Donations to charities fund off

Donations are down this year to Catholic Charities’ annual Christmas Collection, the nonprofit’s biggest fund-raiser and a major source of income for the services that help thousands of needy people in Eastern Washington.

Tsunami relief efforts aren’t diverting from the Christmas Collection, according to officials; it’s a number of other factors, including the Diocese of Spokane’s recent filing for bankruptcy protection.

Catholic Charities is separately incorporated from the diocese, which means that any money given to the nonprofit will not be used to pay attorneys or the cost of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

But confusion still abounds, said Donna Hanson, director of Catholic Charities. Whenever she visits area parishes, the most frequent question she has to answer is, “How can I make sure the money I give to Catholic Charities will be spent on social services?”

Hanson reassures them that Catholic Charities has its own board of directors, files its own 990-form with the IRS and has its own audit. It has been a separate corporation since the 1940s, she said, and has contracts with various governmental agencies.

According to the charity, 96 percent of the funds raised for the Christmas Collection go directly to its 12 programs that serve the needy. The remaining 4 percent is spent on printing, postage and advertising.

So far, the annual Christmas Collection has raised $517,802 – about $157,000 short of its goal. Although the average gift amount has increased to $150 compared with this same time period last year, the number of donors has decreased by 320 people.

On Friday, Catholic Charities mailed a second appeal for contributions to more than 9,500 households in Eastern Washington that have given to the nonprofit in the past.

A $50 donation goes a long way, Hanson said. That amount provides shelter to one homeless man at the House of Charity for a week. It’s also enough money to fund one day’s stay for an entire family at St. Margaret’s, which offers housing and parenting classes to women with children.

Hanson doesn’t think the dip in donations has been caused by the response to tsunami relief efforts in South Asia. She said many of the 373 donors who have given nearly $75,000 to Catholic Relief Services through the Catholic Charities office in Spokane have also donated to the Christmas Collection.

Besides the misunderstanding over the diocese’s bankruptcy filing, a number of factors such as the poor economy and the increasing requests for donations from numerous charities may have discouraged people from giving to the Christmas Collection, she said.

Hanson thinks donors also tend to mix up the annual Christmas Collection with the newspaper’s Christmas Bureau, which is managed by employees at Volunteers of America and Catholic Charities. Funds given to the Christmas Bureau allow families to celebrate Christmas, but donations to the Christmas Collection are used for Catholic Charities services throughout the year. Despite the name, donations to the Christmas Collection come as late as the fall of the following year.

Although Catholic Charities holds other fund-raisers such as the Poor Man’s Meal in October and the Bishop’s Dinner in May, none comes close to the funds usually raised by the Christmas Collection. If met, this year’s goal of $675,000 would comprise a significant portion of Catholic Charities’ annual budget of $5.1 million.

Every year, the charity helps tens of thousands of homeless mothers and children, transient men, senior citizens and the developmentally disabled. More than 80 percent of the people who benefit from Catholic Charities’ services aren’t Catholic.

“I think when people know specifically what the needs are, they respond generously,” Hanson said.