Getting tips on better fundraising

Minority non-profit leaders find helping hand

San Jose Mercury News, January 15, 2007
by Lisa Fernandez

Colleen Hudgen grew up in a tightly knit Southern Baptist black church. When her pastor asked for money, the congregation gave.

But the African-American senior center executive director finds it hard to ask members of her community, church friends and clients for donations to support her work and passion: San Jose's Live Oak Adult Day Services, where nearly 400 poor, elderly people eat, exercise and discuss life.

Now Hudgen realizes she has to tap into that same "church feeling,'' and reach out to her own low-income and working-class community for help.

"I've always thought if you do good things, good things will come,'' Hudgen said. "Now, I know I have to cultivate my clients and volunteers for $50. These people have to be my donor base.''

Hudgen is one of many minority non-profit leaders nationwide who face similar cultural fundraising challenges.

To overcome these hurdles, the Milpitas-based CompassPoint Nonprofit Services launched a Fundraising Academy to train people like Hudgen how to better ask for financial support -- not only from wealthy mainstream foundations, but from the multicultural people they serve. The problem, however, is that different cultures often view philanthropy dif-ferently, affecting the ways they ask for help.

The eight-month academy graduated about 30 students last week. It was the first time the academy focused on Sili-con Valley, following similar classes in Oakland and San Francisco.

The need for training minority non-profit leaders was emphasized by last year's report from the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institute. It found that minority-led non-profits received a dismal amount -- about 3.6 percent -- of money from the majority of the nation's largest foundations in 2004.

Compounding that finding is that minority-led non-profits often find it difficult to ask for financial support from sources such as community members and clients.

The Fundraising Academy, funded with $100,000 from the California Endowment, helped participants who paid between $500 and $1,500 for the program improve their fundraising tactics -- from seeking big donors to individuals. The Greenlining Institute noted that the California Endowment scored highest in its minority giving at 22 percent.

The CompassPoint staff selected minority heads of 17 non-profits, mostly with health care focuses, from Fremont to Cupertino, and from San Jose to Salinas.

"We teach people the nuts and bolts of fundraising,'' CompassPoint Senior Project Manager Steve Lew said. "The Bay Area will continue to be diverse, and different communities need to learn how to lead. The philanthropic world has been mostly white, and we want to help people of color be fundraising professionals.''

Asking for money is hard for just about anyone. But often, with minorities, there are specific barriers to overcome.

"In my culture, you just don't ask for money,'' said Mary Nacionales, program director for the Women's Health Partnership in Santa Clara and a first-generation Filipina-American who grew up in East Palo Alto. "It's about saving face. If you need help, you get it from family.''

Now Nacionales knows to help the clients she serves, she must ask her community -- even sick ones with limited resources -- to pitch in.

"Many of these people want to give back, and I was assuming they couldn't,'' she said. "I need to give them that opportunity.''

In the case of some Asian cultures, it's rude to simply ask for money without giving someone a way to back out. So, the academy class brainstormed ways to ask for help -- perhaps asking for money with a question mark to allow the potential donors to come back on their own with an answer. In one case, a Japanese-American donor surprised his non-profit executive by writing a $10,000 check.

"Most cultures have a strong sense of giving,'' said Kathleen Cordova, resource development director for Asian Americans for Community Involvement in San Jose. "But it's how and where they give. They might not give to social services, but to their church or country of origin.''

The academy also taught the fundraisers to develop one-on-one relationships with donors large and small, to be di-rect, and keep them updated on how their money is being spent.

"You still need the wealthy individual to donate,'' said Sherri Shaner, former vice president of diversity for the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. "But you have to throw out a broader net, too.''

She added that on a very basic level, minority fundraisers have to do a better job reaching out to their own people simply because that's likely what is going to work.

"People will give to people they're comfortable with, and people who look like them,'' she said. ``You won't see a cultural shift of giving if people don't see themselves as part of it.''