Fundraising as community building

Posted on by Fund for Democratic Committes

Like many people involved in work with nonprofits, community groups, and other grassroots organizing efforts, I do not look forward to fundraising efforts. Asking people for money – even when I believe passionately in the cause – is often times a painful exercise that leaves me feeling like part of the “problem” I am seeking to solve.

The Fund for Democratic Communities asked me to attend the annual Money for Our Movements conference organized by the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) in Oakland, California. Over 500 organizers from around the country gathered at Mills College to discuss funding strategies, trade experience, and learn new skills through a number of excellent workshops.

In one of the sessions I attended, a presenter made the statement that fundraising should be seen as an opportunity not simply to collect money, but as a part of community building. One of the GIFT staff members offered that it is not up to us as organizers to decide who can and cannot contribute to our causes. Our job is to build sustainable movements by creating a community that interacts with and supports our efforts.

This philosophy of fundraising as community building stands in sharp contrast to the traditional process of fund development, a process that I am increasingly involved in through a number of organizations with which I work. The traditional process of developing a donor list of mailing and email addresses, sending out appeals to segments of that list defined by economic status, and planing a couple of annual events has the ability to raise large amounts of money. It is not, however, a sustainable model. The targeted donors generally do not become involved with the organization beyond activity on the board or the standard “Friends of…” committee. In the case of a human services organization, it is highly unlikely that donors (especially major donors) will ever come into contact with the people the organization serves. In this way, the traditional fundraising process buttresses the current social structure that promotes social and economic stratification and segregation.

A grassroots fundraising effort can do exactly the opposite. It can include both small donors and large donors in a way that is not demeaning or exclusionary to either. By creating a community invested in a project in ways other than financial, it becomes natural for people to contribute money to the effort because, while they may not be accessing the services or projects directly, they feel some measure of substantive involvement.

This differentiation was discussed in a session focusing on the difficult funding environment nonprofits and grassroots organizations are facing now. DataCenter and the National Organizers Alliance presented the findings of their joint study of how organizations are funding themselves during this economic downturn. While funding is becoming more and more difficult to find, organizations are developing creative ways to survive and in some cases may offer models for growth.

What is clear is that the traditional process for fundraising is becoming less reliable than in the past. Organizers must begin to reorient (if they haven’t already done so) themselves to a grassroots, bottom-up funding structure to survive and thrive in the emerging economic condition. Further, these kinds of funding strategies could serve as a method for promoting wide-spread social and economic re-conceptualizing, something in which the Fund for Democratic Communities is also currently engaged.

Visiting the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Posted on by Ed Whitfield

A trip into Epes, Alabama takes you down some curvy, bumpy roads. But given their history and connections, visiting the training center for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives is a necessary part of looking into grass roots economies in the South. After a phone call where I asked for a few minutes time on their busy schedules to introduce myself and the F4DC project, I was finally able to get permission to come by briefly back in May. It seems that they were in the middle of filing some important reports and submitting proposals to make sure their work could continue. They were also preparing for a training program on the advantages of developing cooperatives and a summer youth sustainable agriculture program. Once I got there, however, the distance and impatience that I had felt on the telephone disappeared and I was warmly received and not rushed through the discussion. Face to face contact remains the most effective way of introducing people and ideas.

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives has been around since 1967. It is a product of the Civil Rights movement and has most recently been involved in struggles for black land retention and against the patterns of racism and discrimination that has up until recently characterized the US Department of Agriculture’s relation to black farmers. The victory in 1999 in the Pigford suite reflects years of effort to redress the grievances of black farmers in the south who were systematically denied loans and other support that white American farmers could take for granted. Unfortunately, the multi-billion dollar settlement has not been fully funded and is tied up in Washington bureaucratic red tape and budgetary complications.

The two people I got to talk to were Pamela Madzima, Forestry Program Assistant and Osagie Idehen, Cooperative Specialist. They told me about the Federations current work with Tuskegee Institute and Alabama A&M University on forestry and goat husbandry as well as work with the Alabama Association of Cooperatives on coop development. They were both excited about F4DC’s planned efforts to look at ways to strengthen grassroots economies in the south. In particular, they felt that if we could together identify sources of conflict on the one hand and the unmet needs of the many economic groups on the other, we could be instrumental in helping southern grassroots economies move forward. We talked specifically of finding overlaps that created intensified competition for scarce resources, as well as gaps in the economic chain that prevented the full development of the synergies needed to push the new economic ventures forward over the declining economies that are causing so much suffering in our communities.

Before I left, I got to go on a brief tour of the Rural Training and Research Center facilities. In addition to the offices, I got to see the dormitory space, classroom space, meeting rooms and the dining facilities. We then went outside to see the garden area and the goats that are to be used in a combination forestry – goat husbandry research to figure out the optimum number of goats that can be raised in wooded timber areas.

I am looking forward to going to Birmingham for the Federation’s award banquet August 19 and then back to Epes for the federation’s annual meeting August 20 and 21.