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Post-Katrina, local charities expect broader distribution of pledges
By TIM KAUFFMAN
Last year, Hurricane Katrina had a significant effect on the Combined Federal Campaign. Employees and retirees contributed much more money than usual to national disaster groups, instead of to charities in their own communities. In the nation's capital alone, contributions to the national chapter of the American Red Cross were up an astounding 147 percent compared with the preceding year.
Nowhere was Katrina's impact felt more than in New Orleans, which had to delay its 2005 campaign until early this year because campaign organizers - not to mention most federal employees - had evacuated the area.
This year looks to be a return to normal for the annual charity fund-raiser, and that couldn't come as better news to Scott Shirai.
A chief organizer of the Denver CFC, Shirai spent the first two months of this year heading up the belated New Orleans campaign. Without Shirai, chances are there wouldn't have been a 2005 campaign in New Orleans, since the local CFC director decided not to return to the city following Katrina.
"In October and November, those employees who had started to return to New Orleans and those who were working at remote locations started asking the Federal Executive Board there how they could donate to the CFC campaign to help the local charities who had helped them," Shirai said. "The problem was, the person who had been in charge of the campaign decided to stay in Atlanta." .
Shirai volunteered his services, and the 2005 campaign was held in January and February. Although interest in giving was high, expectations for donations were not, especially since many employees were no longer in the area.
The giving far exceeded expectations, said Linda Steinhauser, who came on board late in the campaign as director of the Greater New Orleans CFC. About 2,000 people donated nearly $600,000. That's a higher average donation than typical for New Orleans, which was raising about $2 million from 9,000 donors before Katrina.
"We were totally amazed," Steinhauser said, adding she had to turn potential donors away after the campaign period ended. "There are so many people to thank, and I think that's the most important thing to say: Thank you." .
The top three recipients of donations from the 2005 campaign in New Orleans were the Southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross, the United Way of Greater New Orleans and the national American Red Cross chapter. Steinhauser said local residents felt strongly about donating to charities that helped them personally.
"We are contributing funds to charities that help federal workers. That's why these dollars are so important," she said.
The New Orleans campaign has set a goal of raising $1 million this year.
Across the country, CFCs reported larger donations than normal going to national charities involved in post-Katrina relief efforts. Washington employees donated 7.1 percent more to national charities than they did the previous year, while local groups got 3.8 percent less, according to the National Capital Area CFC's annual report.
The American Red Cross received 5.5 percent of all contributions to the National Capital Area CFC in 2005, up from 2.3 percent in 2004. The Red Cross received more than $3.1 million from the National Capital Area alone in 2005, up from $1.3 million the preceding year.
Hurricane Katrina "was clearly a factor in groups like the Red Cross and others getting more of a share of the campaign," said Anthony DeCristofaro, executive director of the National Capital Area CFC.
Seventy-one local CFC campaigns reported raising more than $2 million for Katrina victims, and 250 others planned to hold special fund-raisers, said Office of Personnel Management spokesman Peter Graves, in an e-mail response to questions. OPM administers the CFC campaign.
Barring another national disaster like Katrina, DeCristofaro and other CFC directors predict donations will be more evenly spread between local and national charities this year.
"I think the pendulum will swing back so more money will go to the local charities," Shirai said. As in Washington, Denver employees donated more to the national American Red Cross last year than any other charity.
2006 campaign under way.
Shirai returned to New Orleans in April and again last month to help train volunteers there for this fall's campaign, all the while preparing for the Denver campaign that began Sept. 5. Agencies schedule six-week campaigns any time from Sept. 1 through Dec. 15.
Despite the heightened awareness that Katrina brought to fund-raising efforts last year, Denver fell short of its fund-raising goal last year - although donations still increased slightly, to nearly $3.7 million.
Shirai said there are a host of challenges to increasing donations, most significantly the loss of federal employees to retirements and reductions in force. More than 1,500 federal employees in the Denver region are losing their jobs because of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission's decision to shut down the Defense Finance and Accounting Service at Buckley Air Force Base Annex.
"We're losing the older, boomer generation because of retirements and early outs that are being offered this year to a number of federal agencies," Shirai said. "We've been having trouble reaching the younger employees." .
For the third year, each employee who contributes to the CFC in Denver will receive a discount card with special deals year-round at area merchants. Shirai said the program has helped publicize the CFC throughout the year and has attracted new donors to the campaign.
Nationwide, fewer people are contributing to CFC, although the size of those contributions continues to rise. In 2005, civilian employees, postal workers and military members pledged a record-setting $268.5 million to the CFC, up $11.5 million from the preceding year.
Participation in the campaign declined each year for the past six years before stabilizing last year at 32 percent.
She said CFC is promoting the use of online giving to appeal to younger workers, although most donations still are made using the traditional paper process.
Officials found that the average per-capita gift from online donors was $225 more than the average for donors who pledged via paper methods, Graves said.
The national area campaign, which is one of the few campaigns approved by OPM to test online pledging, has bucked the national trend of a declining participation rate. During the past three years, participation increased from 43 percent to 47 percent, DeCristofaro said.
A five-minute video shown in agencies and at special events is a take on the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," while posters pay homage to such classic films as "The Sound of Music," "Rocky" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." .
"We want to connect to the people who gave to us last year, but we also want to connect to the younger donors." .
Karen Jowers contributed to this article.
E-mail: tkauffman@federaltimes.com
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