Giving with Purpose
Professionals in philanthropy look at new ways money can make a difference.
When you see the words “money, that’s what I want,” you may hear the tune to the Motown classic, covered dozens of times, from the Beatles in 1963 to the Jaded Hearts Club in 2020. One could say it’s a modern-day anthem of sorts. For decades, pop singers have echoed our capitalist ideology, which says, “It’s All about the Benjamins,” “Take the Money and Run,” “Material Girl,” and “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything around Me).”
Contrast that message with the gospel of Matthew 19:21. The passage recounts Jesus’s advice to “the rich young ruler.” “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.”
Most Christians fall somewhere between the avaricious lyrics “money, lots of money, whole lotta money” and the total liquidation of assets for charitable purposes. Those who follow the directives of Scripture give regularly to causes that aid the poor, alleviate suffering, and promote justice. For Christians, the idea of philanthropy—from the Greek word for love, phil, and anthropos, meaning man—is rooted in the second great commandment of Jesus, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.
Philanthropy in the United States is big business. Independent Sector, a national organization of nonprofits, foundations, and corporate giving programs, found that Americans gave $450 billion to charity in 2019. Of that, about 29 percent, or $128.17 billion, went to religious organizations, mostly in the form of individuals giving to their local congregations. Georgians overall give about $7.2 billion a year to nonprofits, 4.31 percent of household income.
“The U.S. Nonprofit sector is the underpinning of our society,” said a 2020 Independent Sector report. “Nonprofits provide a significant portion of the nation’s health care, higher education, human services, arts and culture, conservation, and other vital services. Nonprofits also have been the primary catalyst for major social change over the past 150 years.”
Philanthropic trends change according to social and environmental circumstances. Natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes often bring immediate, generous responses. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of donors was in decline at the rate of about 3 percent per year. Charitable giving was shifting as many donors were taking a bigger-picture view of the landscape of needs, say First Presbyterian Church members who work in the field of philanthropy.
Pat Lummus, executive director of a charitable foundation.
“I think donors are trying to balance immediate needs with long-term solutions,” said Erin Boorn, a senior philanthropic officer with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. “They see people without jobs, housing, health care, or food, and they support health clinics such as Mercy Care and food pantries like the one at First Presbyterian Church. But while they help those in need right now, people are also thinking about how we can make systematic changes to prevent detrimental events like becoming homeless or steeped in student loans or medical debt.”
Pat Lummus, executive director of the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation, speaks of supporting “upstream efforts.” “We have to help people through a crisis,” she said, “but if we do only that, we will never solve what’s putting them in crisis in the first place.”
In medical terms, it’s like researchers working to prevent disease while physicians treat the patients who have it.
At First Presbyterian Church, the crisis response is represented on one hand by the Venable Food Pantry, which distributes nearly sixty-two tons of food a year to those in need, and on the other hand the Epiphany Project, which provides a longer-term view by advising and making grants to social enterprises.
The commitment to a dual approach has been growing for years. John Gardner saw it decades ago. Gardner, president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1955 to 1967, once said, “Wealth is not new. Neither is charity. But the idea of using private wealth imaginatively, constructively, and systematically to attack the fundamental problems of mankind is new.” Martin Luther King Jr. advocated the two-pronged approach in 1963, saying, “Philanthropy is commendable but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”
An inherently unequal system reinforces the economic disparities between the poor and the wealthy. It simultaneously facilitates more growth for the wealthy while ensuring the poor stay that way. “Our privilege in this economy has been compounded, while those who don’t have assets, those who are trying and striving, are feeling that they are left farther and farther behind—because they are, ” Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, told Time magazine in 2020.
That “pulling apart of our society” Walker described was aggravated during the pandemic, said Mary Claire Allvine, a First Presbyterian member and a certified financial planner with a wealth advisory firm. “I think one of the very stark trends financially with COVID is that the comfortable have gotten more comfortable,” she said. “Their stock portfolios exploded. They paid down debt. They saved.” In contrast, people living on the edge saw their lives become more unstable.
While white-collar workers could hole up in their comfortable homes with electronic access to their files, clients, and coworkers, many other workers—waitresses, custodians, and others in service industries—had to risk their health to work or lose their livelihood to layoffs. The “comfortable” were also more likely to have the space and resources they needed to make online schooling and childcare easier to manage.
Allvine pointed out that economists describe the economic recovery as “K-shaped,” with some segments experiencing exponential growth while others lag at a slower rate or even fail to recover at all. But in her experience, those who are benefiting have become more conscious of the fate of those who are hindered. “They’re asking, ‘What are we going to do to bring the most vulnerable in society up so that when something happens, it doesn’t happen more severely to the least of these?’ Those on the upward trajectory are looking for a way to help those on the downward trajectory.”
Some clients who were not interested in charity before the pandemic have begun making donations, she said. She cites an investor who became concerned during the pandemic about educational time lost because of the curtailment of in-person attendance in schools. He began giving money to support educational programs in disadvantaged communities. Her client found a need he could embrace.
Choosing where to put charitable contributions can be challenging. Mailboxes—online and physical—are bombarded with requests for contributions from all kinds of organizations that need funds. People can easily become insular in their giving, said Lummus. “When it comes to events or supporting organizations, individuals tend to respond to our friends who ask us,” she said. “There’s a certain elitism in which we’re operating. Sometimes we need to go outside the box to have an impact.”
The Sartain Lanier Foundation that Lummus heads has been looking for organizations that serve people not reached by government assistance programs or well-known nonprofits. One specific area she mentioned is people who move from one extended-stay motel to another, unable to come up with the deposit money for rent. “They can’t get out of the cycle,” she said.
Early in the pandemic, the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta put together a publication of organizations they believed would have the most impact during the nation’s health crisis and the subsequent social distancing. “Business as usual is not going to get the job done,” the report said. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment that will test the character of our community.”
“We have to help people through a crisis, but if we do only that, we will never solve what’s putting them in crisis in the first place.”
PAT LUMMUS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SARTAIN LANIER FAMILY FOUNDATION
The report recommended support for organizations serving in seven areas of “pressing community needs” identified by the foundation and United Way of Greater Atlanta: childcare, education, emergency funds, food, health, housing, and small business support.
But choices about where to give are complex—maybe even more so—in nonpandemic times. The Community Foundation provides a tool for prospective donors to discover their “philanthropic passion.” It offers a spectrum of possibilities, from alcoholism recovery to the zoo. Boorn said donors narrow their options to three categories—major, midlevel, and minor gifts. “It helps you prioritize,” she said. Then you might want to make a budget.” Priorities may shift over time. For the largest gifts or top priorities, she suggests getting to know the organizations that address them. “Attend events. Study the issues. I think people feel more thoughtful and strategic when they do so,” she said.
During the pandemic, overall giving to some organizations was up; for others, funds came in much more slowly. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, giving to nonprofits across the board was up 3.8 percent from 2019 to 2020. “Overall, 2020 was a banner year for charitable giving in the United States, which rose to $471.4 billion,” the Chronicle reported. But while foundation and individual giving grew, corporate giving declined. Corporations are hesitant to give “in an environment of uncertainty” such as the pandemic, Russell James, a professor of charitable financial planning at Texas Tech University, told the Chronicle.
In Atlanta, the Community Foundation reported a “generous donor response” to COVID-19. The foundation distributed $172 million in grants and support in 2020, up from $134 million in 2019.
The money came in unevenly for different types of nonprofit organizations in 2020. When demand on human service agencies was up, so was the number of funds coming into them. The formation of new nonprofits focused on hunger, housing, and civil rights jumped in 2020, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. But arts, humanities, sports, and recreation organizations suffered. Performances and exhibits were canceled; venues were shuttered; galas, runs, golf tournaments, and other fundraising events were called off in a time of social distancing.
“Arts and culture organizations were particularly hurt due to the pandemic,” said Boorn. “I think people will realize how important arts and cultural institutions are to a thriving community. We need the symphony, nature, and art; these organizations help connect us to each other.”
One category that seemed to gain more attention in 2020 was nonprofit organizations run by and serving people of color. The financial professionals in membership at First Presbyterian say that a growing awareness of the income and wealth disparity finally reached into the pocketbooks and bank accounts of individual donors and foundations. Those in the shallow end of the money pool are disproportionately Black and Latinx. These same ethnic groups were hardest hit by the pandemic.
“Black, Latino, and Native American communities have experienced some of the highest infection and death rates from COVID-19 owing to multiple causes, including disproportionate representation in frontline ‘essential’ jobs and high rates of pre-existing conditions related to centuries of discrimination,” according to a report by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which collects data and feedback. The Economic Policy Institute came to a similar conclusion, reporting, “Persistent racial disparities in health status, access to health care, wealth, employment, wages, housing, income, and poverty all contribute to greater susceptibility to the virus—both economically and physically.”
“Before the pandemic, a lot of the would-be donors were aware of the building divergence within society,” said Allvine. “The pandemic has brought it home quite vividly in terms of immediate experience.”
“Racial equity work was already being taken seriously by foundations themselves and philanthropy-serving organizations,” said Lummus. “Maybe some of the trends just got accelerated.”
Erin Boorn, senior philanthropic officer, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.
“The Community Foundation was already focusing on the correlation of race and wealth inequity,” said Boorn. “Then the pandemic happened. And then George Floyd.”
The Black Lives Matter movement that erupted nationally after the death of Floyd at the hands of police in March 2020 highlighted the growing gap between people of color and white people.
Boorn said she expects the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to be “more out front” in calling attention to the income and wealth disparity. “We are saying wealth inequity is the greatest issue in our community,” she said. “You can see the effects by focusing on specific issues in education, health care, crime, employment, affordable housing, and childcare.”
Diverse donors are among those driving the focus on social issues, according to Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “We’re witnessing a reimagining of how the philanthropic sphere can approach issues of social and racial justice,” said Una O. Osili of the school’s Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy. “Donors of color are changing the fabric of philanthropy in this country as a whole by bringing greater visibility and awareness to giving practices and approaches that have been particularly relevant amid COVID and the movement for racial justice.”
But not everyone is happy with an emphasis on race as a deciding factor for the charities they support. “Some donors feel we focus too much on race,” Boorn said. “Some feel we don’t focus enough. I think the good news of it all is that everybody is paying a little more attention and questioning what has been.”
In a survey by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, an anonymous foundation head said that the COVID pandemic and the cries for racial justice had been a “wake-up moment” for philanthropy. The question for nonprofit organizations and their clients is whether the wakefulness will last.
When COVID vaccines became widely available and life seemed to be taking a turn toward normal, organizations expected some pre-2020 giving patterns to reemerge and other new trends to continue. But by midsummer, the Delta variant was a looming threat, especially to the unvaccinated. As temperatures cooled, nonprofits feared that after so many months of elevated needs and continual appeals, “donor fatigue” would set in.
As summer turned to fall, the only thing certain in the charitable world was uncertainty.
