Nonprofit groups always are looking for donations to sustain their efforts, but when a new organization enters the mix, it begs the question — how much charity can a community be expected to support?

With a tight job market, depressing investment reports and rising prices, does this community have the money to support the large countywide fundraising campaigns that occur year after year, such as the United Way of Butler County, the Butler Health System and Butler County Community College?

And now there is another annual campaign, $500,000 for the Community Health Clinic of Butler County.

Cece Foster, the health clinic's executive director, said the organization is moving forward with its first campaign "cautiously optimistic and hopeful" that it will be successful.The $500,000 goal is based on the operating costs of the clinic as well as the anticipated costs of the soon-to-be operating dental clinic, she said.The clinic's board hired Jim Cunningham, a Butler County native and a professional fundraiser with Gronlund, Sayther and Bronkow in Minnesota, to help with the campaign. He was unavailable for comment."We are basing this campaign and the $500,000 goal on the documented need for this type of primary care in Butler County, and there is no other organization offering what we do," Foster said."It is this need that we use as a barometer for fundraising. If every family could help with just $10 or $20, as well as finding corporate and large individual gifts, it will help the community take ownership of the clinic."Foster said while many residents might not need the clinic's services, "in this uncertain economy, you don't know when you might."

Other fundraising campaigns are familiar to donors because they've been held for years, the largest being the United Way annual campaign, the Butler Health System Foundation, the BC3 foundation and the Butler High School Marching Band.Leslie Osche, the United Way executive director, said with so many fundraisers going on at any time, she sometimes feels as if the community is "moving money from one pile to another, one organization to another."While raising more than $1 million every year since Osche took over the United Way, the organization has not met its annual goal of $1.5 million for three years, although it raised $1.23 million in its 2008 campaign."Fundraising in this current environment is challenging," Osche said. "To meet this challenge, we have to make sure that we are running as efficiently as possible while stretching every dollar as far as possible and then further."State budget cuts in human services are adding to the United Way and its agencies' burden, Osche said. The current deep recession means foundations and endowments that helped some of these organizations can no longer give as much or give at all, she said."It's a challenge and an opportunity to work together to get the job done, to find new ways to raise money," Osche said. "Collaboration is the way you're going to survive and keep the access to services going."John Righetti, vice president of strategic relationship management for the health system, said much of the health system's fundraising is done as events, such as:• The Caring Angel campaign during the Christmas season raises money for uninsured or underinsured young people who use the Emergency Department. In 2008, it raised $80,000.• The Crystal Ball helps pay for equipment. The ball in March raised a record $121,000.• The annual Golf Outing at the Butler Country Club raised $90,000 in 2008. Righetti said this money can be spent on anything.The health system's annual direct mail campaign was suspended this year because of the recession, Righetti said, adding the board will reassess the campaign for next year.The health system also has invested assets totaling about $4 million, which includes endowments and gifts to the system. During the five fiscal years ending June 30, 2008, the investments, on average, earned about $300,000 annually."We have to work hard and outside of our region to raise some of this money, but as for community-giving saturation, I don't think we are there," Righetti said."The thing that I have learned about fundraising is never be afraid to ask the question. You never know what the answer will be."

Like BHS, both BC3 and the Butler Golden Tornado Marching Band know when they need to stand back and not step on toes in the community.Nick Neupauer, BC3 president, said the college's board of trustees had planned to put into practice a master plan for the campus."But because of the economy, that's on delay for now," he said.Likewise, Andy Yaracs, director of the Butler marching band, said the band tries not to hold fundraisers that will interfere with business people.Last year, band members raised about $360,000, or about a $1,000 a person, to march in the Orlando Citrus Parade in Florida.Yaracs estimated in the past 12 years since the band began traveling to major events, students have raised more than $3 million."What we try to do is pick a big trip followed by a smaller trip, so that we don't overtax the community," he said, adding that the 2009-10 school year trip will be to march in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade.That should cost $200 to $300 per member. That would total about $70,000 to $100,000."We try to be sensitive to fundraising, to not overburden Butler, to not hurt other fundraising efforts," Yaracs said.

Michael Nilsen, a spokesman for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, said there has been an increase in the need to fundraise by nonprofits because the need for their services keeps growing."Meanwhile, because of the economy, we see donations going down as the need for help is going up," he said.The result has not been a loss in nonprofits, but nonprofits have learned to do more with less or to merge to make the money go as far as possible, he said.Nilsen said he doesn't believe requests for giving have hit a saturation point yet."Organizations have to look at their past history, to see what type of donors they have and where they have been able to raise the most money — a few donors who give large gifts or many donors who give smaller amounts," Nilsen said."You start with the building blocks of past campaigns, and then you go out and try to find the new donors," he said.Many organizations are trying to find new dollars by holding new and different fundraisers, Nilsen said. An example of that is the United Way's recent Slumber in the Slammer in which people paid to spend the night in the new county prison."You have to find the unique events or new ways of branding your organization to get into people's head," he said.But now is not the time to stop giving altogether if people can help it as "demand is going up from the people who are the neediest, the most disadvantaged."In deciding where to give, Nilsen advises donors to:• Don't give quickly to anyone who asks.• Look at an organization's history.• Find out what work has been done for the past year or so with donations.• Make sure that money has been used well.• "And find a cause that really interests you, that way you can really be invested in where your money goes."