By Nancy Jamison
The San Diego Union-Tribune
October 6, 2008 

We are in the epicenter of a “perfect storm” of challenges for San Diego nonprofits and their constituencies. The economic news is dire and financial and corporate losses make headlines daily, leading to a decreased capacity on the part of foundations, corporations and individuals to provide donations from their shrinking assets.

In addition, this year marked the longest delay in an approved budget in California's history. Without a state budget in place, many social service agencies had to find ways to keep serving children and families without the government revenue they rely on to keep their operations running.

Therefore, just as demand for many nonprofit services is going up, charitable donations are at risk of going down and government support has been constrained. A perfect storm is raging, particularly for the people who have lost their jobs, homes, or are unable to afford food, health care and other basics.

This all makes the focused and effective use of philanthropic resources more critical than ever to the health and well-being of our region. Actually, all San Diegans benefit from local nonprofits.

We learn from museums, go to hospitals when we are ill and take our kids to after-school recreation centers. During emergencies, like last year's wildfires, we relied heavily on groups such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army and 211 San Diego.

While those are a few of the high-profile names, there are in fact more than 9,000 nonprofits, large and small, working to make our lives better in many different ways – helping foster children, conducting scientific research, developing affordable housing, sponsoring music programs in schools, protecting the environment, along with so many other worthwhile causes.

The charitable foundations and corporations that engage in what is referred to as “organized philanthropy” or “grant-making” are important leaders in supporting our nonprofit sector. To understand the role of this kind of philanthropy in San Diego, San Diego Grantmakers and the University of San Diego's Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research recently released the county's first report on the state of organized philanthropy here – The Grantmaking Report: Foundation and Corporate Giving in the San Diego Region.

One of the things we learned from the research is that while private and community foundation assets have grown over the last few years, the pool of grant-making dollars available locally to support San Diego nonprofits is still small relative to their needs. San Diego's foundation asset pool is dramatically smaller than in San Francisco or Los Angeles, or even cities of comparable size elsewhere.

Philanthropic growth has been in small family foundations and donor-advised funds located at our community foundations – representing individuals, not large organizations akin to a Ford or Rockefeller Foundation. How can we best support and expand this very personal philanthropy?

More than half of the private foundation grants received in San Diego come from foundations located elsewhere. What can be done to further develop the kind of dynamic, innovative nonprofit sector that would attract even more philanthropic investment from outside – inspiring the “kindness of strangers”?

Some geographic areas of the county see greater foundation and corporate giving than others. Are there ways to better spread the wealth?

While this study looked at the giving of a number of very generous large corporations, San Diego is mainly home to small and medium-sized companies. How can we encourage smaller businesses, particularly in some of our growth industries, to participate in corporate philanthropy – of dollars, employee volunteerism and products – as an integral part of their culture?

The bottom line is that we must support and inspire philanthropic organizations and individuals to use their money wisely to address the most pressing local needs. At San Diego Grantmakers, we do this in a number of ways. For example, we enable funders to combine forces through collaborations built around shared funding priorities so they can better leverage their impact (e.g., homelessness, work force development, child welfare). We also educate San Diego businesses on how to manage successful corporate-giving programs to benefit both their bottom line and the community at large.

While not the subject of the report, it is also clear that nonprofits themselves must identify ways to do more with less. Doug Sawyer, the president and chief executive officer of United Way, has said it is not enough to bring in more money; we must ensure that those resources are used strategically. In the nonprofit world, strategic alliances, partnerships, back-office consolidations and possibly even mergers should be on the table – just like they are on Wall Street.

Since we all have a vested interest in a strong, healthy San Diego nonprofit sector, we all must pay attention to this recent research on philanthropy – and act on it. In the current economic environment, the stakes are too high to let this report and its implications for action sit on a shelf.

It seems that the words of Nkosi Johnson, a Zulu boy born into dire poverty who died of AIDS at the age of 12, are relevant: “Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.” This is our time, and San Diego is our place. Let's do all we can with what we have.

Jamison is executive director of San Diego Grantmakers, a membership association of 90 philanthropic organizations with a mission to connect, educate, develop and inspire a diverse group of foundations and corporations to stimulate effective philanthropy in the San Diego region.

Online: The research report cited is available for download at sdgrantmakers.org. Or contact report@sdgrantmakers.org.