Nonprofits say year-end giving shows a rebound

Food Bank of Northern Nevada conducted its major campaign "Drive by Food Drive" campaign last Friday.

Catholic Community Services of Northern Nevada is in the middle of its annual acquisition drive that will close out at the end of the month.

As the holiday season winds down,when people are at their most generous,many charities are busy conducting their own fund raising drives.

And most expect that people will dig deeper to contribute to the causes in which they believe despite substantial contributions earlier to tsunami- and hurricane-relief efforts.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Food Bank of Northern Nevada saw the diversion to the Gulf Coast of many food donations it expected from national manufacturers.

In fact, the bank was bare in the months of September and October, says Janice Hoke, communications manager.

"We had to dip into the cash funds to buy food,"Hoke says."We had to use that money to stock our shelves for the basic food."

But local donations are holding their own or showing slight increases, Hoke says, and the Food Bank has made up for the fewer donations from the national network.

In fact, by Dec.

1 halfway through its holiday season the bank had collected 70,000 pounds of food.

In the fiscal year ended June 30, the Food Bank had fed 60,000 people, the majority of them working poor.

"People realize that they can't neglect the local needy,"Hoke says.

That's a sentiment voiced by other northern Nevada nonprofits that depend much on the generosity of the region's people.

"This is a very generous community has always historically been a very giving community," says Michael Ford, executive director of Catholic Community Services, an agency that provides emergency assistance to about 20,000 needy people every month.

It operates a food pantry, a thrift shop, an adoption agency, a 45-unit low-income rental project and a child care center.

"We're actually experiencing a slight increase in the dollars coming into us at this point of time compared to the same time last year, both in the volume of donations and the dollar volume of the donations," Ford says.

Arts and cultural nonprofits the vast majority of whose revenue comes from local contributions haven't seen much change in people's giving patterns despite calls for help for national and international disasters.

"People tend to just dig deeper," says Tom Jackson, Nevada Museum of Art's director of development."They just don't stop giving to the things that they believe in."

In fact, the museum, with its growing membership at 7,000 and a strong support from the corporate and foundation areas, is pretty much on target to raise approximately $2.7 million.

Reno Philharmonic has not seen a measurable impact of hurricane relief on its contributions.

"There were one or two new opportunities that we had applied for," says Tim Young, executive director of the orchestra."We were told they were sending their resources to the Gulf."

However, donations are down for the local disaster efforts of the northern Nevada chapter of American Red Cross, which contributed about $2.5 million to the recovery efforts after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, says Executive Director Caroline Punches.

The region's chapter of the Red Cross annually spends about $250,000 for local relief efforts such as providing emergency help to families displaced by fires.

Punches expects that her chapter will be successful in raising funds as the year comes to a close.

"This is the greatest time when people think about pulling out their check books and writing end-of-the-year gifts," she says.

United Way, which raises funds for 78 agencies, is doing "quite OK," says Anne Cory, president of the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra.

She says some companies that participate in the United Way campaign have conducted extensive fund raising or support for their employees in the Gulf region.

Organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way Campaign have taken steps to overcome the impact of national disasterrelief effort.

The Red Cross, Punches says, is making concerted efforts to educate donors about local needs.

United Way has seen some lessons from the Gulf disaster that will help open eyes in northern Nevada.

"The ongoing importance of funding human services in our community to prevent the kind of poverty that exacerbated the problems during the hurricane that was a compelling part of the whole national discussion that has been important to talk about locally," Cory says.