# Giving In A Recession

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/07/14/giving-recession/
- Published: 2009-07-14T21:27:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**It’s still too early to tell what the impact of the current recession will be 
on UK giving but some interesting data from across the pond suggests that the recession
has bitten deeper than many first thought. 
Recent figures produced by the annual
study Giving USA show that total giving fell by 2% in 2008, or 5.7% adjusted for
inflation. This is the worst year on year record in the 54 year history of the study.
The only previous year when giving declined at a similar rate was 1974 when giving
declined by 5.4%.

Corporate giving fell by 8% in 2008, bequests by 6.4% and individual giving by 6.3%.(
all adjusted for inflation). Foundation giving fell slightly, by a mere 0.8%. It
is important to recognize, however, that a much greater impact on foundations is
likely to be felt in subsequent years when the recession’s impact on size of endowments
will begin to bite.

## Differences between causes

Most sub-sectors (causes) experienced a decline in giving during the period but 
this was not universally true. Giving to religious causes and giving to public/societal
benefit actually increased over the period. So too did giving to international aid,
although accounting for inflation this sector too experienced a decline. Hardest
hit appeared to be giving foundations. There are echoes here with Indiana University’s
Center on Philanthropy study of million dollar donations. As the recession began
to bite in the third quarter of 2008 the number of million dollar donations fell
sharply by 36% over the previous quarter. Looking at the last two quarters of 2008,
the number of gifts of $1 million or more given to charities by individuals fell
33% in the last six months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

## Blackbaud data on giving

There is further grim news from software provider Blackbaud. Their Target Analytics
group conduct a regular quarterly analysis of transactions from 79 organizations
including over 35 million donors and more than 66 million gifts. The data for their
study is provided direct from the databases of participating nonprofits and it focuses
on giving through direct marketing media, including direct mail, telemarketing and
the web.

Comparing the first quarter of 2008 with the first quarter of 2009 total revenue
fell by a whopping 7.8%. Participating organizations also suffered a decline in 
donor numbers of around 5.8% (the median). Much of this decline appears to have 
been due to a collapse in new donor acquisition. The numbers of newly recruited 
donors fell 12.9% over the period. Retention rates have also suffered, although 
overall retention declined by only 1% over the period. Some good news at least.

In aggregate the statistics make for grim reading. While the UK obviously differs
from the US in many significant ways this work does at least provide a flavor of
what the UK might expect when data becomes available for the same period in this
country later this year.

The details of the Giving USA study may be found at [The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy](http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/News/announce.aspx),
while the most recent report from target Analytics may be [downloaded from Blackbaud](http://www.blackbaud.com/targetanalytics/benchmarking/).

 * **[Sector finances finally recover to pre-recession levels but smaller charities still struggling](https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/05/09/sector-finances-finally-recover-pre-recession-levels-smaller-charities-still-struggling/)(
   9 May 2018)**

 * **[DEC appeals raise £24 million in past year](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/07/23/dec-appeals-raise-24m-past-year/)**(
   23 July 2009)
 * **[The feel of money](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/10/20/feel-money/)** (20
   October 2009)
 * **[Self Regulation: Time for a Review?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/11/03/self-regulation-time-review/)**(
   3 November 2009)