April 30, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Some experts predict that, when the next Giving USA tally of philanthropy comes out in a few weeks, the research will show another drop in giving for 2009, on top of a record decline in 2008.
Not Bob Hartsook. The Kansas City, Mo., fund-raising consultant projects that giving actually increased last year by about 2 percent, because, he writes, “2009 was the year that it was embarrassing to be successful.” As a result, he says, many large gifts were not reported or acknowledged last year.
He cites three big donations he knows about personally that aren’t being reported, including an $80-million gift last year from a Southern family whose holdings include a company that has laid off people and frozen salaries because of the recession.
If that gift had been reported publicly, notes Mr. Hartsook, it would have been the 12th largest gift on The Chronicle‘s Philanthropy 50 list of biggest contributions in 2009. But the family, he writes, didn’t think it was the right time to announce such a large gift because of what he calls the “wealth shame” factor.
Do you think Mr. Hartsook has a point? Is there a big surge of gifts not being reported because donors don’t want to broadcast their success in hard times? And if so, is it big enough to offset economy-related declines in giving?
