Women: Taking the Lead in Charitable Giving

By Lesley Snyder

Women donors have emerged as a power in charitable giving, and their growing economic status greatly affects their participation in philanthropy. As women increasingly create their own wealth and become beneficiaries of wealth transfers because of their longer life expectancies, they are stepping up and taking on more active philanthropic leadership roles. According to a study on the role of women’s funds by The Foundation Center headquartered in New York City (http://foundationcenter.org) and the Women’s Funding Network (WFN) in San Francisco (www.womensfundingnetwork.org), the members of WFN have assets of $465 million, give an estimated $60 million a year and leverage millions more through networks and relationships.

Grant Thornton, a global audit, tax and advisory organization headquartered in Chicago (www.grantthornton.com), reported that gifts from women topped those from men by almost $5 billion in 2005, the last year for which the IRS included gender information in its publicly available gift tax return data. It is important to note that it is not only affluent women who make charitable contributions. According to Katherine Swank, J.D., a consultant at Charleston, S.C.-based Blackbaud, a provider of nonprofit software and services (www.blackbaud.com), women with annual incomes of less than $10,000, who are often homemakers with children at home, give an average of 5.4 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.

For a nonprofit organization seeking to cultivate women donors, understanding how women’s philanthropic objectives differ from those of men is of utmost importance. According to Nicky McIntyre, executive director of Mama Cash in The Netherlands, the oldest international women’s fund (www.mamacash.org), men tend to be driven to philanthropy by the desire for influence and recognition, whereas women are typically more emotionally attached to the missions of the organizations they fund. Women also tend to be more relationship-oriented and seek to form collaborative networks with other like-minded people, becoming “partners” with the organizations they support. They strive to do more than simply give money; they also want to offer their time and expertise and learn in the process. As discussed in their book Reinventing Fundraising, Realizing the Potential of Women’s Philanthropy (Jossey-Bass, 1995), authors Sondra Shaw-Hardy and Martha Taylor outline the “Six C’s” of women’s motivation for giving:

• Create. Women seek to create new organizations or new programs within existing organizations.

• Change. Women want to use their financial power to effect change, rather than to preserve the status quo.

• Connect. Women prefer to see the human face their gifts affect and strive to build a partnership with people connected with the projects they fund.

• Collaborate. Women prefer to work with others as part of a larger effort.

• Commit. Women often volunteer for causes they care about and often give to the organizations where they have volunteered.

• Celebrate. Women seek to celebrate their accomplishments and have fun with philanthropy.

One prominent way that women engage in charitable giving is through giving circles—philanthropic vehicles in which individual donors pool their money and other resources and decide together where to donate them. Giving circles include social, educational and engagement components that connect participants to their communities, while increasing their understanding of philanthropy and community issues. A 2007 study, More Giving Together, from the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers in Arlington, Va. (www.givingforum.org), identified more than 400 circles, engaging more than 12,000 donors and giving close to $100 million over the course of their existence.

Some Tips for Building a Successful Women’s Initiative at Your Organization
Offered by Andrea Pactor, program manager for Philanthropic Services at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University1

• Conduct an audit of your organization. In what ways are women involved? Assess your organizational culture and identify the barriers that might preclude a successful women’s initiative. Are staffing, resources and leadership available for the project?

• Review your fundraising message. What language do you use when talking to women donors? Words and phrases that resonate with many women include connect, collaborate, create, partner, involve, participate, problem-solving and call to action. Make sure the contributions section of your website describes vision, mission, values and impact.

• Make the connection between women who volunteer for or are otherwise active in your organization and their giving potential. Even if you don’t have a women’s alliance, you do have a database. How do you list your donors? Who pays attention to the name on the check? Who follows up with the consistent annual women donors in the $100 to $250 range? Take the time to identify 100 in that group, assess their capacity, invite them to learn more about your organization and engage them.

• Consider generational differences. Develop targeted mailings, programs and events to engage women from different generations. Baby boomer women might have different expectations of your agency than older or younger women.

• Engage women donors. Women’s giving circles have proliferated and achieved considerable success around the country, in part because they offer opportunities for networking, socializing and engagement. As fundraisers seek to move women donors up the giving ladder, they might offer a variety of programs and events to better connect donors to the organization.

• Rethink special events. For many nonprofits, special events focus more on “friendraising” than on “fundraising.” Annual balls, runs, auctions, festivals, etc., are volunteer intensive—and often the volunteers are women.

1 Taken from Pactor’s September 2006 article in FundRaising Success magazine, titled “Engage, Then Ask.”

Some Tips for Retaining Women Donors

• Stay connected through newsletters, the Internet or personal contact. It is crucial to be transparent in your communications.

• Provide opportunities for involvement. Involve and recruit women in decision-making roles, such as board and committee members, foundation executives, development officers and volunteer fundraisers.

• Offer networking options and workshops focusing on topics such as money management, investing and philanthropy.

Lesley Snyder recently joined CCS as the online sales and marketing coordinator. CCS is proud to sponsor AFP Kaleidoscope as part of its commitment to diversity. CCS is one of the most comprehensive and widely recommended fundraising consulting and management firms in the world. Established in 1947, CCS designs and implements significant fundraising campaigns and programs for leading nonprofit institutions. CCS projects span the recognized nonprofit sectors.

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