www.seattleworks.org

Why we don't give?

This great blog post is courtesy of my friend Jessice--a great take on Gen X donors. Are you guilty of how it looks to be socially conscious? Or do you do the right thing, even if no one is looking?

Enjoy! http://www.jewcy.com/daily_shvitz/why_we_don_t_give

The Fourth Sector

An interesting article in this weekends NY Times on the emerging "fourth sector" - better known as the grey area of for-profit businesses investing in what are traditionally non-profit sector outcomes.

Business Try to Make Money and Save the World: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/business/yourmoney/06fourth.html

-- Tara

A little feel-good inspiration

A nice article in yesterday's Seattle Times on stories of people giving quietly and effectively: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=philintro30&date=20070430&source=st

Dining for How Much?

A big old bravo to the organizers of this Tuesday's "dine for darfur" event. Participating restaurants will be donating 25% of their proceeds from the entire day to Mercy Corps.

I'm giving this one a smiley thumbs up and not just because the crisis in Darfur requires our attention. So often when companies support a cause through promotions like this they share that "a portion" of proceeds are benefiting the cause. Doesn't that always make it feel like it's likely something like 2%? Thumbs up to this event for being transparent about the level of support participating restaurants are providing. And 25% sounds pretty good to me.

Dining for Darfur info can be found at http://www.chowfoods.com/

-- Tara

Microcredit as Philanthropy

Article in Slate from a donor who is choosing to direct his giving to financing microcredit (small loans that help people start up small businesses, usually women in developing countries, but there are all sorts of programs). He looks at several online services that facilitate microcredit lending and evaluates them.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161797

Of note, the article asserts "Numerous experts agree: It's most effective to give consistently to a few organizations than to spread your dough too thin—that way, you make more of a dent in the cause." Interestingly, this is contrary to the anecdotal feedback we've gathered. Sounds like many of you prefer to give smaller gifts to lots of different organizations, a way to spread the risk because you're not entirely trusting that organizations will put your dollars to good use. My take - make a bunch of small gifts if that's where you're at, then utilize your experiences in how those organiations treat your small gifts to figure out a smaller set of orgs to make medium or larger gifts to.

Thanks to Seattle Works fav Gary for sending this article our way.

-- Tara

GQ and GIVING

John Legend and GQ are teaming up to kick off  GQ's first efforts in philanthropy. How cool. I'm curious, does this make you want to give more? Would you give to a for profit organization's foundation?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/business/media/23adco.html?ex=132988

Darfur Wall

Here's an update on something I included in the Weekly Email a few weeks back. Jonah Burke's Darfur Wall project has raised $30,000 so far!

We know Jonah because he's a former Team Works and Seattle Works Day team captain. He's taking some time off from work right now and during this time he's created a pretty amazing project designed to raise money and awarness for the crisis in Darfur. Check it out:

Normally I am not a big fan of "everyone donates a dollar" type scenarios. This idea really grabbed me however, because not only is it going to raise a LOT of money, I felt like a part of something when I picked up my squares. This project is about dollars, and it's about getting people to really think about what the loss of 400,000 lives means.

Here's an article from earlier this week in The Seattle Times:
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=darfurwall240&date=20070124

Go Jonah Go.

- Tara

Our donors rock

We had out first donor thank you event this past Sunday at Alison's house (aka the White House), bringing together our most generous annual supporters. So cool! Not a shock to anyone, it was a group of friendly, caring and interesting people. And it was a great start to what will become an annual tradition.

When I started at Seattle Works three years ago, it was a big step for our organization to hire someone specifically to focus on fundraising. At that point, we'd stayed afloat for 15 years mostly thanks to corporate sponsors, foundation grants and special events. But the truth of the matter is that the strongest and most financially stable nonprofits have  that kind of support PLUS a solid base of individuals who make personal contributions. And guess what, we're getting there!

- Tara

For profit philanthropy?

Let's say I give $250 to a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving and promoting local farms. I'm a philanthropist. Let's say I spend an extra $250 this year buying local, oganic groceries at places like my local farmer's market, PCC or a service like Tiny’s Organic than I would have purchasing my produce at a chain-store. I'm a savvy shopper. Now granted, in the second instance I scored myself some lovely apples and pears along the way too, but I just might be doing the same amount of good.

There was a good article at the end of this year in the New York Times highlighting the rise of for-profit philanthropy. It's the idea of companies like Google and Virgin directing their community dollars not just to traditional nonprofit causes, but also making for-profit investments in areas like the clean-energy industry.

Quoted in the article is economist Susan Raymond: “We are beginning to understand that old categories” — commerce, capitalism and philanthropy — “do not serve the new generation of either social problems or market opportunities.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10Section2a.t-1.html?ex=1168491600&en=788bef9c423ee73b&ei=5070
(Note you need an account with NYT to read this, but it's free and they don't appear to spam you. I've had an account for several months and it doesn't appear my info has gone anywhere.)

http://google.org/

Is it time for the lines to blur?

- Tara