State of Giving: Region’s nonprofits ahead of projections, but worry about federal tax changes

Nonprofits in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado are experiencing a nice wave of giving, with most saying they are ahead of projections so far this year.

“We are in the midst of our busiest quarter as we head toward year end,” says Jeff Hirota, CEO of Community Foundation Boulder County. “We won’t really know how it is going or how it went until after the fourth quarter because of the season of giving and how it works with charitable donations.”

Part of that jump can be attributed to the current political climate in the United States.

“Earlier in the year we were witnessing a lot of amplified energy around certain community issues: immigrants, women’s reproductive health, civil liberties, to name a few, and LGBTQ rights as well so we ran a series of awareness messages and also signs throughout the county and had a forum calling leaders of these agencies together to make a connection between the national climate and how to make a difference locally,” Hirota says.

He adds that, “ordinarily, grant making goes up when people feel concerned about the way things are going.”

In general, Boulder County and Colorado don’t have a great track record for charitable giving. In the foundation’s Boulder County Trends Report, the giving ratio in Boulder County is 2.72 percent and the median contribution is $3,052, which “puts Boulder County in the bottom third of charitable giving,” says Hirota.

Colorado’s giving ratio is 2.87 percent with a median contribution of $2,958, which is lower than all of the surrounding states. Utah’s giving ratio is 6 percent, in large part because of its large religious community, he adds.

The big question is why are Boulder County and Colorado so low? Hirota says that it could be because Boulder County is one of the least religious counties in the country, and there is a connection between participation in a faith community and charitable giving. Another theory is that there are a lot of small nonprofits in the area that don’t have budgets to hire fundraising staff to seek out charitable giving. The one bright spot is that people in Boulder County volunteer their time at twice the national average, he says.

Doug Yeiser, president and CEO of Foothills United Way serving Boulder and Broomfield, says that “we have a particular challenge in terms of building philanthropy in this community.”

That is something that many different charities have been working on for a while.

“We know we have some very generous and giving people here. Part of the issue might be focusing their philanthropy on their home community. They have international and worthy interests all over the country,” Yeiser says.

He voiced concerns about maintaining the current levels of philanthropy moving forward.

“This year and the next couple of years we’re already seeing significant cuts from the federal level in terms of human services provided in our community. All charities are experiencing or are about to experience that, so regardless of what we are able to do, if you think about community work as collaborative work, with the government and nonprofits and all of us working together on this, when a particular sector like federal government dollars start to shrink, it will impact services on the ground,” he says. “We’ve got a challenge in front of us to pick that up and make sure we maintain the level of services our community needs.”

Yeiser points out that Foothills United Way depleted its reserves when it stepped in to lead the collaborative flood recovery efforts in the area after the 2013 flood.

“We’re in desperate need of people thinking of United Way when they think about charitable giving,” he says.

With so many smaller nonprofits in the community, Foothills United Way made the decision to stop funding independent nonprofits and put people’s contributions toward collaborative efforts, with school districts, the faith community, government partners, foundations and business people all working together.

“We entice them to the table with the grants we make,” he says. “The average person can’t make a gift to pull together collaboration. What we’re doing is making grants that pull organizations together to combine efforts and solve the biggest issues facing our community.”

Foothills United Way has been doing this for a year and a half and so far is involved in 15 strong collaborations in the community.

“It’s being able to do together what we can’t achieve on our own,” he says.

Deborah Cameron, marketing and communications officer for the Community Foundation serving Greeley and Weld County, says that so far this year, charitable giving is up slightly from last year.

But, “we notice that there’s always more need than we can typically fill and we’re always looking to maximize our ability to fill the need that’s out there,” she says.

Attendance and sponsorships were up year over year at the organization’s 2017 Profiles Luncheon, which was good news.

The foundation has given $22.8 million in grants over its two decades in operation. It started in 1997 with $7.5 million in assets and distributions of $357,891. As of Dec. 31, 2016, the foundation maintained more than $1.5 million in grant scholarships and program support across 14 program areas, including education, charitable programs, housing and human services, arts and culture, she says.

“Our foundation supports the community at large. The grants we distribute are unique based on the fund they are in,” Cameron says.

Like Foothills United Way, Community Foundation serving Greeley and Weld County is looking at collaboratives and building partnerships with others in the community. The biggest issue to overcome is “organizational turf and things like that. It is human nature to take pride in what you’ve built over the years. I think when people realize their mission can be expanded and extended and can be achieved with more speed when they combine assets and work together, people are excited by the opportunity,” Cameron says.

United Way of Weld County is also optimistic about the current year.

“We’ve seen slow steady growth in our overall revenue,” says Jeannine Truswell, president and CEO of United Way of Weld County. That boost has come from employees, individuals and from small and large companies. The organization’s biggest growth in revenue is from the private and public grant side.

Individual giving is not as high as Truswell would hope. She believes that is because many people live in Weld County but cross borders to go to work.

“I think it is a challenge for nonprofits, when people are commuting, to get people connected to their community,” she says.

Truswell adds that her organization is concerned that the “federal government is looking at changing some of the tax deductions that are available and what could, indeed, the impact be on nonprofit organizations. That’s significant.”

If people “aren’t going to get tax deductions they might be less generous and that will have a negative impact on communities,” Truswell says.

Ella Fahrlander, vice president for community engagement for Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, says that her organization doesn’t gear up for the end of the year giving season like a typical nonprofit.

“Our asset base has continued to grow year after year with the generosity of our community. This year our organization surpassed $100 million in managed assets, and I believe this represents Northern Colorado’s commitment to philanthropy and the philanthropic plan for the region,” she says.

On Colorado Gives Day last year, more than 5,000 donors gave to that online giving campaign for a total of almost $1.5 million, “which was very significant and we certainly expect that number to go up this year,” Fahrlander says.

Community Foundation of Northern Colorado granted out just under $6 million in 2015. In 2016, they granted out $6.5 million. This year, the foundation is going to grant $7.8 million, “which is a huge jump from last year. Certainly the organization is growing. More donations are coming in but, far more importantly, more contributions are going out to support nonprofits all across our community and the northern Colorado region.”

Annie Davies, president and CEO of United Way of Larimer County, says her organization is in the middle of its campaign season right now, but “in general we are really pleased that corporate support this year is really strong.”

The organization recently wrapped up a full week of service projects for Make a Difference Day where more than 900 volunteers assisted with 60 projects for 5,000 hours of service.

“That is a great testament to the strength and engagement in Larimer County and that, across the board, people really want to be involved,” Davies says.

She adds that, “Private citizens, corporations and public and nonprofit agencies throughout the community work collaboratively to continuously seek solutions to social issues and improve the quality of life for all. There is a strong sense of responsibility for ‘taking care of our own’ in Northern Colorado and that translates into strong support for the nonprofit sector and the programs and services that help people locally.”

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