Survey Identifies Troubling Trends for Nonprofit Organizations

The percentage of Americans who have donated money to a nonprofit organization has reached its lowest level since pollsters first began measuring giving trends in the 1960s, according to a new survey.

Slightly more than two-thirds of all adults — 69 percent — gave money to charity in the 12 months ending last July, down from 80 percent for the same time period ending in July 2001, according to a survey produced for Epsilon, a fund-raising consultant company, by the Barna Research Group.

The drop in the percentage of people giving to charity apparently reflects an erosion of confidence in nonprofit organizations, the poll found. When people were asked if they had more, less, or the same amount of confidence in nonprofit groups than they had two years ago, 23 percent said they were less confident in charities, while just 12 percent said they had more confidence.

The decline was greater, however, among older Americans (those 57 years of age or older). One-third of that group said they had lost confidence in nonprofit organizations — a critical change, a report on the study said, because that group gives the most money to charity.

The survey also found that, in the past two years, 14 percent of those surveyed said they had stopped giving money to a nonprofit group they had previously supported.

Respondents’ primary reason for dropping a nonprofit group was a perceived lack of trustworthiness on the charity’s part, the report said.

The message for nonprofit groups, said Phyllis Freedman, Epsilon’s vice president of client services, is that donors are looking much more carefully at the issue of trust.

“It is not just trust that their money is going to be used efficiently, but also that the programs are having a real impact. Those are the things nonprofits need to focus on,” she said.

The Epsilon survey was conducted through phone interviews with 1,012 adults in July. It has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

Copies of the report, “The 21st Century Donor: Emerging Trends in a Changing Market,” are available free from Epsilon, at its Web site, http://www.epsilon.com, or by contacting Ms. Freedman at pfreedman@epsilon.com.