August 5, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The bad economy continues to cause the biggest donors to cut back on their giving, a bad omen for fund raising, a new study finds.
The study of nearly 7,000 donors found a split between typical donors—those whose smallest gift was $81—and more affluent donors, whose smallest gift was $135.
Only 8 percent of typical donors said they plan to give less to charity in 2010, down from 17.5 percent in a similar survey last year. But among the affluent donors, 11 percent said that they would give less to charity this year than in 2009. That percentage grew to 17 percent among the top 10 percent of donors who gave the most money to charity.
Because so many charities rely more on loyal donors who make the largest gifts than they do on donors of more modest means, the economic downturn may continue to depress giving for a long time, the researchers said.
The survey was conducted by Cygnus Applied Research—an international research company that examines fund-raising techniques and donor behavior. It studied American and Canadian donors to 42 charities.
“While these findings are generally positive, and suggest that the impact of the recession in philanthropy is abating, they do not predict a wholesale recovery in the charitable sector as yet,” the survey said. “Together these numbers suggest a moderating trend in the negative impact of the economic downturn on philanthropy and yet also a year in which the fund-raising landscape is unlikely to change dramatically.”
The survey went beyond asking how much donors plan to give, and Cygnus said that many donors are:
- Cutting back on the number of charities they support.
- Increasingly favoring organizations that provide them with measurable results.
- More likely to stop giving to charities that they think solicit them too frequently.
- More influenced by the amount charities spend to raise money than in the past.
- Increasingly shifting their support to local rather than regional or national causes.
An executive summary of the survey is available free online through August 13. A full copy of the results may be ordered for $50.
