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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s september eleventh that’s always a touchy day for me, which makes it me especially glad that you’re with me, i’d bear the pain of otitis media if i had to hear that you missed today’s show the nine eleven giving effect. Christine cronin, president of n y charities dot org’s is with me to discuss the first online giving responses to the attacks what’s changed as a result, lessons learned about responsiveness and collaboration and the future of the donate now button. And david campbell, associate professor of public administration and department chair at binghamton university, he has first hand experience from his work as vice president at community service society and why, see, on september eleven, two thousand one, we talked about his opinion piece from two thousand eleven in the chronicle of philanthropy. The lessons of nine eleven philanthropy those two interviews air from non-profit radio on september ninth, two thousand eleven. Then christine cronin joins me live to share her reaction to what she said four years ago, and consider whether nine eleven still impacts giving on tony’s take two. Where were you on september eleventh? We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing dot com let’s get started with the nine eleven giving effect here’s christine cronin with me in the studio now is christine cronin. She led the creation and launch of charity wave dot com, which was one of the internet’s first e-giving sites started in nineteen ninety nine and as a result, she was on the front line of e-giving on september eleventh, two thousand one, she has worked in washington d c including as national president of women’s equity action league, which led the successful passage of title nine originating sports equity for women. Christine is now president of n y charities dot or ge. And i’m very glad that her work from september eleventh and today brings it to the studio. Christine conan, welcome. Hi, tony. How are you, it’s? A pleasure to have you. What was the state of e-giving in two thousand won? Well, right from the start, which i got involved in nineteen, ninety nine people were very cautious about using their credit cards online and so the ones who were who had even been there yet were what i would call the early adapters. So people who are always the first to do everything and and i also noticed that a lot of credit cards were being used because of awards and points. And so people love switching from check writing to credit card use for philanthropy because it allowed them to collect more points that charitable pursuits the thousand dollar gift gets me a thousand miles. So that was actually a help to getting app getting use of cards online. Absolutely. And i still see that today with our clients, people who want to do gif ts in the five and six figures by credit card for all those valuable points you were at charity wave tell us about charity wave. This was on september eleventh, two thousand one tells about charity wave. Well, justice charitable giving is often a small project within any company. Charity wave was built at the instigation of the chairman of a computer encryption firm called wave systems and the chairman who his name, peter sprague and he’s, the former chairman of national semiconductor. For thirty years, i wanted to use his fledgling e commerce infrastructure for charitable giving, but nobody in his company, which was scientists computer geeks, you know, really understood what he was talking about. And so he was helicopter skiing with a mutual friend one day, and he said, i want to use my e commerce infrastructure, charitable giving nobody understands what i want to do, and my mutual friends said, i think i know someone who would understand and of course, a lot of my background was non-profit so they called me from the mountain, and they said, would you meet? And i said yes and that’s how it all began, okay? And then, well, let me remind listeners that we’re live tweeting and the hashtag to follow is non-profit radio hashtag non-profit radio and just to sort of set the scene for moving us to september eleventh, i was monitoring a chat small non-profit chat, which is hashtag sm and pee chat, and i was not just monitoring, but i was on that this morning run by pamela grow and you can follow pamela on twitter, using that name at pamela grow and one of the quotes that i was really poignant to. Me was from someone who said he was in the tenth grade. And on september eleventh, casey deal away. He’s at k c, j, d and he said, you know, a tenth grade, just trying to figure out what it all meant september eleventh what? What was the charity wave response was immediate? You were up that afternoon, right? Tell us that. I know, and it actually wasn’t me who was the original instigator. We were a cz much in shock as everybody else in new york city, and we actually were at fifty seventh and sixth avenue, and i look down, you could see everybody walking because public transportation had stopped and everybody was silent and we were glued in front of a television, and suddenly a young staff person turned to me, and he said we should set up an emergency relief site, and i just stared at him for several seconds because never in my wildest imagination had i thought i would ever set up an emergency relief site for new york city, and we were already working very closely with united way international. So we were handling charitable giving two disasters all over the world for united way international. And yet this was still just such a stunning concept to me. But then i realized he was right, and i called our engineers, who were based in massachusetts and where our servers were, which were completely safe, and everybody just jumped on the idea, and we had a sight up that afternoon with united way international. So you pulled yourselves away from what everybody else was watching toe actually dig into work, right? It was up that afternoon, you know? And what was the what was the first response i know in the first few days or a week? Well, it was interesting that evening, i was still at the office, and i just wrote an email and i said at this time of, you know, profound tragedy, you know, i just want you to know that we’ve set up an emergency relief site for washington, new york and pennsylvania, and one hundred percent of your gifts will go two victims of these tragedies and what really surprised me because i think many of us did not know that the phones were down and we were so swept up in watching television and in the in the moment that we didn’t realize the phones were ringing and people all over the world because i wrote to everyone in my address book, people all over the world wrote back, and their first words were, thank god you’re alive because no one could reach any of us, and we didn’t even know that i mean, it had just went past us, but then immediately the gifts started coming in, people were desperate to do something, and the gifts came in from all over the world all over the world, and we are going to talk a little about the international response you got. But so even that afternoon and that evening, gifts were coming in. Yes, you have to take a break with christine cronin. We’re talking about the nine eleven effect she’s, the president of my charity’s dot or ge take a break and stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website. Philanthropy. Dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, you can join us on twitter the the hashtag to follow is non-profit radio if you’d like tio call and talk to christine kronen were at eight seven seven for eight o for one two oh eight, seven, seven, four ito for one two oh, from the small non-profit chat that i joined earlier this afternoon earlier this morning, this came from amy cept. She said, my stomach still drops thinking of nine eleven. Amy cept is at nim beust. And i am b y christine cronan is with me and she’s, the president of n y charities dot organ had direct firsthand experience on september eleventh. Christine, um, we talked just briefly, but what? I want to get into this a little about the international response that you got from from charity wave what was happening? It was amazing because we were affiliated by the next day with the new york times nine eleven fund and united way international. I mean, we were seen as a very serious player in the e philanthropy space. And so people wrote to us from all over. The world and we were in the new york times every single day as part of their giving campaign, because i just want to clear united way as well as new york times media’s giving right was need e-giving cases was where the charities you had started with, right? Right? Well, i called jack rosenthal, the president of the new york times company foundation, who we were already working with on neediest cases, and he said, you know, give me a few hours, and so by the next day, the new york times nine eleven fund had been initiated, and so we we went with those two major charities, so as a result, we were getting emails from people all over the world and and very, very touching emails. I mean, even today when i read them and i re read them, i realized how important it is for people to be able to reach out and express their feelings during a disaster and people all over europe and japan and other parts of the world, we’re writing to say something about their feelings about new york and in the depth of how they felt strongly about new york city. Whether they had been there or there, they had grown up there and that they wanted to do something and so many people throughout ideas like we can create these t shirts and we’ll sell them here and then we’ll send the money and every email it seemed at the time ended with what do you think? And i and i felt absolutely compelled to stay every single night, you know, until eleven and midnight responding to all of those. What do you think? Even though i didn’t necessarily know the answers, people were looking for an outlet, a place to do something and you charity wave and other outlets that eventually a rose. I gave them that opportunity. A little boy wrote from switzerland, and he said, i want to do something, but don’t ask me to raise any money, tell me what i can do. I mean, it was just some of them were just heartbreaking, so it was so it was very time consuming, but i did it on. And how about financially? Just in terms of the response to the site that way? Yes. Now remember, people were still hesitant about credit cards online at the point in time, but there’s something about a disaster which helps people, you know, jump over the fence and start using them and to quit writing checks. And so there was quite a surge in online giving, i think you know, overall within about six months, thes site raised just under two million dollars, which at that time was a lot for online giving for those who will be listening to the show on the archive. Trending right now on twitter is the hashtag biggest lesson learned from nine eleven so if if you’re listening live, you can look at that hashtag but for those who are in the archive you khun listening to the archive you khun, listen, look back to the hashtag biggest lesson learned from nine eleven and so let’s christine let’s turn to some of the lessons first, how how do you see online giving compared to other other methods of giving? Well, i was very used as everybody was in the non-profit space to direct mail and the average gift through direct mail for years had been around thirty five dollars, when i began working at wave systems than charity wave in nineteen ninety nine. One of the first things i noticed was the size of the gifts, and i thought to myself, wired there’s so many hundred dollars gifts, you know, it didn’t make sense to me, and i finally began to realise, as did others who were involved in philanthropy around the world, that people will give more with their credit cards than they will win the writing checks, and i sort of explained it to myself if i’m in macy’s and i only have a check in some cash, i’m going to spend less then if i’m in macy’s and have a few credit cards on me and so that’s sort of how i explained it, okay, but then the challenge, of course, becomes acquiring the donors online versus doing more traditional direct mail. Any advice around around that? Well, often they find you. I mean, i’ve actually found it easier to be online and to be in search engines, and two people find us more than we’re not spending at all this much time looking for donors, as we did before and let’s explain what is and why charities dot or ge? Well, after the internet bust, the wave systems had to shut down various parts of the company, and we were we were never something they made money on, in fact, you know, they were funding their funding it and and they were absorbing credit card fees, so we were oh, so truly one hundred percent of the gifts in the credit card processing fees went directly to the charities that that wave charities was they never anticipated nine eleven when they set up that procedure, and so we were, you know, immediately targeted as something they had to shut down. And so the chairman, at that point peter’s break said to me, well, what do you want to do next? You know, i’d be happy to help you, and i said, we know so much i said we should do this as a non-profit and he looked at me, he wasn’t sure you were okay, he was going to be part of that, and i said, oh, you’re going to be chairman started recruiting your board instantly in the first conversation, brilliant, and i said, but i would like, i don’t want our efforts to be so dispersed. I mean, we were really national and any charity in the country could have started using us his charity way, but it was very difficult to do. Unlimited resource is and so i said, let’s, just target a space and do it really well. And after nine eleven, you know, it was so obvious to me that i wanted to target new york because of the emotionalism of that entire time period. Okay, so and why charities dot organism is a portal that leads people to e-giving and also information and even volunteering right for new york chadband tax returns on every charity in new york state. And i figured there were about twenty five thousand, but there were really closer to sixty. And now there’s closer to over one hundred hundred thousand, right? So a little less than ten percent of all the charities in the country with all the public five o one c three charities, which is, like one point three million. Roughly one point, four are in new york state are their sites like and white charities dot or ge in other states? Well, just about everything has been tried. And there was certainly one called touch dc, which has now been sort of absorbed into network. For good, and then there was one out of louisiana, which was started by the louisiana givers, but it didn’t last. It was sort of what the internet boom was all about, just hundreds and hundreds of efforts to try to make something go. But i would say probably eighty to ninety percent of these things died because there weren’t the resource is to keep it going. And later on, we’re going to be joined by professor david campbell from binghamton university, who has an op ed piece in this week’s chronicle of philanthropy about lessons from nine eleven and the three of us will be talking a little about some of the charities that were created right around nine eleven and how few of those have actually exactly of those have actually survived? So let’s let’s move a little to the future of of online giving. What? What do you see as important? Or maybe some things that charities generally are not doing online, that they should or trends? Well, everybody pretty much knows they’ve gotta have a vibrant website, and they’ve got tio got to make sure the meditate eggs air, working with the search engine, but the problem really is is that often the staff at small non-profits aren’t trained in these areas and as you know, like ninety percent of the non-profits air subsisting on five hundred thousand dollars or less that’s why we’re big non-profit just for the other ninety five percent exactly, and so, but but the internet really has made many, many things easier, and i intentionally hyre young people because they know so much more about technology. Well, and even that idea on september eleventh, you said, came from a young staff person person absolutely so hyre the young certainly we’ve had lots of shows devoted to social media presence for non-profits how important that is and how even just get started. So listeners, you can look back to the archive for how to get started in social media, even if you’re a small shop and why charities dot org’s, there are facebook presence. Oh, yes, but that is his vibrant as it should be. So we we do run unlimited resource is and and we’ve had over fifty million dollars go through when, you know, we started on a shoestring in late two thousand four and so that’s a lot of work it so it’s a lot of effort on the part of staff to make sure everything goes well. Yes, and every charity, nearly every charity starts on a shoestring. There may be the the well endowed family that supports a charity in the outset because a family member because of a family member’s passion but that’s the unusual case nearly everybody starts out with a very small budget, very small board and a lot of passion. And how do you turn that into move that toward, you know, more of a business model, and there are ways for small non-profits do that as you’re you’re describing, but it also, you know, sort of explains, as you said, so many of them then go out of business because they are all start with passion, and if they’re lucky, they start with money. But, you know, you can’t it’s this it’s a heavily regulated area, and so there is a lot to do to keep a non-profit going and there’s a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out by people who didn’t realize that that’s what they were getting into that’s, right? We had a show, just a couple. Weeks ago with jean takagi and emily chan are regular legal legal contributors talking about alternatives to starting a non-profit and some of them one of the ones that they like to quote the first when they’re talking to someone who wants to start non-profit is collaborating with an existing organisation, and we’re gonna talk about that with professor campbell when he joins us, we have just about a minute before the break, what do you see is the future in online giving? Well, it’s very exciting because i mean, the young people coming up, i feel like they almost have ah, charitable jean, you know, that we didn’t necessarily have, you know, and they i really can’t even envision a life without charity being a portion of it. Plus they been handling and dealing with technology since they were, you know, two and three and four, and so they have a level of comfort with technology that many of us never had. And so i think we’re going to be seen so many exciting effort’s online and on the internet as a result of this generation coming and rushed on dh younger than generation y with christine cronin she’s the president of n y charities dot or ge? She has first hand experience from september eleventh in online giving. We’re going to take a break right now after the break, we’ll be tony’s take two and then i’ll be joined by professor david campbell. We’ll be talking about his op ed piece in this week’s chronicle of philanthropy, which is based on lessons learned from his firsthand experience in september eleventh giving so i hope you’ll stay with us all that coming up first, pursuing you need more money pursuant helps you raise more money. They’re perfect for small and midsize shops because they have online tools and that means you pick what you need. You don’t have to be all in for some big program package that’s more than what your organization really requires prospector platform. I’ve talked about this before finds your upgrade ready donors who are lurking in your database, you know they’re in there, but which ones are they find them and engage with them through prospector platform. Pursuant dot com, you’ll raise more money. Where were you on september eleventh? I was on the campus of st john’s university in queens, new york, that school is up on a hill, and i was able to see the world trade center in lower manhattan, and i remember switching between watching close ups on tv and looking out my own view out my window at my office window, the office next to me had a tv in it, and i remember going back and forth between the tv and the window like the tv didn’t seem riel because it was removing me from something so close just a few miles away, but obviously looking out the window made it ah made it quite riel and there’s, no mistaking or forgetting about what you see with your own two eyes and asked on facebook and twitter where people were patrice morgan, she was home in greenwich, connecticut, watching on tv and knowing that her husband, rick, was on a train to grand central terminal in new york city no smartphones than two thousand won, so she knew that he didn’t know what was going on our own. Claire meyerhoff was in her radio days. She was anchoring the news for yusa today channel on x m radio and from their washington dc from their washington, d c studio teo, she was doing breaking news for them on on that day, michael graciano he was walking into seven world trade center and remembers seeing the first crash and debris falling around like rain. He says september eleventh. Like i said, always a little touchy for may. Still, fourteen years later, that’s tony’s take two for friday, eleventh of september thirty sixth show of the year, affiliate affections affections out to all the listeners and our many affiliate stations throughout the country. Affections? I mean, i’d love to say affiliate love, but i don’t get the liberation there, so you know it’s love, but we call it affiliate affections. Likewise, i’d like to say podcast love to all the podcast listeners, but, uh, it’s, this doesn’t work for me, so sending pleasantries toe all our podcast listeners over ten thousand of you, you know, it’s really love but podcast pleasantries and live listener love where’s that going let’s, start let’s start here in the u, s st louis, missouri, new bern, north carolina and do cane, pennsylvania live listener love to those listeners in those cities and going abroad. Xiao yang, china, ni hao seoul, south korea always checking in seoul. So grateful to you, i know i saved all time, but that’s, because because i am so grateful. Anya haserot and tokyo, japan konnichiwa also joining us tashkent, uzbekistan welcome, uzbekistan, lovett live with their love to you let’s continue with the nine eleven e-giving effect. David campbell joins the conversation i’m joined. Now i’m going to bring in professor david campbell. He is a professor at binghamton university and chair of the public administration department there. On september eleventh, two thousand one, he was vice president for programs at the community service society in new york city, and they were affiliated with the new york times need his cases, which christine cronin was just talking about will bring all that together. We’re talking about david campbell’s op ed piece in the chronicle of philanthropy this week titled the lessons of nine eleven philanthropy a decade later, i’m very pleased to welcome to the show from binghamton, new york. David campbell. Thank you, tony david, i well, i know you’re actually not in becomes and right now you’re unethical, but has binghamton doing there’s? A lot of flooding there and evacuations. Twenty thousand people have been evacuated in in binghamton, still a state of emergency, the building where i work has been flooded, at least the basement and and the first floor things are pretty grim, so i guess i would ask your listeners, too. Check out the local charities in broome county, united way of broome county and others that are looking at ways to provide assistance to the many people in the southern tier who’ve been affected by the flood. David on september eleventh you were vice president at community service society. Why don’t you explain what that organization did? Community service society is on old line social welfare organization that has always focused on the needs of low income new yorkers, and after nine eleven, we were sort of faced with the challenge. How does the organization adapt to this very riel and new set of circumstances facing new yorkers? And and a lot of my offense piece dealt with how we responded and how other established organizations responded to nine eleven as well. If you wanna link teo david campbell’s op ed piece, go to my blog’s m p g a d v dot com and in the post for today’s show there’s a link teo read david’s op ed piece we’re live tweeting the hashtag is non-profit radio were also on the phone, so if you want to call eight, seven, seven four aito for one two oh, for those who may still use the phone and maybe you’re not on twitter, david, you point out. Well, actually, before we go there, community service society was related to the neediest cases in new york, the new york times charity, right? Yes, for the new york times neediest fund, a seven or eight established non-profit organizations, the community service society is one. And after nine eleven, the new york times created a special new york times nine eleven media’s fund and, uh, supported those same seven or eight organisations and one or two more that were so specifically focused on disaster relief. So christine cronin, were you aware of community service society? Very much so we had a we had a donation screen and dropped down with every one of the seven agencies listed. So we were very involved. And david. Then on september eleventh, you well, from september eleventh, you’ve just to point out some some lessons for existing charities. And one of them is that that they’d be willing to step outside their traditional role. Can you can you say a little about that? Yes, i mean, this was the thing that troubled me the most. The story i tell in the op ed is having come back to new york on september thirteenth and talking to david jones, the ceo at community service, a sizing. Well, what should we do? And i thought disaster relief that’s not what community service society does and david’s comment to me was any organization to be relevant has to be responsive to this new big need facing new york city, and we had to figure out and he was right. We really had to figure out how do we adapt the capacities and skills we have as an organization to be responsive to these new needs? Faith thing, new york city residents, and we did it. It wasn’t as big a stretches, i thought, and i think one of the lessons is that organizations can adapt to new circumstances and make a big difference that way. And how quickly would you say you? You adapted and we’re ready to go? Well, we had always provided emergency assistance to families facing housing challenges so we were able almost immediately, to say we’re going to move away from finding providing exclusively eviction assistance to providing emergency financial assistance. We could do that within days, subsequent to that, we had to really learn what is this? What are the new needs that other new yorkers air facing? And how can we change our services, for example, providing information toe local non-profits about new disaster relief benefit? We did that kind of education that took us two, two, three, four weeks, but it was really sort of based on how the, how the system of disaster relief was evolving. So we had to evolve with other new york city charities who were trying to figure out what to do at the same time. The learning and adapting and christine, that was your lesson you you learned and adapted immediately when you’re young staffers suggested that you need to do something that right. Assume it’s a disaster happens it’s no longer business as usual, and you’re sort of like playing it day by day, hour by hour, and suddenly you may be in a room with twelve other charities who you sort of have friendly rivalries with because you’re all pursuing the same pots of gold at various foundations. But all of those rivalries have to end during a disaster, and it becomes simply what can we do? What we do is a group. How can we work together? How can we supplement each other’s efforts? And, you know, it’s not always the easiest thing to do, but you have no choice during a disaster. And david campbell, your your op ed points out in a quote, i think from the your ceo that ah, charity risks irrelevance if it doesn’t react too two to the disaster, in fact, that’s what that was the reality for new yorkers on september twelfth was that we had been attacked and three thousand new yorkers had been killed and many were displaced and struggling. And it was the only way to be relevant was to be responsive. In some ways, that was sort of what the community needed. And and that lesson took me a couple of days to figure out. But as christine point that we had to adapt because that’s what new york needed at that point and i want to bring in something that comes from the small non-profit chat that i was privileged to be with this morning before the show quote is from from shannon do little her her, she said that you must connect services to the tragedy in the aftermath of fund-raising and i think that’s pointing out sort of the same thing. You otherwise you risk irrelevance not only that you have to act, but that your services have to be related to the tragedy at hand. That’s chan and do a little and her twitter ideas at sl do little so christine, you just we’re talking about collaboration and david, you have a terrific story about collaboration around the windows of hope organization in september eleventh. Can you can you tell that story? Yes. So the windows of hope family relief fund is a a new organization that was created by a chef who who wanted to provide some assistance to the families of hospitality industry workers who died on nine eleven. And in that case, it was the families of workers that windows on the world than anyone else who worked in the hospitality industry who was killed, and this group of chefs and other hospitality industry professionals got together. And the month after nine eleven, some of you may remember a special event called dine out on october eleventh, two thousand one, and from that event and others raised six million dollars and subsequent another eleven million dollars within the year. And in october two thousand won the leaders of windows of hope came to community service society and said, we’ve raised this money. We want to help out this group of of the families of hospitality industry professionals who were killed. But where, chef, not social workers, we really need to figure out how to get the expertise to provide assistance quickly and effectively to the families who are affected. Can you help us? And so we, uh we agreed to collaborate with them because we had the expertise and how to how to provide this assistant. And we had knowledge as a social service organisation about how to distribute it effectively. So we leverage they leverage their expertise and their connections with people in the hospitality industry to raise money and focus on the concerns of the specific population, and we were able to provide the technical expertise to distribute. That money, so it was possible to help those families of hospitality industry workers who were killed. I just think that’s a great story about collaboration we have just about a minute before break. Christine, you have a comment on the story? Yes, i saw very much through jack rosenthal’s work, who is president of the new york times company foundation. He really focused in on the immigrant populations and and the people who are really out of the loop of social services, and he gave a lot of thought and and brought his resource is together to get to the people who would never be part of the normal social service structure and that’s that’s difficult to do because they often these people don’t want to be found, but they were desperately in need, you know, they’ve lost their their breadwinner. We’re talking about the nine eleven effect on tony martignetti non-profit radio we’re going to take a break and when we return, of course, so staying with me will be christine cronin, president of charities dot or ge, and david campbell who’s op ed pieces in this week’s chronicle of philanthropy about lessons from nine eleven stay with us like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. 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I’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back. We’re talking about the nine eleven effect with christine cronin and professor david campbell. There are some lessons, david in your piece about small non-profits and how nimble they could be, and i think that windows of hope story is an outstanding one. That was it was a startup organization before we go a little further with that, christine cronin has some ideas about how big existing non-profits khun struggle in the midst of a disaster. Yes, often you find yourself in a pr disaster, even though it was so unintentional and you were really trying to do the right thing. And, for example, one of the major charities of the red cross explained that they often kept part of the money for future disasters, and they always had but that became a point of severe contention and ah, lot of bad press, and it haunted them for quite a while and then the including in congress? Yes, because red crosses congressional charter very, but as well as outside congress and then the salvation army, because so much money was coming in offered to pay basic expenses of people across the country, i mean across the state and city, they were flooded with people sending their bills in, and they couldn’t handle it. And then they found they had a pr disaster on their hands. And so, you know, you try to do the right thing, but often you find yourself in trouble later and david, the lesson you point out eyes that those big existing charities shouldn’t fear the small startups that emerge for disaster relief. Well, there’s always the fear, and you hear so much talk these days about we have too many non-profit organizations in a time of recession, we need to merge. And the takeaway i i took from nine eleven is that the windows of hope family relief fund, as christine was describing earlier, was able to meet the needs of a population that would otherwise be ignored, that those small organizations, really or the startup organizations can can fill a niche or metoo need that others are not meeting. And those immigrant workers those huh? Those families of hospitality industry people who were killed on nine eleven may not have been able to or willing to go to salvation army. They may not have been been nervous because of their, uh, their immigration status or or lack of familiarity with those traditional organizations, they go to a place they trusted, and that in that situation they went to the windows of hope family relief fund because they knew the chefs they knew the restaurant owners who started the fund and they trusted and felt confident with them. Community service society, founded in eighteen forty three, couldn’t offer that same assurance hard lesson for me to learn, but a really important one for leaders and nonprofit organizations to take away. You did some research on the two hundred fifty eight charities that sprung up as a result of september eleventh, and and they were able to spring up because the irs offered on expedited tax exemption approval, but very few of them exist now want to share your research, please? So i i found that there were two hundred fifty eight organizations, as you mentioned, that received expedited tax exempt status from the irs, and of those organizations on lee, thirty eight of them have have filed irs nine, ninety information returns in the past two years, which means more than likely that only those thirty eight continue to exist. I don’t necessarily. Think that that’s a bad thing. What it tells me is that many of those organizations may that have not filed nine nineties have gone out of business may have actually accomplished the goals they would have to accomplish, which was to provide immediate disaster assistance, most of the organization that continue to exist or those that have the strongest connection to nine eleven organisations of victims, families, organizations like windows of hope that our most connected and having most connected to nine eleven and haven’t enduring nine eleven related mission, too, to accomplish her to provide and so a lot of of new organizations with a short term mission but went out of business as soon as that mission was accomplished. I learned from the small non-profit chat earlier today that vermont public radio has created an audio memory quilt, and i thought that was by posted by at brendan kinney, and i just thought that that was an excellent example of tying e-giving today to the disaster and so not not wanted by certainly not trivializing but wanting to remember and tying the today’s giving to disaster ten years ago. And so there’s an example of organization that’s still around and doing that important nine eleven remembrance work. So david two hundred fifty eight seem like a small number two you that arose in direct response to september eleventh. I actually seemed like a relatively large number to me, but because and they raid six hundred seventy nine million dollars, perhaps the number of organizations is less important than the amount of money that they raised those two hundred fifty eight organization through six hundred seventy nine million dollars by the end of two thousand two. Although it was really dominated by a particular types of organizations. People who had really the closest relationship. Two, nine, eleven people from local communities affected by nine eleven people affiliate with firehouses, people in in a trade associations and other organizations of workers that i could identify with people who were affected. I guess my quick take away is that what i saw in these organizations as people who had son? Something about nine eleven resonated with them, and they felt the need to respond. And you see, in those two hundred fifty eight, that sort of connection and identity. Christine, what do you think? Two hundred fifty eight it makes sense to me because americans are just so charitably oriented. And if they are great, if their if they feel emotionally connected to something, it makes sense to them to start a charity. They often get into it, not realizing how much is involved. But it’s not surprising to me at all, because i just see this every day. Yeah, david going, i would have one other thing about this. Remember that starting a new organization is in contrast to giving to an existing one. And so i suppose you can evaluate that two hundred fifty eight as a number on ly, in contrast to all the other existing organizations that people gave teo. And if you think of it in those terms, perhaps the two hundred and and all the opportunities people had to give to existing organizations, the two fifty eight probably looked pretty big. Okay, fair enough. And certainly that staggering number six hundred seventy nine million by the end of two thousand two is quite large. Yeah, so? So, david there’s. Some terrific lessons. I think in your in your piece on again. There’s a link to david’s op ed piece in the chronicle of philanthropy. On my blogged mpg devi dot com about existing non-profits not fearing and, in fact needing to collaborate with new non-profits and and us not discouraging new non-profits anything more you want to say about the lessons learnt because that’s, the that’s, the crux of your piece what i took away from the folks at windows of hope was i told you that they were committed to helping this population that they felt with otherwise be ignored, largely immigrant families, hospitality industry workers they raised this remarkable amount of money six million in a month, seventeen million by the end of two thousand two. What really impressed me, however, today and they felt riel responsibility for that population. What really impressed me was that they were willing to let go of some troll and collaborate with an organ unorganised ation they didn’t know i met the leaders of windows of hope for the first time in a few weeks after they had raised their money, but they were willing to sort of let go and collaborate with us because they saw that is the best way to accomplish their mission. I think that sort of willingness to try something new. And to to open themselves up to another organization is really resonates with me as professor david campbell he’s, a professor at binghamton university, and his op ed pieces in this week’s chronicle of philanthropy titled the lessons of nine eleven philanthropy a decade later. David, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure having you and christine cronin, thank you very much. Christine is president of charities dot organ. We talked about her firsthand experience from september eleventh wave charities. Christine, thank you so much. Thank you, toni also want to thank everybody who’s in small non-profit chat on twitter we today was our first collaboration. They have the the chat every other friday from noon to one so right before this show and i hope to collaborate with them again. The hashtag there is sm np chat and you get more information from at pamela grow because she’s, the moderator of small non-profit chat. So thanks to the folks who are participating in that jet, i also want you to know that david campbell’s op ed piece from two thousand eleven is still up again. Titled the lessons of nine eleven philanthropy, christine kronen is with me, and she is still the president of n y charities. Dot org’s. Hello, christine. Hi, tony. How are you? Well, thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with me on the september eleventh show. I i really appreciate that. Thank you. Well, i appreciate having this conversation again. Any reaction to what? You just heard the conversation the three of us were having? Well, it brings back such sad memories and as i think it does for all new yorkers. But it’s it’s, what i learned during that time period was how difficult it is to function during a disaster which affect people, you know, and friends and and then people down the street who you didn’t know. And i now have so much admiration for people who respond to disasters as the profession and, you know, and who go in volunteer when a disaster happens because you’re facing the consequences every single moment, and you just have to keep pushing yourself. I have a much more appreciation which which you and david did mean in your own ways. You each did respond. You know, you were in question. You were first responders, and on dh, staggering amounts of money raised and in just a short amount of time, i’ll never forget that afternoon. You know, when we were all sitting in shock around a conference table, it was the youngest person on the staff who turned to me and said, we need to set up with this after release site, and i just stared at him for several minutes because even though we were already doing disasters with united way international and we were doing them for disasters all over the world, it never, ever, ever occurred to me that we would do one for new york, and i just it was incomprehensible, and i finally realized he was right. Yeah, do you think september eleven still has a nim packed on e-giving i think that most of us can’t wipe it out of hyre memory bank, it was such a stunning, you know, event and the emotions around it were so overwhelming that yes, i do believe it definitely has an impact. Yeah, i find it hard to imagine that that would go away. I mean, i guess it’s it’s natural that that it will now we’re fourteen years out and you know, i i i always maybe it’s just, you know, i’m imposing my thoughts on everyone else, but i i just i think about it, you know, pretty may be intensely each year, even though, you know, this is like, you know, it’s fourteen it’s fourteen years later, not a not a five year anniversary sort of milestone, i imagine maybe fifteen years will be a bigger a bigger deal, but i don’t know, it’s, just i agree with you, it’s still it’s still impacts me, you know, around the day and, like, you know, certainly the day and maybe the day after two it’s ah, and then also in another disaster comes up like hurricane katrina, for example, and you immediately, or at least we immediately, you know, try to decide what can we do? What charities will we feature? You know, it all just starts coming back and the emotions around the disasters that you’ve experienced, and i don’t think i mean, i certainly hope that there will never be one as bad as nine eleven, but you just never wipe it out of your memory bank something that came from the discussion we had four years ago. That is sort of uplifting, i think. Is that that that small organizations have that nimbleness advantage, that they can quickly adapt and learn? As you and david and i were talking about and respond there’s, no question about that. And, you know, we still see it all the time. I mean, a lot of ideas emerged from neighborhood groups and from parent teacher association. And those were the ones who know each other well and they quickly get together and they, you know, develop. Ah, plan to react to the latest emergency at n y charities dot organ. You work a lot with small, small and mid sized shops, right? Definitely it’s. Interesting. How evil answer she has changed in the left. You know, ten years i started in it in nineteen ninety nine, but it’s like a moving target. Tony, you know it’s like one day a charity’s working with you the next day, they’re trying to do their own merchant account. The next day they come back because having a merchant account is very difficult. So it’s it’s really just keeps changing all the time and you just have to be prepared to say okay, today this is what we’re dealing with and let’s go with it. Yeah, those air, you know, that’s a lesson that i hear from a lot of guests and there’s that small and even midsize shop advantage, but this smaller size, you know, when i was just a few people deep, you can you can be quick and and a lot of, you know, certainly in terms of a disaster, you’re reacting not a hundred percent rationally, but you’re doing the best that you can and that’s all that’s all we really can expect and then the passion that goes with disaster, you know, or the personal connection, i mean, so many people knew someone in the towers, and many of us didn’t know for a series of days, you know, who was alive and who wasn’t and, you know, you just you just keep moving. I mean, i stayed in the office probably for two months till about eleven o’clock at night, answering emails from people all over the world. Yeah, those were the emails that asked, how does that sound, right, exactly, exactly or what do you think of this idea? I’m going to try to you go to my school today and, you know, sell cookies, you know, and send it. Where should i send it? And what do you think? Everything ended with what do you think? You know, i would spend hours and hours just trying to respond because i felt so strongly that people needed to know someone was listening. We need to leave it there. Thank you again for joining me today. My pleasure. Thanks. Cracking. Thanks, christine. Next week run like a biz. Hillary schaefer has a wall street background. Now she runs a non profit and shares her advice on applying wall street to the jefferson awards foundation and program your board, your boards responsibilities for your program side with jean takagi are regular monthly legal contributor. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Thanks for being with me. The singing will return pursuant. Full service fund-raising you’ll raise car loads of money. I’m not talking about mini coopers or smart cars. I’m talking humvee fourteen passenger stretch limousines and don’t those things are ridiculous, but not when they’re filled with money. Pursuant dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer show social media’s, by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that information. Scotty. You’re with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great.