Virginia affiliate, says that her regular donors have simply dug deeper in their pockets to pay for hurricane and tsunami relief while continuing to keep her organization on track to complete 24 condominiums this year. But, she says, a large chunk of undesignated donations come in during the holidays. “The tsunami occurred in late December after people had already made their donations last year,” she says. “This year, we don’t know what’s going to happen, although a lot of donors have said they still plan to give.”

Most charity officials are choosing to see their challenges as opportunities. Cleveland says that the publicity that her organization received for its Operation Home Delivery project for Katrina evacuees has helped draw attention to the local affiliate and gain new contributors “who could eventually turn into regular donors.”

Hill and Quist, meanwhile, are planning events that will help take them outside of their traditional fund-raising venues. The Martinsville-Henry County Red Cross plans to hold a raffle in early spring, while the Blue Ridge chapter is negotiating on a women’s pro golf tournament in June. “We’re having to be a little more creative,” Quist says.

He uses the lessons learned from last year to encourage donors to take a more long-term view of charity. “It’s important that people not give all that they have at once,” he says, “but to spread it out over time, in the same way that tithing occurs in a church.”