Fundraising Stable At Many Charities; Nonprofits Feared Post-Sept. 11 Falloff
It was a bumpy year for So Others Might Eat, the District-based charity known as SOME, which provides food, clothing, medical care and other services to those in need.</br></br>Just months before the charity was to open a glossy building in Northwest Washington, the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, and SOME's donations plummeted 30 percent as Americans turned their attention - - and wallets -- to that cause. Then came the anthrax postal scare, and the charity group's mail dried up for several weeks.</br></br>For a nonprofit organization that gets more than half its funding in small donations through the mail, it was a staggering one-two punch, said development coordinator Shonna Milliken Humphrey.</br></br>But last week, the 30-year-old organization finally got some good news. Employees participating in the workplace fundraising campaign of the United Way of the National Capital Area had designated $1.4 million for SOME -- a whopping 40 percent more than in the previous year. The news was a big relief to the organization.</br></br>The picture has similarly brightened for some other charities that were predicting hard times in the fall. After donating almost $2 billion to Sept. 11 funds nationally, Americans seem to have returned to supporting their usual causes. Although not all charities have rebounded to their pre-Sept. 11 levels, many now report that their worst fears never came to pass.