July 26, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
Taking the Pulse of Americans’ Attitudes Toward Charities, edited by Susan K.E. Saxon-Harrold, reports the results of a 1999 Independent Sector survey that measured public confidence in nonprofit organizations. Sixty-two percent of survey participants agreed that charities today provide more-effective services than they did five years ago, the survey reports. Seventy-two percent of participants reported confidence in youth-development groups and 68 percent reported confidence in human-service organizations, versus just 29 percent in major corporations, 27 percent in the federal government, and 22 percent in Congress. Americans have consistently demonstrated confidence in charities over the last decade, Independent Sector says in the report, but the 1999 survey also detected some seeds of doubt: It reported an overall decrease in the percentage of Americans who believe that charities are “honest and ethical in their use of donated funds.” The report is part of the Facts and Findings series and is derived from Independent Sector’s Giving and Volunteering in the United States, 1999 survey of 2,553 adult respondents. The publication is available at Independent Sector’s Web site.
Publisher: Independent Sector, 1200 18th Street, N.W., Suite 200, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 467-6100; fax (202) 467-6101; info@independentsector.org; http://www.independentsector.org; 4 pages; free.
