Foundation Giving Declined by Record 8.4 Percent in 2009, Study Finds
Foundation Giving Declined by Record 8.4 Percent in 2009, Study Finds
Challenged by a prolonged economic downturn, the nation's grantmaking foundations cut their giving by an estimated 8.4 percent in 2009, a new report from the Foundation Center finds. The decline is the steepest since the center began tracking the data in 1975.
Based on a survey of more than 1,200 large and midsize foundations, the 2010 edition of Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates (16 pages, PDF) found that grant dollars awarded fell from $46.8 billion in 2008 to $42.9 billion in 2009, and that the decline in giving totaled less than half the 17 percent loss in foundation assets recorded in 2008. The report also found that independent and family foundations, which represent nearly 90 percent of foundations, reduced their giving by 8.9 percent to $30.8 billion in 2009, corporate foundation giving decreased by 3.3 percent to $4.4 billion, and community foundation giving declined by 9.6 percent to $4.1 billion.
Several factors helped to moderate the overall decline in foundation giving, including the decision of a significant number of funders to reduce their operating expenses and/or tap their endowments to shore up their giving, an increase in giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a continuation of gifts and bequests to new and existing foundations, and the practice of asset-averaging by some foundations, which reduces the impact on giving of year-to-year fluctuations in asset values.
Findings from the survey also suggest that foundation giving will remain flat in 2010 — a less pessimistic view than respondents held a year ago. And should the economy and stock market continue to rebound, foundation giving may show positive, albeit modest, growth in 2011.
"The economic crisis has not ended for this country's nonprofits, and it will be some time before foundations are in a position to help them return to growth," said Foundation Center president Bradford K. Smith. "But funders have made exceptional efforts to lessen the pain faced by the nonprofit community."
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