FundGiving News: Giving Statistics

Giving Statistics

Few people realize how large charities have become, how many vital services they provide, and how much funding flows through them each year. Without charities and non-profits, America would simply not be able to operate. Their operations are so big that during 2009, in the midst of a recession, total giving was still more than $300 billion.

How big is the sector?

• Total giving to charitable organizations was $303.74 billion in 2009 (about 2% of GDP). This is a decrease of 3.6% from 2008 when giving was $315.08 billion.
• As in previous years, the majority of that giving came from individuals--$227.4 billion (75%). Giving by individuals dropped 0.4%.
• Giving by bequest was $23.8 billion (down 23.9%), foundations gave $38.4 billion (down 8.9%), and corporations donated $14.1 billion (up 5.5%).
• 33% of all donations go to religious organizations --$100.9 billion (down 0.7%). Much of these contributions can be attributed to people giving to their local place of worship. The next largest sector was education with $40 billion (down 3.6%).
• Here's how the other categories of charities performed: gifts to international charities grew 0.6% ($13.3 billion), donations to human services charities increased 2.3% ($27 billion), giving to animal and environment charities charities increased 2.3% ($6.15 billion), giving to health charities increased 3.8% ($22.5 billion), ), giving to arts, culture and humanities organizations decreased 2.4% ($12.3 billion), and giving to public benefit charities declined 4.6% ($22.8 billion.

All data property of Giving USA 2010, the Annual Report on Philanthropy, published by the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy.  A more detailed synopsis of the report is accessible on Charity Navigator's blog.

Why is this important to FundGiving?  We don't want to see the annual giving number decrease, we want to see it increase and our hypothesis is if there are other ways to give besides cash donations we can not only avoid a decrease we can create an increase in annual giving.  Help us in our mission..

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Go Forth and Do Good,
The FundGiving Team