Red Cross, others hope for holiday season giving

Red kettles and ringing bells signal the beginning of the holiday season and the start of the… Red kettles and ringing bells signal the beginning of the holiday season and the start of the Red Cross’s familiar Kettle Campaign.

Last year, the campaign raised $617,000 in Allegheny County alone. Each kettle’s income is, on average, $300 a day, which can add up to more than $3,000 each season.

And the money from the campaign – which started in San Francisco in 1891 – remains local.

“Every zip code is dedicated to a particular Salvation Army location,” said Virginia Knor, the director of marketing and public relations for the Western Pennsylvania division. “Our kettles raise money in areas where money stays.”

The fundraising begins by mail in September, but this year because of Hurricane Katrina, more donations have been diverted southward, as opposed to staying local. As of last week, the Kettle Campaign was $14,000 behind, divisionally, Knor said. But she’s still optimistic.

“Even though things might look bad now, the week of Christmas is really when we can tell,” she said.

The holidays and winter months are the time that some people are most in need and some people are feeling most generous. Though some donors prefer to remain anonymous, others want the publicity.

“Last Tuesday, PNC Bank gave us a lead gift of $10,000 to challenge other businesses to give to the kettles,” Knor said.

The donation was advertised on both television and radio.

This kind of advertising of previous contributions led Pitt professor Lise Vesterlund to question what economics had taught her about giving.

Vesterlund has been working on this research – the effect of status on charitable giving – since 1997. She found that people tend to give more when a high status person gives first.

She said that this might happen because people question the quality of a charity. If a high-status person chooses to invest in a charity, others will assume that it’s a worthwhile cause.

“To some extent it does service a quality check,” Vesterlund said. “If people put their name on the line, they demand some kind of quality.”

Vesterlund conducted her research in Pitt’s Experimental Economics Laboratory. She divided Pitt students into a star group and a non-star group. When the high-status students – or star group – gave more upfront, the others followed suit. But when the non-stars gave their small donations first, the star group gave a small donation as well.

“The net effect is that total contributions increase by more than 80 percent when high-status participants contributed first,” Vesterlund said. “It’s not that members of the high-status group are generally more generous. They’re only generous if they contribute first.”

And most large charities already do exactly that, said Vesterlund. By advertising large contributions they both give credit to the donor and encourage more donations.

The Red Cross doesn’t only fundraise during the holidays; it asks for donations year-round.

In March – which is American Red Cross Month – and at the end of the summer, it conducts mail campaigns.

A large portion of its donations have gone to disaster relief down south this year, said Tami Aubele, communications director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Red Cross.

“But it is unknown to many that our chapter responded to 30 incidents in this past October alone, which resulted in 45 families needing help such as food, shelter and clothing,” she said.

Large donors aren’t forgotten.

“The American Red Cross annually does what it calls the Honor Roll,” Aubele said. “It lists out the donors contributing a specified amount or above in public mediums such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.”

Local donors are also mentioned in Southwestern Pennsylvania’s annual report.

The Red Cross isn’t alone in its winter drives.

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank finds itself in greatest need this time of year.

“We’re pretty well known in this area, so we don’t have a visibility problem,” said Iris Valanti, public relations coordinator.

When the Food Bank presents its cause to a corporation, it cites the numbers of past charitable donations.

“I think people want to know you have a track record of wise spending,” Valanti said. “They also want to know who else in the community is supporting it.”

Vesterlund’s research extends beyond studying status’s effect on charitable giving. She also conducted research in 2001 on the gender differences in donating.

“People have this tendency to think that women are more generous than men,” she said. “But this idea is just not true.”

Vesterlund found that if it’s more costly to give, women are more generous than men. But if it’s cheap to give, men are more generous than women.

These findings translate to tipping. She found that men were more likely to give substantial tips, sometimes more than the standard 15 to 20 percent, if their bill is small. But if the bill is higher, they will tip less. Women tend to stick to the average tip value.