L.A. County Agency Tries a Mail Appeal for Money

The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, a government agency supported by taxes from the county’s general fund, has launched a highly unusual direct-mail solicitation, beseeching 52,000 county residents for tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more to supplement the agency’s $1.3-million budget.

County officials and direct-marketing experts say the campaign, which is expected to generate more publicity than revenue, appears to be the first direct appeal of its kind by any government agency seeking additional cash.

Commission officials say they have undertaken the appeal because the county, strapped for money in the post-Proposition 13 era, has little discretionary income left after paying for mandated services.

“We don’t want to compete for county funds with crucial emergency services like law enforcement and fire protection,” wrote commission President Ray Bartlett in the four-page solicitation letter. “Quite simply, we’ve surpassed the county’s ability to fund the services we’re asking to provide.”

The mailing, slated to cost $34,000, is expected to cause some friction with nonprofit organizations already vying for contributions from concerned citizens and to prompt a debate over whether tax-funded government agencies should return to the public, hat-in-hand, for more money.

At a time when the county Board of Supervisors has been forced by budget constraints to cut back funding for mental health clinics, trauma centers and other services, the mailing represents a critical testing of the waters.

In doing so, the solicitation may serve as a guidepost for judging just how far the public is willing to go to support government programs that operate on limited budgets.

“My belief is that government agencies that do work in conservation, health services and human services could very often compete for private support,” said Richard McPherson, a partner in the national marketing firm hired to run the solicitation. “I doubt if agencies providing basic services like sanitation would ever qualify. But you never know.”

For decades, government-operated institutions in Los Angeles and elsewhere such as museums, zoos and parks have solicited contributions from citizens and corporations--but they do so through separate, volunteer-run, nonprofit fund-raising foundations.

For example, direct mailings for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are handled by the private, nonprofit Museum Associates, which raises half the operating funds for the museum and acquires works of art. Moreover, residents paying for memberships to the museum receive access to the public institution--free admission and discounts on merchandise. By contrast, a donation to the Commission on Human Relations, billed as “a vital investment in the future quality of life in our community,” is meant to ensure that the board continues to operate.

The commission’s letter asks residents for gifts of $50 or more to help fund projects such as community forums to prevent conflict between ethnic groups, training sessions to sensitize police to the increased diversity of the county’s population and the monitoring of hate crime in the schools.

Such programs are the hallmark of the 45-year-old commission, which serves as a liaison to the region’s minority communities.

However, the commission’s executive director, Eugene S. Mornell, acknowledges that his agency expects, at best, to break even on the mailer. In that way, the government agency would have enough money to send out a second round of solicitation letters, Mornell said.

“You try to keep building up the group of continual donors. . . . We’d have 500 people from our first round, another 500, let’s say, from our second round . . . and we’re going to keep building up our donor base.”

The goal, Mornell added, is to raise enough money to significantly expand the commission’s services, although “at this point,” he said, “we haven’t targeted specific projects.”

The commission, which in pre-Proposition 13 days had more than 60 employees, today is staffed by 20. It is charged with promoting harmony among the various ethnic communities in Los Angeles County. It issues annual reports monitoring hate crimes and holds hearings and round-table discussions to resolve conflicts among various groups.

The commission’s published reports based on public hearings last year included “The Color of Juvenile Justice,” examining racism in the corrections system, and “West San Gabriel Valley: A Community in Transition,” concerning the influx of Asians into the area. About 90% of the commission’s budget pays for staff salaries.

In recent years, the county Board of Supervisors, which approved the funds for the solicitation, has been reluctant to allocate additional money to expand the services of the commission and other such county social service programs. Each year, Mornell said, the commission’s budget has increased slightly--but just enough to cover salary increases at the current staffing level.

The commission’s solicitation has been sent out to a sampling of county residents on the mailing lists of magazines and nonprofit organizations that Mornell said were of a decidedly liberal bent. According to sources, the letters were mailed to 52,000 residents on the lists of the New York Review of Books, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations.

Mornell said all choices were made by the commission-hired marketing firm, McPherson, Schultz & Associates Inc., which has undertaken fund-raising efforts for nonprofit organizations ranging from the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia to the Greater Los Angeles Partnership for the Homeless. If additional mailings are undertaken, Mornell said, he will seek to broaden the political spectrum to which the solicitations are sent.

“Human relations isn’t a liberal or conservative issue,” Mornell said. “So I would hope through our programs and fund-raising campaigns we can reach anyone concerned with the quality of life . . . in this county.”

The apparently unprecedented fund-raising effort was the brainchild of Mornell and leaders of the 15-member commission. Strapped for funds, Mornell said, the commission had considered “everything from lunches to dinners to rock concerts.”

“Over a period of time, we eliminated a variety of these possibilities and came up with the idea of direct mail,” Mornell said. “Our concern has been that we not expend a tremendous amount of staff time . . . and we did not want to be in a position of competing with those nonprofit organizations we work with for the same people to attend dinners.”

The mailer, sent out at the end of January, is being paid for with taxpayer funds: about half from unspent 1989 money budgeted for the commission and the remainder from a special county fund for programs deemed innovative by the county’s chief administrative officer, Richard B. Dixon. The Board of Supervisors approved the project late last year with virtually no debate.

If the current solicitation is deemed successful, establishment of “a private support foundation might be the next step” for the commission, McPherson said.

McPherson emphasized that institutions “that have support groups would tend to be more effective at their fund raising . . . because essentially, community volunteers are attempting to raise the visibility and make the case for the organization.”

“In commercial terms, what the commission is (now) doing is a market test.”

Because the commission is a government agency, there are no prohibitions against the Board of Supervisors redistributing part of the donations to other county departments, or lowering its annual allocation to the commission by the amount of contributions received, Mornell said. But such actions would be highly unlikely, he added.

“It’s a matter of trust at this point between us and them,” Mornell said. “They’ve been supportive in the past and they are aware this is a unique effort and shouldn’t substitute for their responsibility to us.”

Chet Danzell, media relations manager for the New York-based Direct Marketing Assn., said his national organization is unaware of any similar solicitation campaigns.

“There are government-paid mail campaigns for things like the armed forces recruiting people,” he said. “And municipalities have used fund-raising organizations to help collect overdue parking tickets. But that happens in tax departments--and this is an actual solicitation.”

Russ Reid, who heads the Russ Reid Co. of Pasadena, a major direct-marketing firm specializing in raising funds for nonprofit corporations, said he also had never heard of government agencies taking such a tack before.

“All sorts of nonprofit organizations get some money from the government and also seek private contributions. But this is the reverse,” Reid said. “This sounds very innovative on the part of government.”

The commission’s campaign has drawn little public attention thus far. But queries this week to several nonprofit charitable organizations in Los Angeles drew markedly mixed reactions.

“I don’t think they should (solicit),” said Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center. “The work we do is because the county doesn’t do it. And they’re competing with us for funds? . . . They have an enormous tax base and should be funded by that tax base.”

“I wish them well,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. “But I hope it’s not a signal that things are getting so tough that society, through the government, isn’t going to be funding important agencies that deal with the growing problems of bigotry and racism in America so that they have to double back to the private sector for funds.”

John Ochoa, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Partnership for the Homeless, said the county’s effort appears to be “innovative.” But he added that “you have to be very, very careful dealing with public dollars.”

According to McPherson, first-time direct-mail campaigns for clients ranging “from new magazines to struggling new museums” often lose money.

Yet even if that happens, says commission Vice President Minnie Lopez Baffo, the current solicitation will still have proved worthwhile because of the “greater visibility” it will provide the commission.

“It’s sort of a twofold effort,” Baffo said. “We’re reaching out for support. But this is also an opportunity to let others know we are concerned and to develop their interest in our programs.”