The AFP Blog: Your Last Wakeup Call

The AFP Blog: Your Last Wakeup Call: You may have seen the 2011 giving figures from the GivingUSA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University already. If you haven’t, take a look. It’s not pretty.

Giving USA 2012 Indicates Long, Slow, Uphill Slog…If We Are Lucky - NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly - Promoting an active and engaged democracy.

Giving USA 2012 Indicates Long, Slow, Uphill Slog…If We Are Lucky - NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly - Promoting an active and engaged democracy.: If there is one takeaway for most nonprofits from this year’s Giving USA Report, it is that many nonprofits will be acutely feeling the effects of the recession for many years to come. This is unhappy news for many groups who may already feel that they have had to cut into their musculature to survive.

But before we address the numbers, we have one caveat: not everyone will feel the worst effects of this recession. Some organizations have done extraordinarily well over the past few years, but that is precisely what makes these numbers bad news for many. When the charitable giving numbers are relatively flat and some nonprofits are doing extraordinarily well, conversely, that means some are doing much worse than usual. Thus, we see some groups failing either because they are in a troubled field, or because they are in an economically troubled geographic region, or because they never had much to spare to begin with and the recession has rendered them too spare to survive.

Charitable Donations Barely Grew Last Year, 'Giving USA' Finds - Fund Raising - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Charitable Donations Barely Grew Last Year, 'Giving USA' Finds - Fund Raising - The Chronicle of Higher Education: Charitable Donations Barely Grew Last Year, 'Giving USA' Finds

By Holly Hall

For the second year in a row, charitable giving barely grew, rising just 0.9 percent after inflation in 2011, according to Tuesday's release of "Giving USA," the annual yearbook of American philanthropy, which found that donations to educational institutions also edged up by 0.9 percent.

The report estimated that the total donated was $298.4-billion.

Giving to Arts and Culture Rose to $13 Billion in 2011 - Businessweek

Giving to Arts and Culture Rose to $13 Billion in 2011 - Businessweek: Donations to the arts in the U.S. rose about 4.1 percent in 2011, to $13.1 billion, according to a report released today by the Giving USA Foundation.

Such gifts fell 2.9 percent in 2009, the year following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., and then rose about 5.7 percent in 2010. Arts and culture organizations received 4 percent of U.S. charitable donations last year.

2011 Giving Estimated at $298.42B - TheNonProfitTimes

2011 Giving Estimated at $298.42B - TheNonProfitTimes: Giving in the United States reached an estimated $298.42 billion during 2011, an increase of roughly 4 percent from 2010. Giving by individuals led the way, as usual, at 73 percent or $217.79 billion.