Data Limitations
The data presented in this bulletin have certain limitations. First, pursuant to statute, professional solicitors report campaign results on a calendar-year basis regardless of the dates that the campaign spans. For campaigns that straddle two (or more) calendar years, professional solicitors might only incur expenses during one of the years.
Second, some campaigns can yield recurring annual “sustainer” donations, or reach new audiences of donors who will give for years to come. These sustainer donations might not be reflected in reports professional solicitors file with the AGO. Thus, where reports to the AGO reflect only the initial gifts from those donors, the fundraising campaign may bring in more funds to the charity than the annually reported numbers would indicate.
Finally, in calculating figures for the 2016 Professional Solicitor Bulletin, we excluded campaigns from five solicitors. While we believe that these solicitors meet the statutory definition of “professional solicitor” and have been appropriately filing as such, we excluded them because they (1) are known to solicit funds outside the conventional phone, mail and/or face-to-face methods and (2) raised enough funds to potentially skew the aggregate results, given that the focus of this report is on conventional solicitation. Likewise, please note that some solicitors included in the aggregate results may engage in unconventional fundraising; however, the amounts these solicitors raised were not significant enough to impact the overall data. Individual results from all campaigns reported to the AGO for 2016 (including for the five excluded solicitors) are included in the appendices.
The five solicitors omitted from aggregate results:
• Apogee Retail, LLC is a subsidiary of Savers, LLC and collects tangible items from donors, such as clothes and other household goods, and assigns a value to them. These items are then sold to Savers for the assigned value, with the proceeds going to charity. It reportedly raised $2.9 million in 2016, and reported that 100% went to charity.
• Eaton Vance Distributors, Inc. is an investment management firm that offers its own donor-advised fund, The US Charitable Gift Fund, as a way for its clients to support charitable causes. It reportedly raised $116 million in 2016, 97% of which went to charity.
• Network for Good, Inc. is an online fundraising platform that works with a related donor-advised fund with the same name. It reported raising $301 million in 2016, 98% of which went to charity.
• Omaze, Inc. is an online auction website that sells consumers the chance to win “experiences” and contributes a portion of proceeds to charity. It reported raising nearly $15 million in 2016, 60% of which went to charity.
• TVI, Inc. is another subsidiary of Savers, LLC that operates in the same way as Apogee Retail, LLC (described above). It reportedly raised $5.6 million in 2016, and reported that 100% went to charity.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes on Appendices
• Appendix I reports campaign results by the name of the professional solicitor. The first column on the left lists the professional solicitors alphabetically by name, and then lists alphabetically the charitable organizations that benefitted from the campaigns they conducted. Appendix II reports the same data but is organized alphabetically by the name of the benefitting charitable organization.
• The “Interim” column indicates whether or not the filing covers an entire campaign. If checked, the report covers only the 2016 portion of a multiyear campaign. Note that if it is an interim report, the figures may reflect the costs associated with the entire multiyear campaign while reporting only the proceeds received in 2016.
• The next column states the total amount of money raised during 2016 in each of the charitable solicitation campaigns. Please note that this amount can reflect the results of a regional or national solicitation effort and not just the results of activity conducted in Massachusetts. In addition, it may only reflect the funds received or pledged during the reporting period which, for sustainer campaigns, may be only a portion of the funds likely to result from the solicitation.
• The next two columns indicate the amount the charity received, as both a dollar amount and as a percent of the total revenue generated, from the campaign.
• Appendix I includes a final column that reflects the average percent of revenue the solicitor transferred to charity for all campaigns that they conducted in 2016.
Notations within the Appendices:
* Denotes solicitor excluded from aggregate results in report because solicitor is (1) known to solicit funds outside conventional modes of solicitation and (2) raised enough funds to potentially skew the aggregate results. For more information, see the Data Limitations webpage by following the link provided below.