Website hopes to boost giving in Triangle
Leah Friedman
DURHAM - The Triangle is typically ranked as one of the best places to live and work.
But when it comes to charitable giving, the Triangle lags behind its peer metropolitan areas.
The Triangle Community Foundation hopes to change that this week.
On Thursday, the foundation will introduce a new Web site, called www.TriangleGivesBack.org. Like a dating service, it will make matches -- but it will match nonprofits with volunteers and donors.
The effort seeks to inspire individuals to give, but it will also target local corporations to increase their donations.
The Web site will allow volunteers and donors to type in key words, such as "children," "families" or "homeless." And they will be able to see profiles of nonprofit organizations that serve those communities.
Ryan Fehrman, executive director of Genesis Home, said it will help less-well-known organizations like his, which helps homeless families in Durham.
"Unless you are Big Brother, Big Sister or the United Way, most people probably haven't heard of you," Fehrman said.
It's no coincidence the Triangle Gives Back Web site is being launched as the bottom continues to fall out of the economy, said Andrea Bazan, director of the Triangle Community Foundation.
Nonprofit groups are in desperate need of money these days as the value of their endowments decrease, and donors have either stopped giving or significantly decreased their donations. The United Way, for example, announced last week it will distribute $6.8 million this year, about 10 percent less than last year's $7.5 million. Bazan said Triangle Community Foundation's endowment is down 17 percent.
It's not just money that nonprofit agencies need. Volunteers are needed, too, as the demand grows for the services these agencies provide.
"It's exactly the right time that people get involved," Bazan said.
The site was inspired by a report from UNC-Chapel Hill's Program on Public Life that showed the Triangle lags in giving, Bazan said.
The report says that, in comparison with peer metropolitan regions, "the Triangle has a rather shallow base of foundations and philanthropic assets." The report also says the Triangle's wealthiest neighborhoods in the central areas of the cities give a smaller portion of their earnings to charitable organizations than residents in outlying subdivisions and those with lower incomes.
The report said one cause of the low charitable giving is the transient nature of the area. Half of Triangle residents aren't from here, making it harder to create connections to the area's 5,200 nonprofit organizations. In addition, the report found that many of the area's largest businesses serve customers who are not located in the area, "thus removing a primary motivation for giving," the report stated.
Another factor is how spread out the Triangle is. Employees arrive every day at jobs in Research Triangle Park from numerous counties and cities. To support the communities of all their employees, companies would have to give to many communities, limiting their effectiveness in a single community, the report states.
Fehrman, of Genesis Home in Durham, said the number of people who used the 45 beds at his shelter increased from 8,333 in 2007 to 13,470 last year.
At the same time, individual donors to his organization started decreasing the amounts they gave.
Fehrman hopes the Web site will catch the eye of local corporations, particularly those that don't have United Way campaigns. Several local businesses, such as Burt's Bees, The Redwoods Group and GlaxoSmithKline, are involved in the launch.
"The folks doing it have contacts in the corporate community, and if those people make the calls, then I believe we will be successful," he said.
