Sustainability of Giving Circles: Part 1

By: Hannah Kim

In my previous post “From Concept to Practice”, I had raised the question of how exactly to mobilize capital and human resources to manage any tenant issues, attract and retain investors, manage investment funds, liaise with external partners, and take care of other administrative duties required to keep our Homeless Sponsorship Model flowing continuously.

Indeed, one of our major challenges with the model is covering the administrative costs of implementing the client selection → housing → job placement → self-sustainability process.

According to Bearman’s report for the Forum of Regional Association of Grantmakers (“More Giving Together: The Growth and Impact of Giving Circles and Shared Giving”, p.16), administrative costs of running giving circles can be funded by various external sources, including donations and grants from local community foundations. However, report findings suggest that external grants and donations are not very sustainable.

Another way of covering administrative overhead is requesting giving circle members to contribute additional funds just for that purpose. Of course, keep in mind long-running giving circles’ learning that members are much more hesitant to see their contributions going towards administrative costs than directly to the social cause (p.18).

The challenge of addressing administrative issues is one already brought up by a representative of SHARE Family & Community Services at the Tri-Cities Homelessness Task Group meeting on July 10, 2009. Watch for further posts on our progress in overcoming this challenge!