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WELCOME to the Web site for Lutheran and other Christian fundraising and communication professionals.
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With great pleasure ALDE invites you to participate in the
ALDE Awards for Excellence in Philanthropy.
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As an ALDE member, you have the opportunity to nominate a colleague for one of ALDE's prestigious awards:
- Spirit of Giving
- Outstanding Executive
- Virgil Anderson
- Outstanding Chapter Leader
- Jay Bleeke
All award winners will be honored this year at the
2009 International Educational Conference in Austin, Texas
Feb. 22-25, 2009.
ALDE’s Recognition Committee depends on the thoughtful and detailed input of members like you in order to select the most deserving recipients. If you know an individual whose skill, commitment, and selflessness have significantly impacted your community or organization, please consider nominating him/her for an ALDE Award for Excellence in Philanthropy.
Thank you in advance
for your nominations and participation in
the ALDE Awards for Excellence in Philanthropy!
Click here for more information about the awards and to submit nominations.
Submit nomination form and essay responses by December 1, 2008.
Maximize Feedback, Maximize Efficiency of Resources, Maximize Giving - Part Two
This is the second part of an article about a presentation give by John List, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. The presentation was given at the Chicago/WALDE Fall Conference, October 8, 2008. (Read Part One.)
The research that has been performed by List, his assistants/students and his partner for some projects, Dean Karlan, as discussed in the Leonhardt article, can prove useful for those involved with faith-based fundraising. It can help development professionals gain a much clearer picture of what makes individuals give.
The breadth of List’s research – even though relatively in its infancy – is great, and so not all of it can be covered in depth here. (For the sake of brevity, research may be called “List’s research,” but this is not meant to discount the contributions made by his assistants and associates.)
 List explained a number of his research findings, many of which may literally prove to be applicable to ALDE members when the religious components of the research are completed.
One manner of fundraising appeal considered by List was that of “seed money” – where a fundraiser or organization says a donor has given a certain amount of money, and then the charity asks others to give because this donor has done so. Seed money was found to be effective, with more and more people giving to the charity as the level of seed money increased. List said this could be because a greater seed amount may make the charity appear to be of higher quality to potential donors.
In his overall experiments, List found that for the organizations for which he was working, money given upfront by a big donor was most effectively utilized in the form of seed money.
List also studied the effects of a matching gift on giving. One might rationally assume that giving based on a matching grant would follow the traditional model of private good consumption. That is, when the “price” of giving decreases, the rate and amount of giving increases – meaning a donor can give $100 while only “spending” $50 with a 1:1 match or $150 while spending just $50 with a 2:1 match, and so would give more if more can be purchased. However, it was found that this was not the case.
Maximize Feedback, Maximize Efficiency of Resources, Maximize Giving - Part One
What happens when one of the most promising young economists in the discipline turns his focus to the world of giving? He provides those in development with notable results and valuable insights.
John List, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, did just that on October 8, 2008, when he spoke about the “Economics of Charity” at the Chicago/WALDE Fall Conference held at Concordia University Chicago.
List’s plenary speech was especially noteworthy due to his experience in economic research and advisement. In the March 9, 2008 article, “What Makes People Give,” from The New York Times Magazine, David Leonhardt wrote about List and his research.
“By 2004,” Leonhardt said, “[List] had become known as a dedicated researcher – a workaholic, even – and was emerging as the star of a growing little corner of the field, the economics of philanthropy.”
List has advised organizations such as the Sierra Club and Smile Train, and also served as Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors for Environmental and Resource Economics. Furthermore, List accepts no payment for his services, only requesting that the data he gleans may be used for scholarly papers and research.
The presentation at Concordia University began with an overview of giving in the United States. It provided background that proved useful to members of ALDE, especially in the current economic times. List said time series show that there have not been many decreases in giving during times of economic downturn and recession. Giving is not cyclical, like the business cycle, and it may be dampened by religious gifts, List believes, because of the reasons people give donations. What’s more, he said religious giving may not be as hard-hit by the current downturn as other giving, again because of the motives donors have for giving. List said, for the time being, this was only based on intuition, but that he believed his conjectures would be validated as he received data over the next few weeks and months. Some of the religious giving findings should soon be made available on the Web site, http://www.fieldexperiments.com/.
 ALDE members may access a new membership benefit. Podcasts of some highly rated sessions from the 2008 International Education Conference in Chicago, as well as other events, are now available online for you to stream or download.
To access these podcasts, log in and then go to the Education>Podcasts Tab. This will allow you to select from all available podcasts, including Chicago 2008. Also under the Education>Podcasts tab is an option for only Chicago 2008 Conference Podcasts.
If you prefer links, go here for all podcasts, or here to specifically access Chicago files, and then log in.
ALDE is pleased to announce it has received a grant from the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation in support of its College 2 Career initiative. This partnership has led to the development of the College 2 Career – Thrivent Fellows Program. The project will identify and recruit from Lutheran colleges a young, talented, and diverse future workforce for the profession of faith-based charitable giving. Through quality internships, ongoing educational opportunities, and mentoring, participants will graduate with a realistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities of resource development, a support network of ALDE professionals who are dedicated to helping them succeed in their new career, and an understanding of stewardship that they will translate to their own congregations and institutions. Paging - Page: 1 of 2
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