Feature
How Women Give:
Lesbians and Philanthropy
How Women Give:
Lesbians and Philanthropy
by Heather K. Peake
Women now account for between 50 and 60 percent of the wealth in the United States. Female-owned companies generate $2.3 trillion worth of business every year. Given their longer lifespan, analysts project that women inherit the bulk of some $10 trillion that will pass to them from parents and spouses.
This shift in the distribution of wealth has changed the face of philanthropy in America. “Gone are the days when women’s philanthropy referred only to the sweet dears who ran the school auction or gussied up for the charity ball,” noted Time reporter Tamala Edwards in a 1999 article. While voluntarism is still an important aspect of women’s contribution to charity, more and more, their influence is felt through the power of the purse. In a survey of 1,000 women in 1998, 76 percent said they had given to charity during the year. The size of gifts given by women is growing at a rate four times faster than those of men.
One radical change can be seen in the explosion of women’s funds – foundations that act as grant-making organizations for community-based projects designed to benefit women and girls – over the past two decades. In 1979, there were only five such funds in the United States. Today, there are 95. Many funds hold millions of dollars in permanent endowments. Last year alone, the Vermont Women’s Fund, with permanent holdings in excess of $1 million, gave out $50,000 worth of grants to 20 separate projects statewide.
In 1997, the Women’s Funding Network, a coalition of more than 70 funding agencies, commissioned a study of women’s giving habits. This report was called the Donor Research and Marketing Project, or DRMP, and constituted the first wide-scale look at the way women make their charitable decisions. But WFN decided to go one step further, and study a group that had never before been considered. With a grant from the Gill Foundation, they contacted a market-research group called Ordinary Magic to launch the Lesbian Donor Research Project, or LDRP.
Through focus groups, in-depth phone interviews, and a lengthy mail survey conducted in the spring and summer of 1997, Ordinary Magic constructed a portrait of a dynamic community of women, one that defied easy pigeonholing. Their reasons for giving or not giving to women’s funds were as varied as their personalities. In the broadest sense, this mirrored the finding of the heterosexual DRMP study, but a closer look at the data illustrated a distinctly different pattern in the underlying attitudes of lesbians toward individual issues and in their perception of their place in the philanthropic world.
One major goal of the WFN was to test women’s familiarity with funding organizations in general. Respondents in the LDRP study showed a high awareness of women’s funds serving lesbian needs. Almost everyone could identify the big national funds like Astraea and An Uncommon Legacy. Only about 45 percent, however, could name a local women’s fund, and 40 percent said they weren’t sure there was even a fund in their area. The report suggested that the data may be somewhat skewed, since “many non-donor lesbians don’t think of funds that exclusively serve lesbians as ‘women’s funds.’”
When it came to motivation, “reasons cited by lesbians for giving to women’s funds were not dissimilar from other women donors. However, the importance of commitment to ethnic and cultural diversity – including sexual orientation – was much greater for the lesbian respondents, while personal involvement was less important.” Like heterosexual respondents, belief in the organization’s mission was far and away the strongest factor, cited by 75 percent of in both studies. But while 38 percent of the LDRP participants cited commitment to cultural/ethnic diversity as a key factor, only 23 percent of DRMP participants felt the same.
Asked specifically which kinds of GLBT causes were likely to receive their contributions, LDRP participants listed civil rights (70 percent), social policy and legal projects (40 percent), arts and culture (39 percent), HIV/AIDS (36 percent), political candidates/campaigns (35 percent) and youth programs (33 percent). The drop in HIV/AIDS funding follows the national trend “It’s seen now as a chronic disease,” one focus group participant said. “We’ve stopped losing our friends.” Another commented that contributions had dropped because of a lack of reciprocity: “We are giving to gay men’s health issues, but they aren’t giving to ours.”
Differences were also noted in the reasons given by LDRP non-donors and DRMP non-donors. Thirty percent of lesbian non-donors cited “lack of financial resources,” compared to only 20 percent of DRMP non-donors. Interestingly, about 30 percent of both groups said they hadn’t given because they hadn’t been asked. Since all participants in the LDRP study were contacted via the mailing lists of several national funds, they “had, in fact, received some type of solicitation. This would indicate that these lesbians either weren’t asked in a way to which they could relate, or that the ask itself (the message) was not powerful enough to be remembered.”
The study found it interesting that such a high percentage of respondents would cite limited means, since the total annual income of LDRP participants was only marginally lower than their DRMP counterparts. This issue was discussed in focus groups. “Why don’t lesbians give?” one woman commented. “Lesbians don’t believe they can give. With gay males, money is in their lifestyles.” Another said: “Lesbians may be nervous about giving because they’ll be hassled. I’ve been through this. They are closeted about having money.” Another voiced concern about privacy issues: “I think more lesbians don’t give to our own causes because they are afraid of being ‘outed,’ especially on the job. They are afraid they will end up on some list and be flooded with mail.”
Like many DRMP non-donors, LDRP non-donors felt it more important to donate their time rather than money. “Not having great wealth,” one participant said, “my time is what I value. I would write a check to PBS because I watch it, but it’s not near and dear to my heart. I wouldn’t give them my time. If it’s near and dear to me, I will give up time off from work, or a day’s pay. I will do whatever they think they need. If it’s gathering names, I will do that.”
Respondents to the written survey generally reported donations in the previous calendar year of between $100-500; 52 percent said they were planning to increase their contributions over the next five years. Interviewees known to be major donors listed gifts in the $5,000 to $1 million range. Several donors had made multiple gifts of $10,000 to $50,000 each.
Lesbian donors were much more likely to give through the purchase of tickets to special events – 53 percent of respondents versus 44 percent of DRMP donors. The study concluded that “the importance and role of this social link for lesbians should not be underestimated: regardless of they type of major gift – an annual gift, capital, etc. – three-quarters of them were solicited or cultivated through social events. For these lesbian donors, the lesbian/gay receptions, dances, and dinners were important points of entry into the world of philanthropy. Several mentioned the fun of dressing up and the specialness of being with other lesbians and gay men.”
Public recognition was another factor in contributions. Nearly 42 percent of participants were partnered. “It meant a lot that somewhere in print we’re together,” said one interviewee. Lack of recognition could have an equally strong impact. “My first donation, after I started working, was to my college, which had meant a lot to me,” explained another. “I always gave each year, until they wouldn’t list my name with my partner’s. I haven’t given again.”
After the initial survey was complete, Ordinary Magic went back to 153 participants in all phases of the study with a “test message” survey. Like DRMP respondents, lesbians proved receptive to a clear presentation of facts and figures combined with a concrete set of goals to attack the problem; they eschewed sentimentality and manipulation.
The report also mentions several issues unique to the lesbian community – first and foremost, how hard it can be to reach them. Their mailing lists came from Astraea and An Uncommon Legacy – more than 5,000 names altogether. But many local lesbian funds don’t have the type of resources to compile lists, and non-lesbian funds may run into privacy issues by coding their databases by sexual preference.
It also makes the point that while the lesbian community does not have a single profile, they have some core similarities. Organizations need to learn to address the concerns of the lesbians without pandering to stereotypes. They need to articulate how much they value lesbians by treating them as valued members of the team, either as staff, board members or volunteers. And funds have to be prepared to deliver their pro-lesbian message over a long period of time before really reaping the rewards.
The report closed with the following anecdote: “Nothing could have more eloquently reinforced the notion that every gift is important than the response of one anonymous test message participant. Her survey indicated that she is over the age of 55 with annual household income of less than $10,000. She considers herself neither a donor nor a philanthropist. Yet tucked inside her survey were three one-dollar bills to ‘help us with our important work.’”
A resident of Vermont for most of her life, Heather Peake now lives in Sedona, AZ.