Nonprofits Adjust To A Changing Marketplace
When answering questions about charitable giving, most company spokespeople would probably have to bite their tongues to avoid the stock phrase âgiving back to our communities.â It's ingrained in most corporate cultures that philanthropy should support the cities and towns where their employees live and work.
Staples Inc. of Framingham, one of Central Massachusetts' largest companies, has a typical perspective on charitable giving. It hands out money to community-based nonprofits with an eye to the locations where it has the largest concentrations of employees and customers.
âOur customers and our associates are extremely important to us and I think when we look at having an impact on communities, it's really important that we give back to those communities that give back to us,â said Briana Curran, a spokeswoman for Staples.
Few people would object to that sort of sentiment. But for nonprofits based in areas with few large corporate headquarters, the local-first nature of philanthropy can make it particularly difficult to raise money.
HQ Exodus
Phil Grzewinski, the executive director of the United Way of North Central Massachusetts, said that in the 18 years he's been with the Fitchburg-based organization, corporate closings, moves and mergers have meant the loss of a significant source of funds.
âThe dynamic of losing a corporate headquarters, or having a company bought by a company that's headquartered outside your region or state, it does have a negative impact typically,â he said.
Grzewinski said many companies based in the North Central area are very generous with the United Way and other nonprofits. But they're typically much smaller operations, with much smaller charitable budgets than the corporate giants along Interstate 495.
In general, United Way local offices raise much of their money from workplace drives that let employees contribute directly from their paychecks. Grzewinski said those sorts of donations, together with corporate matching grants, sponsorships and other company gifts, account for 54 percent of his group's operating budget. Individual gifts make up the other 46 percent.
But over at the United Way of Tri-County, which is based in Framingham and covers much of the MetroWest area, 90 percent of contributions come from corporate and workplace gifts, according to Paul Mina, president and chief professional officer.
âThe only reason that we're able to continue to do the work we're doing is that we have so many major corporations that are headquartered here,â Mina said.
Mina said some of the largest donors to his group are TJX Co. Inc. and Bose, both of Framingham; EMC Corp. of Hopkinton; and Intel, which is based in California but has major operations in Hudson.
Community Connection
But, nonprofit leaders say, while it's nice when your corporate neighbors have deep pockets, it's even more important that they actually care about you.
Ron Hadorn, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, said that many of the city's business leaders are part of a close-knit community. Corporate heads who sit on local charities' boards, and generally get involved in the life of the city, are far more likely to make donations.
âThere are companies here in Worcester that come down and volunteer and know firsthand what the club does,â Hadorn said. âI think the closeness of the organization and the individuals in the organization to the business... I just don't think there's any substitute for it.â
In contrast, Hadorn said, when he worked for Waltham's Boys & Girls Club, there were plenty of big local companies to talk to about donations, but few actually gave.
âCorporate giving was very low because most of the people in the corporations that made the decisions lived in other communities,â he said.
Even when companies aren't headquartered locally, having connections in a local office can make a big difference for nonprofits. Saint Gobain, which Hadorn counts among his group's largest donors, is based in France, but the Worcester branch makes its own philanthropic decisions.
Company spokesman Bill Seiberlich said the company gives each of its plant managers a charitable budget based on the local workforce, and also matches employees' gifts to local nonprofits. It contributes $800,000 a year in the Worcester area, he said, with money going to more than a dozen groups.
Where The Need Is
Besides its strong sense of community, Hadorn said Worcester has another, albeit somewhat dubious, advantage over places like Waltham: The importance of social service groups is far more obvious.
âThe need is so much more pronounced,â he said, noting that the group's headquarters is in the largely low-income Main South neighborhood. âAnyone who's been down to our building gets it.â
In contrast, Mina said that while pockets of poverty do exist in MetroWest, they can be less obvious to corporate donors.
âHere we really have to prove it,â he said.
Meanwhile, corporate donors don't funnel all their money into the communities near their largest offices. BJ's Wholesale Club, for example, is based in Natick but distributes money both to national organizations and to the individual communities where its stores are located.
And Donata Martin, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of North Central Massachusetts, said her organization has benefited from the national grant programs of big companies that have minimal local connections.
âYou can't be afraid to reach out to the Motorolas and the Hondas,â she said.
Still, with plenty of nonprofits in the North Central area, Martin said there really aren't enough resources to go around. Besides looking for more money, she said, groups like hers just have to get creative. For example, the Boys & Girls Club invites other organizations to join in activities at its 11-acre Leominster campus.
âIt just makes more sense for us to share resources,â Martin said. n
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments