CEO Corner with Dr. Celine Coggins 

Two Lessons from the Road 

Dear trusted friends and supporters of The Goodness Web, 

 

I joined The Goodness Web in the summer, a time when large meetings and events are minimal. With the transition to fall, my calendar transitioned to a life on the road. In the past few weeks, I’ve been in New York, DC, Dallas, Houston, and even Emigrant, Montana for work travel. I love getting to meet people who want to improve the same part of the world that I do—youth mental health. Each person has a story, and those stories are the fabric of our Web. 

 

Getting to meet so many of our donors and grantees in person for the first time really brought to life two pillars of TGW: (1) the power of human connection and (2) the importance of collaborative giving for nonprofits. 

 

The power of human connection. The trend lines on charitable giving should be deeply troubling to anyone who recognizes how much philanthropy is needed to drive improvement across a range of issues in American life. A recent study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found that “both the share of American households that donate to charity and the average donation to charity has declined steadily since the great recession. Less than half of households give, down from about 70% 20 years ago.” (More here). 

 

The study attributes some of the drop off in donations to declines in social trust and peer effects. But what happens when a member of your peer group goes out on a limb to rally others around an audacious vision? That’s what I was able to witness in my visit to Texas. In Dallas, I met with friends of our board member Karl Rathjen, and in Houston I met with friends (and family!) of founder Jan Swartz. I got to hear from others how inspired they were by the perseverance of both Karl and Jan on accelerating improvement on mental health. For many, that has translated to donations that allow TGW to support a growing group of grantees.

 

As we approach our event next week with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on the crisis of connection, getting to witness the power of human connection to motivate action has been moving for me personally.  

 

The importance of collaborative giving to nonprofits. I’ve run nonprofits for the last 16 years, and as such, am no stranger to how challenging and labor-intensive fundraising can be. However, to hear our mission reflected back to me by a current grantee was a lightbulb moment. I was talking with Bill Smith, founder and CEO of Inseparable, who reinforced our model saying, “We really need The Goodness Web’s model to succeed. We can’t do this alone.” He was referring to our ability to engage a large number of donors in a single grantmaking process. Instead of writing dozens of separate proposals and reporting back regularly to dozens of individual donors, we give him back time to pursue policy changes that drive dollars and mental health supports to young people. Our model allows him to hire a policy analyst or advocate instead of a development director, allowing Inseparable to execute on their mission at peak capacity. The average charitable gift in the United States is $27,200.1 The average TGW grant is well over $1 million. Great nonprofits like Inseparable need generous donors to give as a collective so they can focus on impact.

 

Onward together to do good, better, 

Celine and The Goodness Web team

 

 

1.     The NonProfit Times. (2023, September 27). Foundation giving strong in 2022, weakening in 2023 - The NonProfit Times. https://thenonprofittimes.com/npt_articles/foundation-giving-strong-in-2022-weakening-in 2023/#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%20grants%20made,their%20donations%20for%20specific%20purposes.