Compassion Fatigue?

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By Janis Dice

Some nights, Judy Fong Heary can’t sleep, worrying about needy people she might not be able to serve if local funding is swept away by the response to Hurricane Katrina. As donations shift from community causes to the nation’s largest natural disaster area, Heary, executive director of Asian Pacific Community Counseling, knows funding for the nonprofit’s substance-abuse, interpreter and mental-health programs could disappear with the 175-mph winds. Comment on this story.
     “We were just building up our donor base, so I don’t know where we’re going to stand after we see the impact of Katrina,” Heary says of the agency that serves the Sacramento region’s Asian and Pacific Islander population. “Our goal is to prosper in times of government cutbacks and natural disasters, so we need the capacity to fund our own services through niche markets, through people who are advocates of social justice and equal access to health services.”
     Assisted by Paula Chiarmonte, managing consultant of the Sacramento office of Skystone Ryan, a national fundraising and consulting firm, APCC recently assessed its board development and created a blueprint for fund-ing campaigns to help the young organization grow in the right direction. The plan is to solicit individuals.
     “Major gift and planned giving fundraising are the greatest inadequacies of most small- to medium-sized nonprofits,” Chiarmonte suggests. “Almost 85 percent of all philanthropic contributions in 2004 came from private individuals, not from corporations, governments or foundations. Wealthy individuals are where the money is, and nonprofits have to come to grips with that. And board members need to do face-to-face solicitations.”

Generous Is as Generous Does
Chiarmonte says this is a great time for seeking financial support, as the recent catastrophes are raising the social consciousness of generous contributors. 
     But Heary notes that numerous natural disasters around the globe are creating “compassion fatigue,” with donors overwhelmed by the massive need. “They start asking themselves, ‘How do I know I’m really making a difference?’ ”
Continued...

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