Charitable Giving Declines, a New Report Finds

The NY Times reported that charitable giving fell last year by the largest percentage in five decades, according to a new study by the Giving USA Foundation.

Individuals and institutions made gifts and pledges of $307.65 billion, a decrease of 5.7 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis over the $314 billion given in 2007, according to the foundation, a research organization backed by the fund-raising industry.

Some experts said they were surprised the drop was not even bigger, given that endowments fell by as much as 40 percent, the stock market declined by a similar margin, corporations posted unheard-of losses and unemployment was rising at a fast clip.

“So far, my clients are holding their own, by and large,” said Robert F. Sharpe, a fund-raising consultant whose clients include St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The Giving USA Foundation study found that the drop in giving accelerated in the fall, as the impact of the economic crisis and the steep decline in stock markets took hold.

“In the first half of the year, it was more or less business as usual for our clients, which is to say pretty good,” said Del Martin, the chairwoman of the foundation and a partner at Alexander Haas, a fund-raising advisory firm in Atlanta. “Then, as we got into the last quarter, we saw corporations begin rethinking their giving in greatly different ways, and we saw individuals begin to revisit their philanthropic priorities.”

Even with the steep drop, charitable giving remained strong. Last year’s giving outstripped all previous years on record except 2007, though the outlook for next year remains uncertain.

Amherst College, for example, had a “banner year” last year, said Megan Morey, the institution’s chief advancement officer. The college received the largest bequest in its history, $23 million, and several donors responded promptly to a new $425 million capital campaign, enabling Amherst to raise a total of roughly $70 million.

But like other nonprofit organizations, Amherst has found fund-raising in the current year tough. Ms. Morey said the annual campaign, which ends in a few weeks, is down by roughly 15 percent compared with the 2007-8 effort. “Over all,” she said, “we’re tracking comparable to what we were in 2007, which I feel good about.”

Giving USA estimated that donations to educational institutions fell 9 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis to $40.94 billion. Colleges, universities and private schools, including Amherst, have also been hit by sharp declines in their assets.

About two-thirds of public charities saw donations decrease in 2008, the foundation said. Most surprising, Ms. Martin said, was the decline in gifts to organizations working to meet basic needs, like food banks and homeless shelters, which are seeing a big increase in demand for their services. Read the full article here.