News/Stats/Studies

Donor-advised funds, where people can place a portion of their wealth and then direct the assets for specific charitable purposes, have experienced growth in assets and in the grants made from the funds. Total assets in the funds rose to $893 million at the end of last year, up 16 percent from 2009, according to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Meanwhile, grant-making out of the funds increased to nearly $120 million last year, up 46 percent from around $82 million in 2009, the foundation said.

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, announced at the Clinton Global Initiative a $500-million commitment over the next decade to help reduce the number of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth. Details of the plan are forthcoming, but the company says it will work with Save the Children, among other groups.

The announcement was one of several made during the opening day of President Clinton’s annual philanthropy event. To attend the event, donors and nonprofit leaders must make a “commitment” to effect change on a specific topic.

Nonprofits in the U.S. did a better job in 2010 acquiring and keeping donors but continued to lose money because they still lost donors and secured gifts that were smaller than in 2009, a new report says. So net giving in 2010 still trailed its levels from before the recession but improved significantly from 2009, says the 2011 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report, an initiative of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute.

DonorVoice released the executive summary of its First Annual Donor Commitment Report: Answering the question of how strong your donor relationships are and why it matters.

Foundations are doing more than they did a decade ago to assess their performance but still are not satisfied with their ability to measure their impact and want their boards to be more involved in assessment, a new report says.

Nearly 75 percent of 173 CEOs of U.S. foundations awarding at least $5 million in grants a year who responded to a survey by The Center for Effective Philanthropy say assessing foundation effectiveness is among their top priorities.

Donors to Canada’s health care institutions increased contributions by $80 million last year, but the much needed financial booster shot remained far below amounts raised before the recession hit. While charitable cash and pledges in FY2010 totaled $1.204 billion, 7.1 percent more than in FY2009, they were $133 million less than the total of funds raised in FY2007, according to the FY2010 AHP Report on Giving-Canada by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

Donations to the biggest college sports programs climbed as the U.S. economy faltered, with contributions rising 24 percent from the middle of 2006 to the middle of 2010.

The 54 public schools in the six most powerful sports conferences collected $998 million in fiscal 2010, up from $805 million in 2007, according to records from colleges in the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences.

Nearly 90 percent of America's largest foundations report that at least some of the nonprofit organizations they support have been severely affected by state budget cuts. One-quarter report having grantees that have been forced to suspend operations. According to the Foundation Center's new report, Foundation Leaders Address the State Budget Crises, about half of the funders surveyed have provided assistance to affected nonprofits, while two-thirds expect to increase funding for organizations serving vulnerable populations in general.

The simultaneous modeling of asset allocation and spending policies can improve the way in which nonprofit organizations manage the risk/reward trade-off in their investment programs, according to a whitepaper developed by global professional services company Towers Watson.

In its paper, Articulating Risk Helps You Achieve Your Mission, released by Towers Watson Investment Services, the company shows how nonprofits can evaluate and determine the appropriate balance of risks such as asset depletion, spending power erosion and liquidity with expected rewards.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, inspired Americans to step up and help their neighbors like never before, donating billions of dollars to families who lost loved ones.

Four years later, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the Deep South, Americans pulled out their checkbooks once again.

Americans also donated nearly $2 billion to victims of the tsunami that slammed the South Pacific in 2004 and nearly $1.5 billion to victims of the earthquake that devastated Haiti last year.