Nevada’s new sports teams may help boost philanthropic numbers

Nevada’s new sports teams will likely help to further propel Nevada’s philanthropy landscape.

Speaking on a panel Friday, Executive Director of the Raiders Foundation Chris Mallory said he anticipates a significant amount of fundraising in 2018.

“All of that fundraising we’ll be doing in Las Vegas will stay in Las Vegas,” he told a crowd of about 400 business leaders involved with philanthropic giving and corporate social responsibility. “It is extremely important for us to give out as much as we can so when the team gets here in 2020, it’s just icing on the cake.”

Mallory addressed a crowd at Las Vegas City Hall at the seventh annual Philanthropy Leaders Summit, hosted by Las Vegas philanthropy consulting firm Moonridge Group.

Mallory said he moved to Las Vegas in July 2016, to begin assessing community needs.

“What has surprised me the most is youth and veteran homelessness,” he said.

Among major cities, Las Vegas had the third-highest number of unaccompanied homeless youth (2,052) in 2017, according to a December report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“What we would look to do is help with that in terms of funding, as well as to let people know that this is going on,” Mallory said.

Speaking on the same panel, John Coogan, president of the Vegas Golden Knights Foundation, said he was also surprised at Las Vegas’ amount of homeless people.

But his investment strategy, he said, is to focus on families.

“When you strengthen a family, you help strengthen a community,” Coogan said.

He said he will be looking to Golden Knights athletes to help set giving priorities for the team.

“A lot of players and players’ families have causes that are close to their hearts,” he said.

Looking to employees to help set a company’s philanthropic tone is becoming more widespread in Nevada companies in general, according to a new Moonridge report.

Nevada companies are putting more resources toward company volunteer programs, which include company-sponsored events or days, paid time off for volunteer work, and pro bono work opportunities.

“When you give employees the ability to do that, they want to stay with that company and they want to stay in that community,” said report co-author Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis.

In 2017, nearly 89 percent of Nevada companies reported offering a corporate volunteer program, compared with 75 percent of companies in 2016, and 71 percent in 2015.

The dollar amount that Nevada companies contributed to philanthropic efforts increased by only 1.2 percent in 2017, according to the report. But Aguero believes the dollar amount of philanthropic giving for 2017 was higher than reported because much of the data in the report was collected before the Oct. 1 mass shooting.

“It may be that cash donations are at a certain level, but volunteerism seems to be robust and donations of in-kind goods and services seems to be robust,” said Julie Murray, principal and CEO of Moonridge Group.

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.