Philanthropy Front and Center - New York

Aportaciones filantrópicas a hispanos/latinos y para Latinoamérica

This is a summary and translation into Spanish of the Philantopic blog posting, Foundation Funding for Hispanics/Latinos. 

Este es un resumen en español del artículo Foundation Funding for Hispanics/Latinos que apareció en Philantopic, el blog principal del Foundation Center.

El más reciente estudio investigativo del Foundation Center analiza las aportaciones filantrópicas de fundaciones estadounidenses a comunidades hispanas/latinas dentro de los Estados Unidos, así como lo otorgado para Latinoamérica, durante la década entre 1999 y 2009. El estudio también ofrece un enfoque particular en las aportaciones realizadas entre 2007 y 2009.

Comisionado por Hispanics in Philanthropy, una red trasnacional de más de 600 donantes comprometidos a fortalecer a las comunidades latinas en todo el continente americano, Foundation Funding for Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and for Latin America (Una década de aportaciones filantrópicas a hispanos/latinos en los Estados Unidos y para Latinoamérica; en inglés, 22 pp.) encuentra que en la última década, las aportaciones filantrópicas otorgadas para beneficiar a los hispanos/latinos en Estados Unidos, que representan aproximadamente el uno por ciento del total de aportaciones, se mantuvieron fijas a pesar del incremento significativo en la población hispana. Entre 2007 y 2009, hubo un promedio anual de $206 millones en aportaciones dirigidas a organizaciones que apoyan a hispanos/latinos.

Otros resultados de la investigación

• La proporción más alta de dólares filantrópicos dirigidos a hispanos/latinos se otorgó en la categoría de servicios humanos, con un promedio de 27 por ciento al año, seguido por salud, que recibió el 26 por ciento de lo otorgado.

• Casi dos terceras partes del total de dólares aportados con enfoque en poblaciones latinas fueron dirigidos al apoyo programático (en lugar de apoyo operativo).

• El oeste de los Estados Unidos recibió la mayoría de las aportaciones dirigidas a hispanos (el 42 por ciento); el Estado de California recibió la gran mayoría (el 82 por ciento o $71 millones) de estos fondos.

• De las áreas metropolitanas, el Área Metropolitana de Los Ángeles en California recibió la porción más grande en dólares filantrópicos entre 2007 a 2009, con el 17 por ciento de todo el dinero donado a hispanos/latinos durante este período; en total, fueron alrededor de mil subvenciones con un total de dólares aportados de $107 millones.

Aportaciones filantrópicas para América Latina
Con respecto al ámbito internacional, los resultados indican que entre 2007 y 2009, América Latina recibió más de mil millones de dólares de instituciones donantes en los Estados Unidos. Poco menos de la mitad de estos fondos fueron dirigidos a organizaciones dentro de Latinoamérica, mientras que un poco más de la mitad se les otorgó a organizaciones ubicadas en los Estados Unidos con operaciones en América Latina.

Los resultados también indican que México y Brasil recibieron aproximadamente una cuarta parte cada uno de todos los dólares filantrópicos dirigidos a Latinoamérica. El medio ambiente obtuvo la mayor parte del total de los dólares aportados (33 por ciento), seguido por asuntos internacionales (20 por ciento) y salud (14 por ciento).

Descargue una copia del informe completo (en inglés) para leer análisis estadísticos detallados de la actividad filantrópica dirigida a comunidades hispanas/latinas y a Latinoamérica por parte de fundaciones estadounidenses - por tipo de fundación, área temática, área geográfica, y tipo de apoyo.

Synopsis: This is a Spanish-language summary of the PhilanTopic blog post about the Foundation Center's new research report, Foundation Funding for Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and for Latin America. The report offers a detailed analysis of foundation giving to Hispanic/Latino communities in the U.S. and of foundation funding for Latin America. 

Traducción: Inés Sucre, Bibliotecaria, Foundation Center-New York

Nonprofit Organizations and Facebook – The 2011 Idealware Survey

My name is Natasha Benacerraf, and I graduated in May from Princeton University with a Bachelors degree in Italian. In July, I started at the Foundation Center in New York as an Nonprofit Services Fellow, a year-long position I found through the Princeton Project 55 Fellowship program, a part of the Princeton AlumniCorps.

I'm excited at the opportunities my fellowship with the Foundation Center provides me, among which blogging is included. I hope to make several contributions to the New York library's blog over the next year, something which will be a wonderful learning experience for me as I'm a total blogging novice! Might as well get started…

You and everyone you know – plus 750 million users you don't – has a Facebook (FB) account, right? But what about the organization you run, work for, volunteer at, or support? Does it have a Facebook account? And if so, does it have anywhere near the amount of friends or activity level as your own page?

As one of the staff updating the Foundation Center's New York library's Facebook page, I found the Idealware study, Using Facebook To Meet Your Mission: Results of a Survey, particularly interesting, as I am always thinking about effective ways to engage our constituents through our page. Do people look at our page? Do we ever attract new library visitors via the Facebook page, or is it a collection of current users? What kind of content does our audience want to see, and how much time should I really spend on updating it?

These are questions that many nonprofit organizations might be asking themselves, but it's difficult to find the answers. Studies and statistics on the relationship between social media and nonprofit organizations are scarce, which is why I was happy to come upon Idealware’s study taking a look at this very relationship.

In February 2011, Idealware set out to discover how nonprofit organizations use Facebook as part of their communications efforts and to provide insight into the effectiveness of Facebook when it's used in this capacity. The focus of the Idealware survey was to examine the:

• Extent and frequency to which nonprofits use Facebook
• Goals they were trying to achieve
• Various ways in which they used Facebook to engage and attract constituents
• Their perception about the effectiveness of Facebook as a communications tool

The study outlines several aspects by which the effectiveness of Facebook usage was determined: reaching new constituents, driving traffic and actions, engaging existing constituents, and increasing awareness and information. Released in June 2011, the study provides the basis for insight into the relationship between the nonprofit sector and social media.

The Breakdown:

• HOURS AND GOALS: The majority of the organizations surveyed reported spending an average of 2.6 hours on FB every week, with some as little as 1 hour, and others as much as 10+ hours; 36% of respondents reported setting goals for their FB page.
• ATTRACTING CONSTITUENTS: ~70% claimed FB helped increase event attendance; ~50% saw an influence on number of members; and fewer than 40% saw an effect on number of volunteers and donors.
• DRIVING CONSTITUENTS TO ACTION: ~60-70% saw increased web site traffic and number of people taking action, while only ~30-40% saw tangible gains in e-mail list subscribers and donations.
• HELP BUILDING EXISTING RELATIONSHIPS: ~45% say FB helped enhance relationships "some" and ~35% say a "substantial amount", and 40% claim FB helped only "minimally" to better understand constituents.
• BUILDING AWARENESS: ~40% say FB "somewhat" helped disseminate additional information on their organization, spread their information more widely, and increase general awareness of the organization; another ~40% say FB helped "substantially" in these areas.
• MEASUREMENT: 47% reported no method for reporting results on FB; 27% were characterized as using "anecdotal measurement" techniques; and 26% were characterized as having "substantial measurement".
• GOAL-SETTING AND SUCCESS: Of those without defined goals, 25% experienced success with FB, and of those with defined goals, 40% reported experiencing success.
• MEASUREMENT AND SUCCESS: Almost 40% of those with a “substantial measurement plan” reported that using FB had a positive impact, while only 25% of those with no measurement tools reported the same.

I think it's important to take a step back and look at the possible inspiration for the study before considering the statistics.

One thing we need to consider is why nonprofit organizations create Facebook pages. Among the various needs could be the previously mentioned definitions by which Facebook usage was, but promotion of a cause or event, seeking donations, sharing information about or related to the organization's activities, or simply expanding the organization's presence on the Internet could all be included as well.

Organizations with differing goals will naturally have different approaches to Facebook, including methods implemented and time spent trying to achieve those goals.

For example, let's consider Organization A and Organization B. Organization A sets a goal of reaching current constituents to share news about the organization and its progress and provide general updates. The efforts of Organization B are geared towards seeking donations and increasing volunteers and event attendees.

Organization A will have significantly different usage goals and results for its Facebook page than Organization B. Whereas A could feasibly update its page at infrequent intervals, doing so only to share news whenever it comes along, B requires a much more aggressive and active approach to its Facebook page. It not only has to reach both current and new constituents, it also requires a method of reaching constituents resulting in some sort of response from their audience either in the form of donations, increase in volunteers, or event attendees.

So what does this mean?

It means that to measure Facebook's effectiveness in helping nonprofit organizations achieve their goals is difficult, mainly because of the wide range of goals, methods, and perceived effectiveness for each organization. Keeping this in mind while examining some of the data can help us take away new ideas about how to use our organization's Facebook page and what efforts may or may not be effective.

The first aspects of the study I found interesting to compare were the average time organizations spent on Facebook and their measurements of effectively attracting constituents and driving constituents to action.

While the majority of organizations only spent 2.6 hours per week on average updating their pages – a relatively low amount – almost 70% saw an increase in event attendance, and another 70% saw an increase in web site visits. This indicates that a minimal amount of effort spent updating a Facebook page can result in tangible gains, if this is the limit of the organization's usage goals.

However, fewer than 40% of those surveyed saw an increase in volunteers or donors, the type of goal Organization B would set to reach. This indicates that the average 2.6 hours per week on Facebook is insufficient for a higher goal.

Accordingly, the study does suggest that the data indicates there is a higher likelihood of success when a lower level of commitment is required.

It's difficult to generalize the findings in this study, due to the surveyed organizations' different methods of measuring success, if they measured success at all. Given that a quarter of the organizations were characterized as having "anecdotal measurement" and a quarter as having "substantial measurement", how much weight can the results hold?

Regardless, we still learned about what could make a difference when it comes to nonprofit organizations and Facebook. We know that a couple of hours a week updating a Facebook page can make a difference, and that spending several more per week could make even more of a difference.

We don't have specifics about what tactics were used by the organizations to engage constituents, but we can imagine that they would include sharing news about the organization, posting general sector news, sharing information about events and fundraising goals, and direct invitations to constituents to become donors or volunteers.

Furthermore, we learned that while it's not clear if setting goals and measuring success is a sure-fire way to succeed, having a structure and framework for your organization's approach to Facebook surely can't hurt. While the Idealware study suggests that a Facebook page can never hurt, if you're looking to achieve more ambitious goals through Facebook, such as mobilizing more volunteers or mounting a successful fundraising campaign, a large amount of time, effort, planning and measurement is required on your part in order to truly be successful.

How important is it for nonprofit organizations to have a Facebook account? Is there any benefit? Post your thoughts in the comments area below.

Natasha Benacerraf
Nonprofit Services Fellow
Foundation Center-New York

Full Giving USA Philanthropy Report Published

The full report of Giving USA was released last week, and it continues to provide valuable data on giving by individuals, foundations, estates (bequests) and corporations.  The latest findings of Giving USA 2011: the Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2010 published by the Giving USA Foundation include:

•    Total estimated charitable giving in the U.S. rose 3.8 percent in 2010, reflecting the modest economic recovery achieved that year

•    Giving by individuals rose an estimated 2.7 percent   

•    Foundation giving remained steady, falling 0.2 percent. Family foundations provided approximately 48 percent of all grants by independent, community, and operating foundations

•    Giving to international affairs rose an estimated 15.3 percent, the largest percentage increase of any subsector, in part due to various global political and humanitarian crises, specifically the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

The spike in aid to disaster relief is detailed in “Giving to International Affairs," which reveals that the change in charitable contributions to this subsector can be quite volatile, as it often fluctuates with crises such as natural disasters and famines. However, it does indicate that over the last 23 years, giving to this subsector has increased much faster than the average rate of inflation for this time period.

In 2010, aid to disaster relief was largely driven by donations immediately following the Haitian earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince and left approximately 230,000 people dead. The report cites Charity Navigator’s statistic that Americans donated over $1.4 billion to earthquake relief and recovery, significantly higher than giving to any other single disaster that year. It also breaks down how people gave (39 percent gave in person, while 14 percent gave by text message) and where the money went ($479 million to the American Red Cross). Concerns as to how this money is being spent are also examined, and the report cites that only 38 percent of the $1.4 billion has been spent towards immediate recovery and rebuilding efforts.

Giving USA 2011 provides similar detailed analyses on giving to nine subsectors overall, including religion, human services, education, and the arts. It also provides references to all statistical assertions, and a detailed section on methodology that summarizes methods used and revises previous reports.

This useful and unique reference work is available at all Foundation Center libraries. We also keep older versions of the printed reports for historical research purposes; a librarian can assist you with these.

Robert Bruno
Catalog/Reference Librarian
The Foundation Center

This post appeared originally on the Nonprofit Literature Blog.

Today's High Net Worth Philanthropy: What are the Trends, and What Do They Mean?

Published in collaboration with the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, a partnership that began in 2006, the 2010 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy reports on the philanthropic activities of wealthy individual donors. The 2010 study examines giving and volunteering habits of wealthy Americans in 2009, a year that saw substantial economic instability. Did giving habits change during this time?

To discuss the results and implications of the current study, the Foundation Center and Bank of America Merrill Lynch partnered to conduct a panel presentation on February 1 titled High Net Worth Philanthropy: Issues Driving Charitable Activities Among Affluent Households. The panel consisted of Claire Costello and Kenneth Goody of Bank of America's Philanthropic Management division, who explained the results of the study, Nancy Raybin of Raybin Associates, Inc., and Sharna Goldseker of the Andrea & Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, who each explored the implications of the study's findings. Here are a few of the things they discussed:

In 2009, giving as a percentage of income remained mostly steady among the wealthy, but dollar amounts for charitable gifts declined. Our panelists were largely optimistic concerning donor activity during this time. It is to be expected that in a year of considerable economic difficulty, individual giving would drop. However, survey results indicate that 98% of high net worth households still made donations in 2009, and wealthy donors contributed approximately 9% of their income, a relatively modest drop from the 11% reported in 2007. Average dollars amounts of charitable gifts did decrease, but Claire Costello explained that there was also a slight shift in the types of causes that were funded.

Two of the top areas for giving, health and education, declined in dollar amounts, but some other areas – arts, environment/animal care, and international causes – saw notable increases. In addition, the number of wealthy households donating to basic human needs increased by 10%, which is promising in the current economic climate. Nancy Raybin emphasized to the group that 90% of charitable giving is individual giving, and that based on the numbers collected in the 2010 report, fundraisers should not shy away from continuing to pursue high net worth prospects, as these gifts will be crucial for nonprofits' continued survival.

Donors have become more sophisticated and more strategic. Another interesting finding is that high net worth donors increasingly use strategic plans to direct their charitable activities and incorporate their giving into their overall wealth plans. A substantial number also use advisors such as accountants and attorneys in their giving decisions, and over 70% of households reported that they decide where to give based on whether they believe their gift will make a difference and based on the level of confidence that their money will be spent efficiently. Also, donations have increased to foundations, trusts, and donor-advised funds, indicating an interest in providing long-term support to causes. In addition, more than half of the surveyed households gave their largest donation toward general operating support.

This demonstrates a growing understanding of nonprofits' needs, with unrestricted funds being the most necessary and desirable among organizations. What is also promising is that the younger members of wealthy families have been exhibiting a strong interest in and knowledge of philanthropy. Nancy Raybin and Sharna Goldseker both urged fundraisers to help educate these families even further on their charitable interests, taking care to focus initially on the older generation's charitable plans, and then to devote time to engaging the younger generations as well.

Donors are becoming more involved in the causes and organizations they support. The study's results indicate that high net worth donors are not simply writing checks and walking away. Rather, they are attending more meetings, volunteering more (over three quarters of donors volunteered in 2009, and those who volunteered donated more money than those who did not), and holding charities to higher expectations. Survey findings indicate that donors are adamant that the nonprofits they support demonstrate sound business practices, spend appropriately on overhead costs, and offer full financial transparency. Because of this increased involvement in causes, combined with the growing use of strategy mentioned earlier, it was recommended by Nancy Raybin that development professionals apply additional research to their high net worth prospects, investigating the potential donors' motivations for giving, their preferred types of giving vehicles, extent of family involvement, and volunteering practices. Furthermore, she stressed that among the significant number of wealthy individuals who volunteer, their voluntarism should ultimately lead to an even greater commitment, and that these volunteers should therefore be asked for a monetary donation as well.

Wealthy donors involve the whole family in their philanthropy. According to the study, charitable decisions in high net worth households tend to be made as a collaboration between both spouses/giving partners, with only 16% reporting that giving decisions are made by a single decision maker. Furthermore, the vast majority of donors reported that they teach their children about the importance of philanthropy, and over 70% of families claimed that they involve children and younger relatives in their own charitable giving decisions.

All of our panelists agreed that this signifies the importance for development professionals to include the entire family when meeting to discuss philanthropic decisions, not just the head of household, and to include adult children as peers in decision making. This trend also demonstrates the importance for nonprofits to build their skills in soliciting gifts from younger generations, who can often be quite knowledgeable and sophisticated in the field of philanthropy. Sharna Goldseker’s organization 21/64 offers information on philanthropy among younger generations, and one of our blog posts from 2010 also includes a breakdown of generational approaches for philanthropy.

You can read Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s report on high net worth philanthropy in its entirety here and find their studies from previous years here. For even more information on giving trends, Giving USA publishes extensive data on charitable giving; their 2010 data can be found online; access to those digital files and many reports from earlier years can be found in the Foundation Center's New York library. You can also search our Catalog of Nonprofit Literature using the subject/descriptors "Individual giving" and "Individual giving—statistics".

-- Tracy Kaufman, Library Assistant

End-of-year Surveys Measure the Economic Environment of the Social Sector

Two reports released in the past few days analyze key aspects of foundation grantmaking and nonprofit finances for 2010.

Moving Beyond the Economic Crisis: Foundations Assess the Impact and Their Response continues the Foundation Center's exploration of the effect of the recession on grantmaking and operations at the largest foundations in the United States. This new research advisory finds that, in comparison to 2009 when survey results pointed to a "steeper than anticipated reduction" in giving, foundation giving in 2010 appears to have stabilized and seems to be poised to begin to grow by modest amounts in 2011. Another sign of growing stability within the philanthropic sector is the finding that few foundations expect to maintain the "radical changes" in operations they made in 2009 (which included cuts in staff) over the longer term. However, the report points to the changes to foundation operations that will most likely remain in place.

In light of these findings indicating modest gains in foundation giving for 2011, it is interesting to review another sector-wide survey, the November 2010 Fundraising Survey, which focuses on overall charitable giving for the first nine months of 2010. The report, released today by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative, surveys nonprofit organizations on, among other questions, changes in total charitable contributions received from 2009 to 2010 and increases to the demand for services they have experienced in the same time frame.

In terms of total contributions, 26 percent of nonprofit organizations reported no change from 2009 to 2010; 37 percent reported a decrease and 36 percent an increase in total charitable contributions in relation to 2009. In that year, over 50 percent of nonprofits reported a decrease while only 23 percent reported an increase in total contributions received. Overall, in 2010, nonprofits with higher annual expenditures were more likely to report an increase in charitable contributions: 46 percent of organizations with $20 million and above in annual expenditures reported an increase in charitable contributions, while only 23 percent of organizations with annual expenditures of less than $25,000 reported increases.

In a breakdown by giving source, a large proportion (up to 75 percent) of nonprofits that reported decreases in giving indicated that giving from individuals declined due to fewer and smaller contributions. In terms of foundations and for nonprofits reporting decreases, up to 55 percent indicated a decline in grant amounts, but fewer (about 31 percent) reported the outright discontinuation of current grant funds. Corporate giving showed similar patterns.

Of the 2,350 nonprofits surveyed, 68% reported an increased demand for their services in the first nine months of 2010. Foundations also saw an increase in demand for funds; of the 163 private foundations surveyed, 52 percent reported a higher number of applications in 2010 than in 2009. A corresponding 49 percent of these foundations planned to increase their budgets in 2011. These findings seem to show that indicators for modest growth in 2011 reported in Moving Beyond the Economic Crisis may be on target.

While these findings point to what Bob Ottenhoff, president and CEO of GuideStar, calls a "cautious optimism" after two years of negative results, all recognize that even an increase in foundation giving will not be enough to cover ongoing and increasing needs. To take full advantage of limited resources, foundations have, according to Larry T. McGill, vice president of research at the Foundation Center, "... steered their grantmaking toward organizations they believe have the best chance to weather the economic storm." For smaller and newer organizations, this is the economic environment in which they will compete.

Both reports offer much more in-depth information on these and related topics, including analyses of international and disaster giving. Press releases and links to the full-text for these year-end reports can be found on the Foundation Center's web site.

CECP Releases New Corporate Philanthropy Data

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), the membership organization of CEO and chairpersons focused on corporate philanthropy, issued findings from its 2009 Corporate Giving Standard annual philanthropy survey. Giving in Numbers: Trends in Corporate Giving (2010 edition) analyzes the responses of 171 leading U.S. companies, including more than 60 listed on Fortune magazine's list of top 100 companies.

Giving by Companies

Median total giving:

• 2008 = $30.08 million
• 2009 = $26.30 million

Change in total giving from 2008 to 2009:

• 36% of companies increased total giving
• 5% of companies remained flat
• 59% of companies decreased total giving

Size of changes to giving:

• From 2008 to 2009, 40% of companies decreased giving by 10% or more.
• From 2007 to 2008, only 24% of companies decreased giving by 10% or more.
• From 2008 to 2009, 5% of companies experienced no changes in giving levels
• From 2007 to 2008, 17% of companies experienced no changes in giving levels.

Though more than half of companies gave less, aggregate giving was higher in 2009 than in 2008 by 7%. This increase in aggregate giving was a result of two trends in 2009: 1) Pharmaceutical companies increased in-kind contributions of medicine through Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs); and 2) Corporate mergers and acquisitions resulted in combined corporate giving that exceeded the individual companies’ giving levels.

Corporate Giving Strategies
Confronting company-wide spending cuts and foundation endowment losses, corporate funders were forced to make choices:

• Organizations and programs meeting basic needs in health, human services, and community economic development, received an increase in corporate funding support.
• As stated above, drug manufacturers increased donations of medicines to cover the uninsured, recently unemployed individuals, and others.
• Companies looked to increase opportunities for employees to volunteer and offer pro bono services. Over the past three years, the percentage of companies offering paid-release time for employees to volunteer increased by almost 20%, and the number of companies offering pro bono services continues to grow.
• Companies experienced an increase in their employees' participation in matching-gifts programs and some raised their dollar limits, which allowed employees to donate a greater amount to be matched by companies.

The 2010 Edition of Giving in Numbers offers comparisons of CECP’s data sources and methodology to that of Giving USA, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Foundation Center's research. In addition, look for information about how corporations leverage their connections to consumers, suppliers, and employees to further help in nonprofit fundraising efforts. And important for nonprofit organizations and corporate grantmakers alike, the report analyzes giving priorities by industry (p. 27); giving internationally (pp. 28-29); and giving by gender and ethnicity (p. 30). CECP makes the complete report, as well as a 7-page summary, available online.

Interested in pursuing corporate funding and other means of support from corporations? Learn about the strategies you can employ in our Introduction to Corporate Giving class. We offer it as a:

• 60-minute classroom session
• Full-day seminar
• Webinar
• Self-paced online class

Foundation Giving Trends, 2010

The newest volume in our Foundations Today Series, Foundation Giving Trends: Update on Funding Priorities, provides key data from a sample consisting of the 1,490 largest foundations in the country; to put this sample into perspective, the grants awarded by these foundations and reported between 2008 and 2009 totaled $25.3 billion - more than half of all giving by all U.S. foundations. The report highlights the funding interests by subject, population, and type of recipient organization of these foundations, and shows the size of grants awarded and giving by foundation location and foundation type.

Some interesting findings (among many) the report offers include:

• As in previous years, funding for health captured the largest share of grant dollars, while human services had the largest number of grants awarded.
• Half of all grants awarded were of $50,000 or less, except in the social sciences, international affairs, and science and technology. Seven out of ten human services grants were of $50,000 or less.
• Giving to higher education represented 43 percent of all education-related grants, while elementary/secondary education received 31 percent of giving in this subject area.
• The average international affairs grant was $327,794, the highest average among all subject areas; health captured the highest share of international grant dollars.
• The percentage of grants awarded to the arts increased from 10.6 percent in 2007 to 12.5 percent in 2008.
• Foundation support for programs related to women and girls increased 56 percent over the last year.
• In terms of types of grants awarded, more than half of grant dollars provided support for specific project and program activities.
• The median grant awarded by foundations for general operating support - $25,000 - was the lowest among all types of support awarded.
• After an initial concentration in the Northeast at the turn of the 20th century, U.S. foundations in the 21st century are more geographically dispersed than ever, with Western foundations providing the largest share of grant dollars.
• The largest grant recorded for 2008 came from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for a five-year grant of $461 million to ClimateWorks Foundation.

Please download the free highlights and order the full report and the complete series from our web site.

Released Online: Key Facts 2010

Published in recent months by the Foundation Center's research department, these briefs on the assets and giving of three major types of foundations in the U.S. have been posted in full-text online. They track community, corporate, and family foundations, respectively, for 2008, and provide a look at the impact that the economic crisis had on private sector institutional philanthropy and at other important measures for the year.

Key Facts on Community Foundations

• Community foundation giving declined 9.6% in 2009, a larger decrease than for independent and corporate foundations.
  
• 42% of community foundations estimated their giving would further decrease in 2010.
  
• Larger community foundations tend to provide funding for the arts, education, human services, and religion, but are less likely to fund health, international affairs, technology, and science.

Key Facts on Corporate Foundations

• Corporate foundation giving decreased by 3.3%, a much smaller decrease than their independent and community foundation counterparts.
• Giving by corporate foundations represents 32% of all corporate contributions.
• Companies in banking and finance accounted for the largest share of corporate foundation giving.

Key Facts on Family Foundations

• There are 38,339 grantmaking independent foundations that are also sub-categorized by the Foundation Center as “family foundations”; this represents over 50% of all independent foundations and accounts for a similar share of giving and assets.
• Giving by family foundations rose by 14% during the period between 2007 and 2008.
• A majority of family foundation giving targets the economically disadvantaged.

Visit National Trends in the Gain Knowledge area of our web site for access to these and other newly posted reports.

The Foundation Center and the Global Philanthropy Forum

For the second year, the Foundation Center is providing the information platform for the Global Philanthropy Forum annual conference. The conference, which brings together a diverse group of donors and social investors around a range of global social issues, is taking place through Wednesday, April 21, in Redwood City, CA.

From our research database and knowledge resources, we created targeted materials and a set of visual presentations organized around four central themes — food security, global health, access to water, and climate change — available to conference participants through a customized web portal. The specially commissioned presentations will be shown during the conference and streamed via the forum's web site.

Check out these dynamic visualizations from the Global Philanthropy Forum on YouTube.

--Thanks to Katrina Brown, Reference Librarian, Foundation Center-Washington, DC, for this blog post.

From our research database and knowledge resources, we created targeted materials and a set of visual presentations organized around four central themes — food security, global health, access to water, and climate change — available to conference participants through a customized web portal. The specially commissioned presentations will be shown during the conference and streamed via the forum's web site.

Foundation Giving Suffers Record Decline

The Foundation Center's Foundations Today Series consists of three annual research studies that analyze the size, reach, and giving trends of U.S. private and community foundations.

The first of the series, the just-released 2010 edition of Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates: Current Outlook, reports a record decrease of 8.4 percent in foundation giving in 2009. To put this into context, during previous economic downturns in 1983, 2002, and 2003, foundation giving declined by less than 1 percent. Given the unprecedented losses in foundation assets in 2008, however, it is clear that the measured responses of some of the larger foundations lessened the devastating impact of the crisis.

Available in full text online at the Foundation Center's web site, the report addresses related factors, such as foundation asset losses, establishment of new foundations, and the outlook for giving in 2010 and 2011, and provides a very useful appendix on foundation assets and giving in 2007 and 2008.