Rants About Grants

Philanthropy Statistics Update – Giving Trends and the Economy

  

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Following up on last month’s post about philanthropy statistics, here are a few more, drawn from the Foundation Center’s Highlights of Foundation Giving Trends, and GuideStar’s The Effect of the Economy on the Nonprofit Sector:

• From the Foundation Center:
  • In 2008, 164,353 grants were awarded by a sample of 1,490 large foundations to 63,794 recipient organizations;
    
    • The average number of grants awarded by each of those 1,490 large foundations was 110;
  • The amount of grant dollars dedicated to program support (~50%) and general support (~19%) remained consistent with the previous year’s numbers;
  • All foundation types (independent, corporate, and community) prioritized giving for education and human services.  Independent foundations also prioritized giving for health, though that data could be slightly skewed by the large number of dollars the Gates Foundation has poured into health funding;
• From the GuideStar survey:
  • 40% of respondents say that total contributions to their organizations decreased in the first five months of the year, compared to the first five months of 2009, while 28% stayed the same;
    • A previous GuideStar survey, whose results were released around the same time last year, found that 52% of respondents said that total contributions to their organizations had decreased compared to 2008.  The fact that fewer nonprofits are now reporting decreases is somewhat encouraging, but does not imply that those nonprofits that did not report a decrease this year are necessarily in good shape from a fundraising perspective;
  • Decreases in individual giving where the top-cited reasons for contributions decreasing (both fewer gifts and smaller gifts);
    
    • Given that individuals make up the largest percentage of donations to nonprofits, this is not surprising;
  • Corporate gifts and foundation grants also happened in fewer numbers and for fewer dollars;
  • Though fewer grants were awarded, 41% of grantmakers reported that the number of requests they received increased;
  • 62% of grantmaking organizations (both private foundations and grantmaking public charities responded to the survey) indicated that they had not made any major changes to their grantmaking practices.  Last year, 43% of grantmakers had made changes as a result of the economy.  In 2009, 20% said they had cut back on the types of programs they funded; this year, that number was down to 12%.  Here’s hoping it’s 0% in the next survey.

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