Just as increasing productivity is a key to success for businesses, the best charitable organizations find ways to do more with less. Keeping fund-raising and administrative costs low means more money for the organization’s mission — whether that’s feeding the poor, helping the elderly, performing the arts or providing other services.

Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org), a non-profit group that evaluates charities on their organizational efficiency and how well they can sustain their program and services over time, gives 107 Florida charities the highest four-star rating. That’s more than 38% of the state’s 277 charitable organizations included in Charity Navigator’s database.

The Florida School Choice Fund in Tampa, also known as Florida P*R*I*D*E, is Charity Navigator’s top-rated organization. The group gives K-12 “Step Up For Students” scholarships to low-income students using private-sector money donated by corporations that get state tax credits for their donations. The Florida School Choice Fund spent only a penny on fund raising for every dollar raised; expenses grew by 24.4%, but revenue rose by 60% from 2005 to 2006, the most recent numbers available. The Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, which also spends only a penny for every dollar it raises, grew revenue by 23.6% while expenses grew 12.9% in 2007.

Sometimes, charitable organizations with names that sound alike use their money in very different ways. The Diabetes Research Institute Foundation in Hollywood, for example, has a four-star rating and spends a nickel for every dollar raised. On the other hand, the Defeat Diabetes Foundation in Madeira Beach has zero stars and spends 75 cents for every dollar raised.

A number of well-known charitable organizations, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs and Habitat for Humanity, have several regional groups in Florida with four-star ratings. Most of the four-star charities, however, are single-location operations that serve local, regional or national interests. Here is a sampling of top-rated Florida charitable operations with very different missions.

Dignity U Wear — Jacksonville

Revenue	$13,612,519
Expenses	$9,170,889
Program expenses	$8,975,000	97.9%
Administrative expenses	$124,787	1.4%
Fund-raising expenses	$71,102	0.7%
Fund-raising efficiency: Less than a penny is spent in fund raising for every $1 raised.

Since 2000, Dignity U Wear distributed 4.5 million items of clothing worth $80 million to 370,000 people around the nation. These aren’t used, thrift shop items. “What we have here are brand new clothes,” says Dorcas Tanner, interim executive director. Overruns donated by clothing manufacturers make up most of the stock.

The 8-year-old organization got its start focusing on underwear and socks for the homeless. “People can go to secondhand stores and purchase jeans and shirts and dresses,” says Tanner. “No one recycles undies.” In March, a Jacksonville community campaign called “Undie Sunday, Undie Monday” collected 78,000 pairs of new children’s underwear.

"What we have here are brand new clothes" - Dorcas Tanner, interim executive director of Dignity U Wear. [Photo: Kelly LaDuke]

Retired hotelier and philanthropist Henry Landwirth founded Dignity U Wear in 2000 and donated seed money from his family foundation. (Funding from the Fanny Landwirth Foundation also was used to set up Kissimmee-based Give Kids the World, a $30-million organization that provides central Florida vacations to children with life-threatening illnesses.)

Dignity U Wear has moved far beyond underwear, providing head-to-toe clothing for babies, children, teens and adults through 300 organizations in 30 states. In 2003, Dignity U Wear extended its reach by partnering with Jacksonville-based Stein Mart. Stein Mart employees in each of the retailer’s 284 stores raise money and select local non-profits to receive help from Dignity U Wear.

Administrative costs are low in large part because Dignity U Wear has a small paid staff of 13 and hundreds of regular volunteers who inventory, sort and ship clothing six days a week. Agencies that receive the clothing donations pay the shipping costs or, for large shipments by rail, Dignity U Wear relies on its partnership with CSX.

For the Children — Lake Worth

Revenue	$999,860
Expenses	$922,854
Program expenses	$870,168	94.3%
Administrative expenses	$51,074	5.5%
Fund-raising expenses	$1,612	0.2%
Fund-raising efficiency: Less than a penny is spent in fund raising for every $1 raised.

Almost a decade ago, Palm Beach County second-grade teacher Reginale Durandisse decided to do something about her frustration over kids failing the reading portion of the FCAT. So she applied for a grant from the county’s Children’s Services Council and opened an after-school tutoring and recreation program in 2000 at the vacant Osborne School, a historic black public school in Lake Worth.

Building on an $82,000 grant, Durandisse has established partnerships with Winn-Dixie, BankAtlantic, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Morgan Stanley and others. It’s a strategy that takes more time than money. Durandisse says that corporate support ranges from $300 to $500,000. She encourages volunteerism from companies, including speakers who teach budgeting and finance skills to adults and young people alike. Says Durandisse, “Money is not the only way.” She cites Wachovia as particularly active in mentoring.

For the Children gets only about 8.5%, or $85,000, of its funds from individual contributions. Those gifts of 50 cents to $300 come in part from the website that Durandisse herself designed. Individual, corporate and public-sector money will be used to expand the Osborne School facilities. First up will be a ball field and practice field. Says Durandisse, “Every penny counts.”

Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida — Orlando

Revenue	$27,626,683
Expenses	$27,221,790
Program expenses	$26,453,562	97.2%
Administrative expenses	$291,947	1.1%
Fund-raising expenses	$476,281	1.7%
Fund-raising efficiency: 1 cent is spent in fund raising for every $1 raised.

High food and fuel prices and Florida’s real estate bust have put new demands on food banks. “Outside of disaster relief times, I’ve never seen anything like it,” says David Krepcho, president and CEO of the 25-year-old food bank, which gives assistance to about 54,000 people a week through 450 partner agencies in six counties.

“We’re kind of hitting a glass ceiling on donated products.” — David Krepcho, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida [Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

Last year, the food bank distributed 17 million pounds of food.

The value of donated food and non-food grocery items makes up about 85% of the food bank’s revenue each year. Corporate partnerships with General Mills, Kraft Foods, Disney, Darden Restaurants, CVS, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart and others have helped the food bank keep fund-raising costs to just 1.7% of expenses.

While companies continue to be supportive, Krepcho says that the economic climate today means that less surplus food is available because companies are carrying less inventory.

So Krepcho is working on alternative ways to bolster supply as well as ways to help mitigate the need. On the supply side, he has set up pilot programs with Publix and Albertsons to provide unsold fresh produce, deli and bakery items, even though collections must be done store by store. On the needs side, this summer four “mobile outreach specialists” armed with wireless laptops will help people sign up for food stamps and other social programs such as Medicaid and KidCare. The program’s $250,000 cost will be paid by a private donor whom Krepcho declined to identify. Krepcho is trying to set up a 12-week program to train out-of-work clients for jobs in the restaurant business.

For the 15% of the food bank’s revenue that comes from cash contributions, Krepcho relies on a quarterly newsletter, direct mail, online donations and a couple of fund-raising events. In particular, he points to the “Feeding Hope” breakfast started last year. It attracted 300 people and raised $267,000.

Philharmonic Center for the Arts — Naples

Revenue	$29,355,117
Expenses	$26,285,439
Program expenses	$24,030,358	91.4%
Administrative expenses	$1,516,442	5.8%
Fund-raising expenses	$738,639	2.8%
Fund-raising efficiency: 8 cents is spent in fund raising for every $1 raised.

Myra Janco Daniels takes a personal approach to fund raising. [Photo: éBella Magazine]

“I don’t ask people for money. I paint a picture of what they will receive,” says Myra Janco Daniels, founder, chairwoman and CEO of the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples. Daniels, a former advertising executive, may not ask for money, but she’s perfected the art of appealing to southwest Florida’s wealthy residents, capitalizing on their particular interests in the arts. She set up an Opera Guild, Dancemakers and Orchestra League, groups that give those donors the opportunity to meet the artists at informal dinners before and after events. But Daniels’ personal touch is perhaps the most important fund-raising tool. She attends events at the Phil, as it is known, just about every evening she’s in town, taking the opportunity to chat informally with event goers. When she sent update letters to 500 donors, she says, “There wasn’t a letter that I didn’t put a personal note on.”

As for administrative costs, Daniels says the center has an advantage because there is one umbrella organization. It oversees the orchestra, Philharmonic Center, Naples Museum of Art and a school of the arts.

Daniels’ mission to build a chamber orchestra — which became the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra — began in the early 1980s. A chance call to the late Frances “Frannie” Pew Hayes at the start of her fund raising led to a $25,000 donation and an invitation to a Pew Foundation meeting where she asked for $2 million to build the arts center. She got it and then persuaded Byron Koste, then-president of Westinghouse Communities — now WCI — to donate 8½ acres of prime property at Pelican Bay.

Today, Daniels says, “It is not easy. Costs are going up.” The struggling real estate market is impacting donations by middle-income residents. Long term, she says, “You have the problem of teaching the Baby Boomers how to give.”

Still, Daniels knows that the affluent Naples market gives her an advantage: “Most of our big donors are captains of industry.”

Air Force Enlisted Village — Shalimar (Okaloosa County)

Revenue	$6,368,935
Expenses	$7,538,392
Program expenses	$6,544,550	86.8%
Administrative expenses	$698,858	9.3%
Fund-raising expenses	$294,984	3.9%
Fund-raising efficiency: 15 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

For retired widows of Air Force enlisted personnel, retirement can be a financial struggle, particularly for those who never worked outside the home. But since the late 1960s, Air Force spouses have been able to pay modest rates or even nothing at all to reside in comfortable, subsidized apartments in northwest Florida.

Contributions of $25 to $100 collected through newsletter mailings, an annual golf tournament, corporate support — particularly from Boeing — along with $600,000 to $900,000 from retired and active duty military who contribute to the Air Force Assistance Fund are used to aid widows. Facilities include housing for 88 couples and 341 widows or widowers at the Bob Hope Village and Teresa Village near Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field, says Cathy Landroche, director of marketing, development and communications.

Three years ago, the group opened Hawthorn House, an assisted living facility with 64 apartments. An unfulfilled promise of an $8-million donation, however, left the Air Force Enlisted Village with more than $9 million in loans, much of which comes due in 2009.

Watch Your Wallet!

Seven of the 277 Florida charitable organizations ranked by Charity Navigator received the group’s lowest zero-star rating. Five of the seven spend more than 50% of their revenue on fund raising. One, the National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, spent $3.7 million on fund raising in 2006 but only $194,141 on programs The group declined to discuss its finances.

Defeat Diabetes Foundation, one of the zero-ranked charities, explains that its fund-raising numbers are high because of its initiatives. Dawn Swidorski, public outreach director, outlines numerous education projects, including distributing diabetes screening brochures in elementary schools, public service campaigns and media outreach, and a “Wake Up and Walk” 10,000-mile walk in which Executive Director Andrew Mandell is meeting with thousands of people across the country. Swidorski concedes that fund-raising costs for the four-person organization are high. “We are working and have been working to turn those numbers around,” she says, adding that the organization relies on an outside fund-raising group that takes a big chunk of the money.

National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation — Fort Lauderdale

Revenue:	$6,113,206
Expenses:	$4,094,124
Program expenses:	$194,141	4.7%
Administrative expenses:	$208,881	5.1%
Fund-raising expenses:	$3,691,102	90.2%
Fund-raising efficiency: $3.40 in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Children’s Charity Fund — Sarasota

Revenue:	$1,276,837
Expenses:	$1,307,429
Program expenses:	$131,711	10.1%
Administrative expenses:	$112,913	8.6%
Fund-raising expenses:	$1,062,805	81.3%
Fund-raising efficiency: 83 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Disabled Police Officers Counseling Center — Niceville

Revenue:	$627,054
Expenses:	$612,662
Program expenses:	$86,126	14.1%
Administrative expenses:	$13,316	2.2%
Fund-raising expenses:	$513,220	83.7%
Fund-raising efficiency: 81 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Disabled Police Officers of America — Niceville

Revenue:	$727,339
Expenses:	$783,858
Program expenses:	$166,242	21.2%
Administrative expenses:	$39,414	5.0%
Fund-raising expenses:	$578,202	73.8%
Fund-raising efficiency: 79 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Defeat Diabetes Foundation — Madeira Beach

Revenue:	$1,388,450
Expenses:	$1,669,365
Program expenses:	$481,016	28.8%
Administrative expenses:	$141,637	8.5%
Fund-raising expenses:	$1,046,712	62.7%
Fund-raising efficiency: 75 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Project Action Foundation — Seminole

Revenue:	$440,287
Expenses:	$497,963
Program expenses:	$293,074	58.8%
Administrative expenses:	$45,715	9.2%
Fund-raising expenses:	$159,174	32.0%
Fund-raising efficiency: 36 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.

Children’s Relief Network — Deerfield

Revenue:	$403,121
Expenses:	$593,321
Program expenses:	348,721	58.8%
Administrative expenses:	$130,605	22.0%
Fund-raising expenses:	$113,995	19.2%
Fund-raising efficiency: 29 cents in fund raising is spent for every $1 raised.