Philadelphia event takes fund-raising to new heights

So little time, so many galas, so many 10Ks, 7Ks, 5Ks. OK, and way too many bake sales and golf tournaments. So much money, so exhausting, so worthy, yet so boring:

What's a charity to do?

How about asking people to pay $2,000 to rappel off the side of a 20-story building to benefit Outward Bound Philadelphia?

That's what will happen on Thursday and Friday as 61 people - including Mayor Nutter - get themselves strapped into harnesses and lower themselves, step-by-step, 280 feet down the glass-windowed walls of Penn Center Plaza Tower 3 in Center City.

"Part of our challenge in getting donations is visibility," said Katie Newsom Pastuszek, executive director of Outward Bound Philadelphia.

Outward Bound is staging the rappelling event in hopes of raising as much as $160,000 for the organization, which provides outdoor experiences for young people, especially inner-city youth.

And it will be visible, all right, as the participants, who had to raise or donate $2,000 for an 8- to 10-minute walk down the side of the building, join the same category as folks who parachute out of airplanes in the name of charity.

Call it Xtreme fund-raising. Outward Bound's foray into charitable adventuring fits with the latest trends in separating donors from their money. In this election season, there's even a political angle.

"It's experiential," said Valerie M. Jones, who has an international certification in fund-raising and heads her own consultancy in Media.

"My impression is that we're too high-tech and too low-touch," Jones said.

"In the morning, we check our e-mail. In the evening, we check our e-mail," she said. "Before we go to bed, we check our e-mail. We are so wired we have little visceral experience."

That's what drives Outward Bound's Building Adventure 2012 rappelling fund-raiser and the "Fighting for Air at All Extremes" parachute jump in September for the American Lung Association in Delaware.

The Canadian company handling the rappelling for Outward Bound developed a similar event for the Special Olympics of Delaware, sending donors down a 17-story office building in Wilmington in May.

"People will pay for experience," said Sean Kelley, director of public programs at Eastern State Penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue.

This year, the penitentiary is auctioning the chance to play a zombie this year or next in its annual "Terror Behind the Walls" fright show.

Opening bid was $1,000. It's now up to $1,500.

The winner gets monstrous makeup, a costume, and the thrill of performing while chained to two other zombies.

"It looks very easy, but the person lurking and looking creepy in the corner is working very hard," Kelley said.

At the heart of all the events is the perennial task of donor acquisition, Jones said.

"More and more people are mega-rich and more and more people are the working poor. Their standard of living has actually gone down," she said. "That income divide has been greater and greater over the last 20 years and it has been mirrored in philanthropy."

So, although much development effort is concentrated on cultivating mega-donors, the 2008 political campaign President Obama conducted proved the value of using the Internet and social media to raise lots of money, in small contributions, from many, many donors.

"The conversation started happening when Obama raised money in his campaign. Instead of raising the dollar amount, you raise the amount of individuals who give small amounts," Pastuszek said.

For Outward Bound's event, fund-raising participants turned to their networks, working their Facebook friends, for help in gathering the $2,000 required to rappel.

Their supporters made donations through a website, which then adds those names to Outward Bound's list of potential future donors, reachable by mail or e-mail.

"Donor acquisition is incredibly expensive," Jones said. "So getting other people to acquire donors for you for free is really smart, is great use of philanthropic resources, and is [the trend] of fund-raising for the millennium."

Kelli Burris, regional director of the American Lung Association, said three parachute jumps, held in 2010, 2011, and 2012, raised $79,000 for the American Lung Association in Delaware from 650 new donors.

The Delaware Skydiving Center in Laurel, Del., contributed its planes, pilots, parachutes, and expertise, attracting new skydiving customers in the process, Burris said.

"A lot of the people who did it had never been skydiving," she said, but they were willing to try a tandem jump - two people strapped together - for charity.

Reaching new donors is Outward Bound's goal, as well, with the idea that an event that fits in with the group's outdoor mission will raise awareness.

"We want to celebrate 20 years of Outward Bound" in Philadelphia, Pastuszek said. "We want to position ourselves with a signature event that we can do over and over again."

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