Philanthropy Middleman
Most of the time, we think about philanthropy from the donor directly to the nonprofit. Over the past several years, we’ve had community foundations become a stopping point for donations between the giver and the receiver. But in an article on Yahoo! Finance, I just learned that there’s a new way of looking at a middleman in the world of philanthropy.
The community foundation in Cape Coral, FL, was founded several years ago to create a wall of anonymity between a donor and a nonprofit. The basic premise is that the organization will collect the money from a particular donor and reallocate it to the specifically intended charity. The point of the organization is to create a complete wall of privacy where names, email addresses, cell phone numbers, etc. are eliminated from the process. They do charge a small fee, but it is quite reasonable in comparison to other options.
There are pluses and minuses with something like this. If people really believe in their anonymity, this is a way that sets up a level of secrecy that would attract those who don’t want to be bothered regularly by nonprofits, especially if they’re known as generous donors. The downside is that the nonprofit can never steward the gifts very well. They never have the opportunity to get to know the donor. The community foundation will forward thank you notes and other correspondence, but only through their medium, keeping the donor’s anonymity complete.
It’s an interesting concept. Probably quite frustrating to many nonprofits. It’s something to keep an ion to see if it grows in the future.
