Each fall for the past 10 years, Susan Hitchcock, community affairs manager for Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., has found herself in the role of chief fundraiser.
As campaign manager for her company’s Community Health Charities of New England (CHCofNE) campaign, Hitchcock oversees the education, solicitation and donor tracking for more than 18,000 Sikorsky employees, across nine core worksite locations, during a one-month period.
While the company’s campaign planning and execution relies on a team of more than 20 Sikorsky employees, during solicitation season, Hitchcock’s biggest assist may come from the company’s computers. That’s because, since 2004, Sikorsky has run its campaign online, a strategy that, Hitchcock notes, has increased participation and total dollars raised.
In fact, of the $750,000 that Sikorsky raised last year, more than 95 percent was pledged online, helping to support member charities like the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and Special Olympics.
“Since making the campaign available online, we’ve increased total giving every single year,” Hitchcock said. To encourage online giving — and ensure access for all employees — Sikorsky even sets up on-site computer kiosks during the campaign.
Online giving, of course, is nothing new, but it has become more important to larger fundraising organizations like CHCofNE, as donors have come to expect online giving options. In fact, according to BlackBaud’s 2010 Online Giving Report, online donations to large non-profits ($10 million and up) in 2010 were up 55 percent from the previous year.
It’s a trend that Community Health Charities understands, as it looks to promote online campaigns at its more than 100 workplace campaigns throughout New England. In Connecticut, explained Amy Murphy, CHCofNE’s regional director, only about 25 percent of the organization’s campaigns are exclusively online.
“Those are figures we expect to increase as well as we incorporate online giving into new and existing corporate partner campaigns,” said Gary Kozak, president of CHCofNE, which raised $9.7 million last year to support 45 heath and disability related charities in New England.
One of the key benefits of online campaigns, Kozak said, is cost-savings, a must for nonprofit organizations in the current economy. “Our online campaigns save us thousands of dollars annually in printing costs for pledge cards, brochures and hard copy materials,” he noted, “that’s money that can be better used by our member charities in the community.”
At Sikorsky, Hitchcock likes knowing her company’s online campaign will help pass more dollars to the charities. But she finds the time she and her team save the biggest benefit to the online experience, which in addition to pledging options, includes campaign education such as podcasts, videos and weekly messages. “We have drastically reduced the time it takes to facilitate the campaign because we don’t have to distribute materials and [donor tracking] reporting is handled by the system,” she said.
And for Sikorsky Aircraft and CHCofNE, online giving is just the beginning. Last year, the company piloted a text-to-give mobile phone option in its campaign, which is being rolled out to the rest of Sikorsky’s divisions this year. It seems like an appropriate option for a company — and a campaign coordinator — on the move.
Grant targets literacy
Everybody Wins! CT, a children’s literacy mentoring program targeting at-risk and underperforming students, has been awarded a $70,000 grant from The Travelers Cos. Inc. for its Power Lunch and Readers As Leaders programs at Betances Early Reading Lab School in Hartford.
The Power Lunch program matches adults with elementary school students for one-on-one reading-based mentoring. Volunteers from Travelers have helped over 800 Hartford public school students struggling with reading at grade level since 1999. Last school year, 79 volunteers from Travelers gave individualized attention to over 80 first through fourth graders at Betances Early Reading Lab School.
Readers As Leaders promotes leadership and literacy in older students by pairing them with kindergarten and first grade students as cross-age peer reading mentors and role models.
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66 receive grants
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has made $450,000 in grants to 66 social service agencies providing basic human needs. The grants range from $2,000 to $15,000. The Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation provided $335,000 of the funds.
The Hartford Foundation grants, which include awards to dozens of agencies in suburban communities, mirror a study by the Brookings Institution which reported that, “In the wake of the Great Recession, demand is up significantly for the typical suburban provider, and almost three-quarters of suburban nonprofits are seeing more clients with no previous connection to safety net programs.”
Agencies receiving funds are located in Avon, Bloomfield, East Hartford, Enfield, Hartford, Manchester, Newington, Rocky Hill, Simsbury, Vernon, West Hartford and Wethersfield. Many of the agencies provide services on a regional basis.
In 2010, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving awarded grants of more than $29 million to a broad range of area nonprofit organizations.
