June 10, 2010 — Charitable giving in the United States dropped 3.6% in 2009 as donors shied from funding capital campaigns and new buildings in favor of organizations that serve immediate needs, such as human services, health care, and international aid, according to figures just released in Giving USA 2009.

Estimated donations in 2009 totaled $303.75 billion. This is the steepest decline in current dollar terms since the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University began publishing its annual report, Giving USA, in 1956.

Suffering the largest drops in support were education (-3.6%), foundations (-8%), arts (-2%), religion (-0.7 %), and public-society benefit organizations (-17.3%) such as United Ways, Jewish federations, and advocacy groups. The types of charities that showed increased support typically provide immediate services, such as human services (+2.3%), health (+3.8%), and international aid (+6.2%).

Some of these increases can be attributed in part to a 5.5% rise in corporate giving, which brings corporate giving to within 1% of its pre-recession level.

According to at least two other recent reports (Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy and Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Entrepreneurs Foundation), much of this gain is due to an increase in-kind donations, which are less affected by recessions.

Offsetting increased charity from corporations, grantmaking by private, community, and operating foundations shrunk by 8.9%, according to the Foundation Center. This is a less severe drop than foundations anticipated when the Foundation Center surveyed them early in 2009.

Individual Giving Stays Flat

Giving USA maintains that individual giving, which accounts for 75% of all charitable contributions, stayed fairly steady last year. The total of $227 million represents a decrease of only 0.4% from 2008.

This figures contradicts other recent surveys, such as one published in May by Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. The Giving USA Foundation's executive summary of Giving USA suggests that individual contributions increased toward the very end of the year as stock market indices rose, but last month Center Director Paul Schervish announced that contributions by individuals declined by 4.6% last year, on top of another 6.1% drop in 2008.

However, charitable bequests fell an estimated 23.9% in 2009. This reflects the unusually high level of bequest giving announced in 2008 by the Internal Revenue Service in its data released in late 2009. The 2009 estimate is $0.58 billion (2.5%) above the 2007 estimate.

Downward Trends for Education, Health, Major Gifts

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s compendium of studies performed around the country shows stark declines in various types of giving:

• Gifts from individuals to colleges and universities in 2009 dropped 17.8% (after inflation), the Council for Aid to Education maintains.

• Contributions to 433 hospitals and medical centers, 85% of which come from individuals, fell by 11% last year (not counting inflation), in a survey by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

• Donations to more than a quarter of the charities that raise the most from private sources dropped by nearly 10%.

• Donations of $5,000 or less fell by a median of 4.8% in an analysis of 2009 contributions by 38 million donors to 79 large charities by Target Analytics, a Boston research company.

• The total value of gifts of $1 million or more announced last year in The Chronicle totaled $4.4 billion, a 64% drop from the nearly $12 billion reported in 2008.