Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County is at a neat vector. Founded in 1991, it's not an old charity exactly -- Centers for Youth and Families goes back to, like, the 1880s -- but neither can it claim to be "getting out of the gate."
Like its mission, the charity is akin to a 20-something with a newly minted degree -- there's youth, there's promise, there are the proper credentials. Now, what's next? And "keep on keepin' on" will not suffice.
I was thinking about all of this a few days ago at an invitation-only luncheon called SPSF: 101. I was listening to director Karin Bara introduce some poster women for the charity (incidentally, there are male scholarship recipients, too). And I was thinking, there are two built-in fundraising triggers here.
The first is that the scholarship fund's clients will, if it's successful, move off its client rolls to its donor rolls, and not only that, but become apostles for the fund. The same really isn't true for environmental and animal rescue charities, free health clinics and the symphony.
Another is that Single Parent Scholarship Fund feels like an investment. Single parents without college are, on the whole, net beneficiaries of charity services -- recall Mitt Romney's "47 percent" -- whereas single parents with college degrees have proved they wish to be (even if they are not yet) net givers, or those who give more in charity and services than they use.
APROPOS OF NOTHING
All of this got me thinking -- what do directors of charities do with their charity dollars? Maybe I can gauge the value of Bara's pitch -- and those of all other charities -- by this survey: How do nonprofit executives behave when they leave the office?
I sent out a query to a lot of nonprofit chiefs, board chairmen, past chiefs and chairmen, and I got about three dozen responses. Single Parent Scholarship Fund made the list, as did a couple of charter schools (KIPP in Helena-West Helena and Quest, planned for west Little Rock), Youth Home, Harmony Healthy Clinic, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Nature Conservancy, Hearts and Hooves, several food pantries and many others.
I noticed two truths.
The first is that these nonprofit chiefs and chairmen walk the walk. That is, I averaged the number of charities they regularly give to, excluding their own and excluding churches. (In 2013, the majority of charitable dollars went to religion, according to the Giving USA Foundation -- the next closest sector, education, received half as much -- and most of my respondents mention church donations at the top of their giving. It was the No. 1 answer, overwhelmingly.)
Nonprofit chiefs and chairmen make regular charitable contributions roughly to six charities. One said he doesn't make any charitable contributions outside his own nonprofit. Another said she annually gives to nearly two dozen.
Any self-reporting survey likely overrepresents good deeds and underrepresents bad ones, but even if the true number is four or five different charities and nonprofits other than church and employers, wow, that still seems diverse and generous.
The other truth I see is that we're super motivated to give to a group after we have availed ourselves of it. This neither surprises me nor sours the gesture. It reminds me of the famous tagline for those Hairclub for Men commercials -- "I'm not only the president. I'm a client."
Some of the most popular recipients of charity dollars from my survey include the Arkansas Arts Center, public radio and public television, and The Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Together as a group, these four were the most oft-cited of any nonprofit that wasn't a church except collegiate alma maters.
This response from Elizabeth Clogston, executive director of the 20th Century Club in Little Rock, is pretty typical of the feedback I got.
"I personally support ... my church; Methodist Family Health Foundation, my husband has been on their board for more than 10 years; [Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation] because I have several friends whose children have juvenile diabetes; St. Vincent Foundation due to how CHI St. Vincent has positively [affected] our family; and the [Junior League of Little Rock] of which I am a sustaining member."
The family has walked in the Komen Race for the Cure because Clogston's mother died of breast cancer, and she "cannot say no to a Cub Scout ... selling popcorn" because she was the Popcorn Kernel for her son's pack.
SO, THEN, SINGLE PARENTS
So, what then for the Single Parent Scholarship Fund? Should it cultivate familiarity by putting on shows or arts programs?
Not every nonprofit can be in the business of bringing you This American Life. The truth is that, while only two nonprofit chiefs who aren't Karin Bara said they give money to Single Parent Scholarship Fund, most of the answers all respondents gave fell into the long tail of a power law distribution. That is, while certain answers were popularly shared by several respondents -- seven said the Arkansas Arts Center -- pretty nearly all respondents regularly give to nonprofits that no other respondent gives to.
Bara said she doesn't think the Rep represents a fundraising vacuum, hoovering potential Single Parent Scholarship Fund donors off the floor. She used the bromide "a rising tide lifts all ships." She also used the phrase "culture of giving." In other words, the Rep and other popular nonprofits are good for all nonprofits, she believes.
The scholarship fund in 2013 took in about $310,000. Its operating budget is only a smidgen less than that. It's pretty small for its age and visibility, and this in a state that's second to last in the nation for residents with a bachelor's degree or better, according to the U.S. Census.
"We need to serve more students," Bara says, "because we need to be part of the solution for the educational deficit in the state," referring to the census tally.
Finding a path forward for the nonprofit matters because, as Bara said so memorably during the luncheon, "when you take a motivated person and give them a hand up, not a handout, it changes their world. It rocks their world."
Contact Bobby Ampezzan at
High Profile on 02/01/2015