ENSURE FINANCIAL SECURITY
 In 2004, the Okefenokee Area Council
took 12 months to raise $149,000. In
2007, the Georgia council had raised
$267,000 by May 1.
The secret? A fresh approach to
fund-raising built around a series of
community-oriented Golden Eagle
dinners. The council held three such
dinners in 2005, added a fourth the
following year, and will add two more
in 2008. “I call them community
celebrations of Scouting,” said Scout
Executive Michael Hartigan. “Local
people come to a local event chaired
by a local person with name
recognition.”
Each Golden Eagle dinner showcases
Scouting in the community. When
guests arrive, they encounter Boy
Scouts scaling a portable climbing
wall. During dinner, Cub Scouts visit
each table, thanking guests for their
support. The master of ceremonies, a
young Eagle Scout, tells the story of
Scouting and solicits pledges.
“You can’t help the cuteness factor,”
said Council Commissioner Charles
Laurens. “People are going to get out
their checkbooks when they see these
Cub Scouts.”
 Raising more money has let the
council improve unit service by filling
a long-vacant district executive
position and creating a satellite Scout
shop. Raising that money faster has let
volunteers and professionals focus on other priorities during the rest of the
year. “The fact that we aren’t spending
the whole year fund-raising has freed
up a significant amount of time for us
to concentrate on programming and
recruiting and all the other things that
make the program good,” Laurens said.
A good Scouting program has
prompted Ed Arnold to be a regular
contributor to the operating, capital,
and endowment campaigns of the
Pennsylvania Dutch Council. So
when Arnold announced that he and
his wife, Jeanne, wanted to make a
new endowment gift, Paul Ware
wasn’t surprised.
But the size of the new gift—$11
million—definitely surprised Ware, the
council’s endowment chair. “I didn’t
originally know they were thinking of
something at quite that level,” he said.
The Arnolds wanted income from their
gift to support three local councils
where their children live. To structure
the gift, Ware and Scout Executive Ed
Rasmuson relied on support from the
BSA National Foundation. “Anything a
charity can do to help donors simplify
their own planning is a good thing to
do,” Ware said.
Focusing on donors’ needs is a
hallmark of the council’s fund-raising
program, according to Vice President
for Development Craig Roda.
For example, the council’s annual
Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner
offers businesses several sponsorship
opportunities. “We’ve created different
sponsorship levels to tap into where
businesses would like to spend their
money so they can get the most out of
it,” Roda said.
The dinner includes a unique
connection to planned giving. Each
year’s dinner committee solicits
endowment gifts from individuals
who want to pay special tribute to the
honoree. At the end of 2007, those
gifts totaled $64,250.
The tradition started in 1998 when
two donors made endowment gifts in
tribute to Cardinal William Keeler, an
Eagle Scout from the council and that
year’s honoree. One of those donors,
not surprisingly, was Ed Arnold. |