Going South.

Sowing rural seeds of financial growth

Long underserved and low on charitable assets, the rural South is getting some philanthropic cultivation. The Raleigh, N.C.-based Southern Rural Development Initiative (SRDI), formed in 1994 by grassroots activists and donors focused on community development and social-justice issues, is working to help boost the region's philanthropic capital.

The goal, said Alan McGregor, SRDI's director of philanthropic programs, is to attract more philanthropy from existing sources inside and outside the region while helping homegrown groups foster their own philanthropy.

SRDI's philanthropic program is a consortium of four community-based philanthropies, including the Atlanta-based Fund for Southern Communities and the Foundation for the Mid South in Jackson, Miss., plus five federated funds, including Tennessee Community Shares and Black United Funds in Memphis -- all of which are controlled by the constituents they fund.

"They have traditionally been a hidden asset within the philanthropic community," said McGregor, who is based in Asheville, N.C.

Because many board members of community-based funds are activists who concentrate their efforts on community development and organizing, he said, they often lack experience or knowledge in raising and handing out money.

To build their know-how, SRDI has launched a series of three-day workshops for board and staff members of the nine community-based groups to explore broad concepts about philanthropy. Participants, for example, learn about the culture of philanthropy, such as the language fundraisers use to communicate with donors, or how community foundations are set up and what they do.

The initiative also encourages mainstream foundations to channel more funds to rural areas and works to break down community-based funds' isolation from traditional philanthropy.

SRDI, for example, helps send its community-fund members to meetings of groups such as the Atlanta-based Southeastern Council of Foundations. SRDI also has teamed up with the Southeastern Council and the Mid South Collaborative to Build Philanthropy, an arm of the Foundation for the Mid South, to form the Southern Philanthropy Consortium.

With the help of a three-year, $300,000 grant from New Ventures in Philanthropy, a program of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers in Washington, D.C., the consortium aims to strengthen the rural South's philanthropic base.

As part of that effort, the consortium has commissioned the development of a "philanthropic index" to help remote rural communities measure their philanthropic potential.

After taking their communities' philanthropic pulse, local groups can decide whether to organize a philanthropy, either independently or as part of an existing organization, such as a community foundation.

Consortium members also will visit local donor forums throughout the south to talk about the need for rural philanthropy and, with the American Forum, based in Washington, D.C., to distribute opinion columns about rural philanthropy to the philanthropic and mainstream press throughout the region.

Through its network of donors, funders and community-based groups, SRDI hopes to build the philanthropic framework critical to helping the region move into the economic mainstream.

Chronically poor rural communities in the South control only 1 percent of the region's philanthropic assets and get only 3 percent of the region's grants, according to a 1999 study by SRDI.

In Georgia, for example, only 39 grants totaling $11 million from the largest foundations in the United States went to chronically poor counties from 1993 to 1997 of a total $902 million in grants made throughout the state during that period.

Although it boasts the most philanthropic assets of any southern state, McGregor said, Georgia lacks the kind of rural philanthropic support systems enjoyed by other states such as North Carolina, which has a statewide rural center, a statewide rural development initiative and a statewide community-development lender.

Georgia, he said, typifies the plight of rural areas caught in a bind created by the lack both of philanthropic assets and philanthropic support systems. "How do you start funding if there's no capacity, and how do you get the capacity if there's no funding," he asked.

Ultimately, he said, SRDI aims to help build the rural South's philanthropic capital both by encouraging rural communities and funders alike that "there's a real opportunity in rural areas that's not being met by southern philanthropy."

Gift-planning challenge

With more Americans mapping their philanthropy, or simply thinking about it, charities face a big job in tapping the vast potential for planned gifts. That's the view of experts who helped oversee the biggest survey ever of planned giving among donors in the United States.

The survey by the National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG), experts said, underscored the need for charities to focus on their mission, work more closely with donors and professional advisers and scrap outdated stereotypes of donors who plan their giving.

"A lot more people are doing it," said Bruce Bigelow, senior vice president for external relations at Hood College in Frederick, Md. "The opportunity is that there are still a lot of people who are not."

The survey, based on a sample of 170,000 U.S. households, gives both a snapshot of planned giving and perspective on its growth since the National Committee's last survey in 1992. Early findings were reported in the December, 2000 issue of The Non-Profit Times. Key findings include:

* More than four in 10 Americans have made wills, and nearly six in 10 are considering making them;

* The percentage of Americans putting a charity in their wills has grown to 8 percent from 5.7 percent in 1992, and 14 percent are considering including a charity;

* One American in 100 has set up a charitable trust, up from only two or three in 1,000 in 1992 -- small numbers, but showing big growth and suggesting a big untapped market;

* Younger people are making planned gifts. Some 43 percent of donors putting a charity in their wills and 34 percent of those creating charitable trusts were under 55. Donors on average first write a charitable bequest at age 49;

* Helping a charity is the main reason most people say they give, with a much smaller percentage saying they want to reduce their taxes;

* Nearly three people in 10 making bequests and nearly seven in 10 creating a charitable remainder trust say the idea originated with a legal or financial adviser;

* One-third of donors making bequests and one-fourth of those creating charitable remainder trusts say the idea came from the charity's published materials, up from 5 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in 1992.

Bigelow said critical tasks for gift-planners are to target younger donors, emphasize their organizations' charitable missions and treat gift planning as a team effort involving donors, professional advisers and charities.

"Donors don't decide to put a charity in their will or set up a trust all by themselves," said Bigelow, who helped oversee both surveys. "A major planned gift has lots of people around the table. That's what really puts it all together."

Todd Cohen is editor and publisher of Nonprofitxpress, an online newspaper at www.npxpress.com.