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Welcome to the INFO Depot, the place to find facts and stats about fundraising, nonprofits and more.    

Index to Recent Stats and Facts 

Corporations
Foundations
 Individual Giving and Volunteering
 Nonprofits


Corporations

  • A study done by the Alliance for Board Diversity found that men still account for 83% of the membership on Fortune 100 boards while women hold 6.9% of board seats, minorities hold 15% of director positions, and minority women hold only 3% of board seats. The Alliance for Board Diversity is a coalition of nonprofits that aims to move women and minorities onto corporate boards.
  • The 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study has found that 89 percent of Americans believe that corporations and nonprofits should work together to raise money and awareness for causes. Seventy-six percent believe that partnerships result in a more positive image of the non-profit, and 79% are more likely to buy a product that supports the non-profit. For more results and details from this study, visit http://www.coneinc.com/pages/pr_33.html. (Cone Incorporated press release, May 25)
  • According to Forbes, Wal-Mart ranked as the No. 1 corporate donor of cash in 2002 by giving $136 million. Altria Group, Ford Motor Company, Exxon Mobil, Target, J. P. Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup rounded out the top 10.  
Foundations  

  • The ePhilanthropy Foundation 2004 estimate of online giving in the United States is $2.62 billion. According to Ted Hart, CEO of ePhilanthropy Foundation, "the estimate is based on data we have collected from various organizations both large and small, the trend line from the Chronicle of Philanthropy survey and hard data from 2004 Hurricane and Tsunami relief giving. While all such estimates, are just that -- estimates -- we feel it is likely conservative given the current online giving climate. We urge all interested parties to place an emphasis on the 'trend line of online giving' rather than the specific dollar estimate itself":
    1999 = $10 million
    2000 = $250 million
    2001 = $550 million
    2002 = $1.1 billion
    2003 = $1.9 billion
    2004 = $2.62 billion
     

  • A district judge last week ordered the Iowa State University Foundation to comply with the State Supreme Court's decision that the foundation's files are subject to disclosure to the public. Judge Timothy Finn said in his decision that the foundation's records must be made available "at reasonable times and places." His decision backed up the Supreme Court's ruling that the foundation is performing a government function as the fundraising arm of a public university, even though it is a private organization. The judge did not specify whether lists of prospective donors or benefactors' personal financial information were subject to public scrutiny, though state laws do provide some exemptions to Iowa's open-records policies. (Chronicle of Higher Education, June 17)

  • Estimated charitable giving rose 5 percent to $248.52 billion for 2004, a new record for philanthropic giving in the United States, according to the Giving USA Foundation's annual report, released earlier this week. Contributions made for relief after the December 26 tsunami in the Indian Ocean region accounted for less than one-half of 1 percent of total giving, while much of those gifts will appear in the 2005 report. Individual giving, the single largest source of charitable contributions, rose by an estimated 4.1 percent to reach $187.92 billion. It was reported that living individuals account for three quarters of total charitable giving in the United States. Giving to all subsectors increased in 2004 at growth rates ranging from 7 percent for environmental and animal welfare organizations to 0.8 percent for international affairs and development. In the annual Giving USA survey, 55 percent of responding organizations reported increases in gifts received in 2004 compared with 2003. The largest organizations were the likeliest to report an increase in giving, with 60 percent saying giving was up in 2004. (Alexander Haas Martin Partners press release, June 14)

  • Giving for children's health by the largest U.S. foundations rose by more than 50 percent between 1999 and 2003, according to the report, Foundation Funding for Children's Health. The Foundation Center report found that grantmaking had increased from $390.6 million in 1999 to $602.8 million in 2003. 

  • With the largest endowment of any foundation in the world -- at $28.8 billion -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is leading a resurgence in giving to improve global health, as Mr. Gates has given $5.4 billion in the past five years toward such causes. The United Nations World Health Organization credits the Gates Foundation with helping to save 670,000 lives, partly by funding global coalitions to help make and distribute malaria vaccines or spermicide for women that can ward off AIDS in Third-World countries. (Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 23)

  • The Rasmuson Foundation of Alaska has found a unique way to strengthen health and social service nonprofits; they have begun a sabbatical program to help combat turnover. The executives get to take two to six months off in order to rejuvenate themselves. The grants serve as a reward for talented professionals, as well as an incentive for Alaska's nonprofit leaders to stay in the sector. Leaders must return to work for at least another year as one of the conditions of the grant. The time off also allows for succession planning, which is another part of the Rasmuson mission for sustainable nonprofits. (Anchorage Daily News, May 15)

  • Arizona's private foundations experienced a significant growth between 1993 and 2002, with the amount of total giving rising from about $40 million to more than $141 million. Even though charitable giving has more than tripled in the past nine years, Arizona's private foundation assets represent less than 1 percent of the nation's total private foundation assets. Yet some foundations are known to play a larger role than that of just giving. They also work to change public policy and provide community education on issues. A recent study published by Arizona Grantmakers Forum noted that more than half of giving from the top 15 private and public foundations supports social services and education, followed by health care. The study, "Profile of Charitable Foundations in Arizona," is available online at www.arizonagrantmakersforum.org. (azcentral.com, May 9)

  • Arizona's private foundations experienced a significant growth between 1993 and 2002, with the amount of total giving rising from about $40 million to more than $141 million. Even though charitable giving has more than tripled in the past nine years, Arizona's private foundation assets represent less than 1 percent of the nation's total private foundation assets. Yet some foundations are known to play a larger role than that of just giving. They also work to change public policy and provide community education on issues. A recent study published by Arizona Grantmakers Forum noted that more than half of giving from the top 15 private and public foundations supports social services and education, followed by health care. The study, "Profile of Charitable Foundations in Arizona," is available online at www.arizonagrantmakersforum.org. (azcentral.com, May 9)
  • The Lilly Endowment, previously the nation's second-largest foundation, is now in fourth place behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The endowment currently has 99.9 percent of its assets in Lilly stock, and its asset value shrank by 20 percent in 2004 as the price of Eli Lilly and Co. stock fell. According to the endowment's 2004 annual report, the total amount of grants paid by the foundation were down 7.5 percent from the year before, continuing a three-year trend. The Lilly Endowment was not the only foundation to experience a drop. The Center on Philanthropy attributed the general drop in giving for all foundations to happenings in the stock market. (The Indianapolis Star, April 13
  • Giving by grant-making foundations in the U.S. was down 2.5% in 2003.  This brings the total estimated giving by the 65,000 foundations to $29.7 billion from $30 billion in 2002.  Community foundation giving actually rose during this period, but giving by independent foundations and corporate foundations fell. (source: Foundation Center of New York) 

Individual Giving and Volunteering

  • A June 2005 Office of Tax Analysis report by the US Department of the Treasury announced that only 131,000 taxpayers reported deductions in excess of $50,000. These taxpayers represent one third of one percent of all donors, but they accounted for some 20 percent of the total claimed deductions. The report also noted that the majority of the 40 million individual taxpayers reporting contributions claimed small deductions. Less than 5 percent of these taxpayers deducted $10,000 or more. Larger donors accounted for about 42 percent of the total claimed deductions.
  • More than 8.6 million households donated over $3 billion online in 2004 according to the Kintera/Luth Nonprofit Trend Report, a study done by the Luth Research Survey Savvy Panel. Not only are individuals donating online, they are also doing research on potential organizations before they make contributions. The results parallel recent research done by the Chronicle of Philanthropy which found that online donations to the largest charities in the U.S. grew in 2004. The Kintera/Luth Nonprofit Trend Report found that more than 65% of donors visit at least one of the websites of the charities they support, and 40% always go online before making a giving decision. Even more interesting is that more than 75% of donors who do online research before making a donation said that going online made some impact on their decision of whether or not to give. Twenty-five percent said that the impact was significant. (Association of Fundraising Professionals, June 27)
  • Federal lawmakers will introduce regulatory legislation later this summer in an attempt to curb donor-advised fund abuses. Donor-advised funds, which are not mentioned in the tax code, allow individuals to donate money for an immediate tax deduction, while allocating the fund out over time to designated charities. While the fund legally controls the money, the donor usually suggests which charities receive money, and when. The legislation will require greater disclosure from those who use donor-advised funds; ensure that the funds donate a certain percentage of their assets to charity each year; and prohibits individuals from using such funds to cover personal expenses. (Philanthropy News Digest, June 23)
  • Donors may soon need to acquire written permission from their spouses in order to establish a charitable remainder trust (CRT) according to new requirements implemented by the Internal Revenue Service. A CRT allows donors to leave some or all of their assets to a charity in return for a tax deduction while retaining the income from the trust for life. Once the income-generation period has ended the trust's assets go to the charity. The IRS is attempting to resolve the conflict that arises between a CRT and spousal disinheritance laws, which prevent a spouse from being disinherited. According to the new rules, any donor who creates a trust during their lifetime, an "inter vivos" trust, on or after June 28 must have a legitimate waiver in place negating any claims by a surviving spouse to the trust's assets. Trusts without such a waiver will fail to qualify as a CRT.   (Philanthropy News Digest, June 22)
  • Independent Sector, a coalition of nonprofits, estimates that the value of an hour of volunteered time is $17.55, and this is an increase from 2003's $17.19. They calculated the number based on the average hourly wage for all non-management and non-agricultural workers, and added 12 percent to cover fringe benefits. (Philanthropy Journal, April 11)
  • Approximately 90 percent of households, those earning less than $100,000, account for around half of the amount donated by living individuals in the U.S., according to Giving USA Update, Issue 2, 2004.  
  • Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Arkansas were the top four institutions when ranked by private support, according to the Council for Aid to Education's annual survey, "Voluntary Support of Education." Others in the top 10 include:  The Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, Cornell University, University of Washington, University of Texas, Austin and University of Southern California. (source)
  • By giving more non-cash assets and planning their gifts at the beginning of the year rather than waiting until the end of the year, says New Tithing Group in San Francisco, wealthy Americans could give about $107 billion more to charity without feeling much poorer, The Mercury News reported Jan. 1, 2004.
  • Volunteering with or without family members, attending religious services weekly and homeownership are three major characteristics influencing philanthropic behavior in the United States, according to the Independent Sector. 
  • The number of individuals volunteering their time for nonprofit organizations increased 1.4% between September 2002 and September 2003. About 63.8 million people did volunteer work at some point from September 2002 to September 2003, up from 59.8 million for the similar period ended in September 2002 (source). 
  • Half of American adults believe that volunteering is more important than giving money, according to a Thrivent Financial for Lutherans survey.  
  • A study on Americans' confidence in charitable organizations by the Brookings Institution, released Sept. 13, 2004, had the following findings:
    • Only 11 percent of Americans believe charitable organizations do a "very good" job spending money wisely, including just 41 percent of Americans who expressed a "great deal" of confidence in charitable organizations. Thirty-seven percent of Americans said they either didn't do "too good" a job in this area (19 percent), "not at all" good (7 percent) or did not know or refused to answer the question (12 percent).
    • With just 15 percent of Americans expressing a "great deal" of confidence, charitable organizations find themselves just barely ahead of organized labor, TV news, big business, HMOs and Congress
    • Although 31 percent say charitable organizations do a "very good" job helping people, only 19 percent say the same about how they run their programs and services and 17 percent for being fair in their decisions.

Nonprofits

  • With nearly 500,000 nonprofits having been created in the past 10 years in the United States, bringing the total to 1.5 million organizations, some nonprofit experts are beginning to wonder if that number does more harm than good. While overall giving has increased, most of the money is going to the major organizations like the United Way, the American Red Cross and church groups. To reduce the number of nonprofits, some communities have offered financial incentives for them to merge. One concern lawmakers have with the proliferation of nonprofits in recent years is the lack of oversight in the formation of a charitable organization, and they fear that some groups are gaining nonprofit status to manipulate the tax code or misuse donor dollars. Some wonder if new laws should make earning nonprofit status more difficult, and the Senate Finance Committee is considering whether to make nonprofits re-register every five years. (Christian Science Monitor, June 20)
  • A group of charities and other nonprofits offered Congress and the IRS a list of more than 120 ways to curb abuses by tax-exempt organizations last week. Some of the measures included greater public disclosure of organizations' finances, more coordination between state and federal authorities, and tougher requirements for certain types of charities. The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector is calling for making the IRS Form 990 returns, which nonprofits must file, clearer and more complete, along with requiring electronic filing of the returns by all charitable organizations. The report is also calling for tightening the rules covering "donor-advised" funds, which allow individuals to make deductible contributions to a mutual fund and later direct the fund to make donations to a charity. The new rules would force such funds to distribute at least 5 percent of assets each year, require written agreements between the fund and charities to which it gives, and bar donations from the funds to private foundations or to the fund's donors, advisers or related organizations. (Washington Post, June 22)
  • Nonprofits now account for one in 12 jobs in Indiana, according to a new report by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy and School of Public and Environmental Affairs called "Indiana Nonprofit Employment: 2005 Report." Employment by Indiana nonprofits grew more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2003, while employment by for-profit businesses shrank 6 percent during the same period and government jobs grew by just 3 percent. The study also found the wage gap between business and government jobs and those in the nonprofit sector is getting smaller. In some industries, such as health care, nonprofits and for-profit businesses paid similar wages. (Louisville Courier-Journal, June 5)
  • A study done by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC) reported significant new job growth in nonprofit business and agencies. The nonprofit sector's workforce grew by 9 percent between 2000 and 2003 while overall employment in the state saw a 4 percent decline. During that time period, nonprofits reported an increase of 33,325 jobs, while the state reported a cumulative loss of 131,823 jobs. (The Enterprise, May 16)
  • A study done by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC) reported significant new job growth in nonprofit business and agencies. The nonprofit sector's workforce grew by 9 percent between 2000 and 2003 while overall employment in the state saw a 4 percent decline. During that time period, nonprofits reported an increase of 33,325 jobs, while the state reported a cumulative loss of 131,823 jobs. (The Enterprise, May 16)
  • The United Way of the Bay Area's third annual Nonprofit Pulse Survey found that after two years of declining donations and increasing demands for services, the Bay Area's nonprofit sector is finally stabilizing. While thirty-six percent of the respondents experiences a drop in government funding, thirty-nine percent reported an increase in individual giving, and thirty-four percent reported an increase in corporation and foundation giving. Forty-six percent of the nonprofits surveyed reported an increase in total revenues for 2004, while twenty-two percent remained the same. (Philanthropy News Digest, May 2)
  • According to Americans for the Arts, the New York metropolitan statistical area has more than 54,895 arts-related businesses, institutions and organizations, more than any other area of the United States. Los Angeles has the second-most, followed by San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Houston and Atlanta. When ranked by number per capita, Seattle takes the lead followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, Atlanta, San Diego, Miami and Houston.  (source)
  • The number of public charities registered with the Internal Revenue Service increased 76% between 1992 and 2002, according to the National Council of Nonprofit Organizations.  
  • Americans donated more than $240 billion in 2002, according to AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy.
  • In its Philanthropy 400 Report, released Oct. 28, 2004, The Chronicle of Philanthropy had the following findings regarding the nation's 400 most-successful fundraising groups:
    • Giving to those 400 groups rose by a total of 2.3 percent last year, recovering from 2002's 1.2-percent drop.
    • With 74 charities providing their contribution figures for fiscal year 2004, the early signs indicate a median increase of 5.8 percent by year's end.
    • The Salvation Army took the No. 1 spot on the Philanthropy 400, returning to the top spot after being knocked off for the first time last year by the American Red Cross. Rounding out the top 10 were 2) The American Cancer Society, 3) Gifts in Kind International, 4) the YMCA, 5) Lutheran Services in America, 6) the AmeriCares Foundation, 7) the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, 8) The American Red Cross, 9) Feed the Children, 10) Harvard University.
    • Aggregate donations to the 400 charities totaled $47.1 billion, giving them almost $1 out of every $5 contributed to the nation's 850,000 charities in 2002.

 

 

 

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