Philanthropy Has Seen Better Days

U.S. charity has stumbled along with the economy. From food pantries on up, contributions have diminished, just when they're needed most

Donations are down at the BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger's food pantry in Brooklyn, N.Y.

by Tatyana Gershkovich

The idea for "Philanthropy Has Seen Better Days" came from Sarah Hoddinott. A non-profit fundraising expert and social media enthusiast, Sarah is a product manager at Advanced Solutions International. She resides in the Washington, D.C. area.

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It's called a food pantry, but a scarcity of goods is taking over the shelves. Despite the efforts of the nonprofit BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger, which runs the Brooklyn (N.Y.) pantry, there's no pasta, milk, or orange juice, and almost no meat. A few sacks of yellow onions represent the only produce, and a dozen or so packages of ham in a refrigerated cooler will be gone within hours, says program coordinator Tamara Dawson. The money ran out last winter, so there's no shopping to be done either.

In March, the pantry fed 5,500 people. By April, that number grew to 7,500. Some 800 others have been turned away in recent months. "I have people coming up to me asking me: 'What happened here?'" says the Reverend Melony Samuels, the project's executive director. This nonprofit, like so many others that serve social needs, is caught in the grip of a classic economic squeeze: As the economy continues to sour, the demands on social service organizations have increased at the very time that its supply of funding from donors is dropping.

Falling Way Short

Consumers are confronting higher prices for utilities, gas, and groceries, which in turn boosts demand—at the same time resources are scant. Meanwhile, the national ranks of the jobless are growing, with the U.S. unemployment rate jumping from 5% to 5.5% in May alone. The food pantry's grocery funds are depleted, and the project's effort to raise money through word of mouth, letters, and flyers hasn't yielded much of a response from the community, says Samuels. The monthly cost to provide food for all who come to the BedStuy pantry is $38,000, but in recent months the nonprofit has fallen short of that mark by approximately $10,000, according to Samuels. Carlos Rodriguez, vice-president for the Food Bank for New York City, an umbrella organization that helps supply the BedStuy Campaign, says food donations are likely to fall 53% this fiscal year. Its fund-raising has not kept pace with the increased demand for help.

Nationwide, organizations that help the disadvantaged with basic food and shelter are facing larger demands. The Salvation Army has seen many new faces—often people who were once labeled "middle class"—seeking help in Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio, and other states. Calls for Salvation Army assistance with shelter in Arizona have increased by 60%, and food requests in Southern California are up by 50%.

"Our Christmas fund-raising held strong, but after the New Year we started seeing things start to unravel," says Major George Hood, a Salvation Army spokesman. He added that even the economic turbulence following September 11 didn't precipitate such a tremendous decline in donations: "It has been a long time since things have been this bad. I haven't seen these kinds of declines in the past eight years."

Depending on Individuals

The pain is likely to be visited first, and most harshly, on organizations that provide direct human service—food and shelter, says Richard Marker, a philanthropy adviser and New York University professor. Such nonprofits depend on individual donors and have virtually no corporate support, according to Marker. As a result, they're affected as soon as people begin feeling financially insecure.