Egos and emotions - well, we are the charity sector... 2

Fundraising | Niki May Young | 18 Nov 2011

Families and friends in mourning are often moved to honour their lost ones by setting up new charities, but criticised for replicating already existing organisations. Niki May Young suggests that there is still room for in-memoriam charities, if done well.

I'm in two minds. On one hand, I agree with ex-Dragon James Caan's analysis that egos and emotions stand in the way of the not-for-profit sector performing at its best. They prevent collaborations and have left the sector bulging with in-memoriam charities, many of which fulfil the same purpose as the next. On the other hand, I'm faced with the reality that emotion is what fuels the sector, and surely some good is better than no good at all?

It's a commendable response to tragedy to launch a legacy project that will remember a loved one long after their passing, and not an easy one to achieve. Initial impetus for funding can easily pass with time, and before they know it, the legacy becomes just another charity competing for funding, and diluting funds for other similarly directed charities. So why not collaborate?

I was recently approached by a family member asking for my help to set up a new charity with the specific aim of supporting a solitary project in South Africa. "It's too small to be helped by other funds, and I haven't found any other avenues of funding available," she said. Perhaps it's true. Small charities supporting small causes often suffer from donor apathy - "not another one?!" they may ask. I've been cynically asked "why should we donate to you and not to Oxfam?" when approaching possible donors for the charity I support. The answer is that it shouldn't be an either/or situation - but it has to be. We are working in a landmark period of austerity, where there are record numbers of unemployed, salaries remain static and costs continue to rise. It's a turbulent time for a sector that often asks its funders to give and not receive.

A new not-for-profit came to my attention today that, at first, had me reaching for the red card, "We don't need another charity for ex-soldiers..." I found myself thinking. But I was relieved to discover that 353, as named after the 353rd soldier to die in Afghanistan, has been set up to support existing charities working in the same field.

Fallen soldier Conrad Lewis's parents want to celebrate the life of their son and honour his bravery with the aim of raising £3.53m to fund long-term support of other charities helping members of the military community. It's a great example of what in-memoriam funds can do - support the cause without reinventing the wheel. Partnerships and mergers are not the only way to achieve an integrated and collaborative sector, utilising the impetus of a tragedy to temporarily bolster a worthwhile cause fulfils both the emotional need to create a legacy for the lost one, and the financial assistance to support existing facilities. In this instance ego has been cast aside and emotion allowed to flourish - that is, after all, why we work in the sector.

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ChrisB
Writer
28 Nov 2011

Let's not forget the others, though, so well captured by the Onion:

"Watching my dead kid's foundation consistently pound the living shit out of your dead kid's foundation has been, without a doubt, the most rewarding experience of my life. Your dead kid's foundation went down harder than a sack of potatoes in an airshaft. Harder even than when your own son went down to intermediate spinal muscular atrophy.

It was like Ali versus Foreman. First, my dead son's foundation works alongside doctors and nurses to determine the needs of patients suffering from pancreatic cancer on an individual, case-by-case basis. Left jab. Then it successfully lobbies for increased access to cutting-edge care for those patients, including clinical trials and experimental treatments. Right hook. And finally, it funds six different quality-of-life projects. Uppercut. Boom! TKO. It's the Gregory Nass Foundation, by unanimous decision!

I only wish my Gregory was alive to see how hard we're slamming it in your face.

My dead kid's foundation raised over $4 million toward palliative care for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year alone, and nearly $2 million in support of experimental cancer therapies. All that, plus a few hundred thou left over to co-fund a PBS series about childhood cancers. Ka-ching! Now, what did your dead kid's foundation do again? Oh, that's right, it 'donated toys, videos, and books to area hospitals and treatment centers for the use of young SMA-2 patients.'

Will you do me a favor? Ask your dead kid's foundation what the pavement tastes like."

[Reply]

Adrian Beney
Partner
More Partnership
21 Nov 2011

The real challenge with these charities, or funds within charities, is to ensure that they don't end up too small, or fall short of what they were hoping to do. It's usually the person or people most close to the deceased that has / have the energy to set up something, and it's their job to enthuse others. But unless they have, at the outset, a pretty clear idea of who the "others" might be, then one needs to think long and hard.

Anthony Nolan is a great example where this has worked, since the "others" are anyone else who needs, or who has a family member who needs a blood stem cell, bone marrow or cord blood transplant. That's quite a lot of "others."

But where the reach is smaller this is much harder. A wise friend of mine used to be asked to help set up fundraising projects for colleagues who had died while on the staff at University. Three professors would come asking for help to raise a huge amount of money, and he would ask how much they were willing to give themselves. They would think, and add it up and tell him, and then my friend would say "then the target should be double that."

It sounds cruel and unambitious, but when bereaved it's very hard to see that others people's lives are still going on. The devastation wreaked in the lives of those closest is sympathised with, but rarely shared by more than a close circle of friends, unless it's Princess Diana or someone firmly embedded in a community, like a soldier.

W H Auden famously wrote "Stop all the clocks." And that's how deep bereavement, and especially sudden bereavement feels. But the clocks don't stop, and the rest of the world carries on. The trick is to work out how wide is the circle of those who need to share in shouting out Auden's poem in outrage and grief. They are the potential donors.

[Reply]

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