Ingram's December 2022

In a wide-ranging discussion that included perspectives from non-profit executives and board members, donors and volunteers, participants learned about current challenges confronting non-profits and explored deeper concerns about the way companies are engaging with civic and charitable causes, and the way they are engaging their employees. Part of what troubles the non-profit world today is grounded in what started nearly three years ago—the global pandemic. For a sector long reliant on relationships grounded in face-to-face contact—meetings with donors, big-ticket events like black-tie galas—the impact of social distancing and event cancellations was immediate, and painful, and those organizations are still recovering from the hangover.

“There clearly is a bigger need, with all that’s going on,” said Mick Haverty, the retired Kansas City Southern CEO. He and his wife, Marlys, joined Terry and Peggy Dunn at the lead table for the deliberations. Chris Rosson, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Kansas City, said after the disruption in fund-raising since 2020, “you see that coming back, right, but what you don’t necessarily see are the audiences coming back. But you do see the enthusiasm among folks across the community to see people in person.” Janet Baker, whose KC Shepherd’s Center serves older adults, said in-person programming was suspended for two years, including the 70 Over Seventy signature event. “We had to go virtual

for 2020 and 2021, which significantly decreased our fundraising potential.” This year, “we just returned to an in-per son gala in September and were actually thrilled with the results. We sold out the event, 450 people, and we exceeded our fund-raising goals.” Debby Ballard, who chairs the UMKC Board of Trustees, assessed the return of students to campus, “on the whole, things are going well because they were ready to come back and have that on-campus experience.” But things are different, she says, because of the different economic environment as students try to manage the challenges of higher living costs. Terry Dunn introduced the engage- ment issue and what he called “disen- gagement, in some cases.” How are orga nizations encouraging engagement? “I think it’s all based on folks finding impact; if you tell a good story and people see there is value in what you’re doing, I don’t think engagement is necessarily that difficult,” Ballard says. Gloria Jackson-Leathers, of the Kauf fman Foundation, said that “we saw during the pandemic, some organiza tions actually increased their impact with on-line services; they were able to continue and show some impact. We’re continuing to do a lot of virtual support, as well, because many organizations are continuing to do what we call hybrid operations. You have to be able to look at these organizations differently than you did before. And their staffing is different than it was before.” Staffing is a huge issue for non-profits, most around the table agreed. As a funder, said Chris Rosson, United Way made a big shift to give organiza tions more flexibility to work with the unrestricted grants they receive. “We’re still going to hold them to the highest standards of accountability in terms of outputs and impact,” he said, but when it comes to how those funds are used, that discretion is important for non-profits. Amy Allison, executive director at The Farmer’s House, said the organiza tion serving people with developmental disabilities had engaged young people, even if they weren’t ready for board-level

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1. Terry Dunn probed participants for their assessments of philanthropic engagement levels, especially by corporations. | 2. Mick Haverty said that, given the extraordinary events in recent years, the needs in the community had increased. | 3. Janet Baker said smaller non-profits have work to do to increase their proportions of individual donors. | 4. Students at UMKC were ready to return to campus after the worst of the pandemic passed, said Debby Ballard , but many have returned to difficult circumstances with some of the fallout across the economy.

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