News/Stats/Studies

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.

Razoo, a giving and fundraising website, announced that its board of directors has named Lesley Mansford to serve as the new chief executive officer. Interim CEO Brian Fujito will remain in his position as CTO.

The Charity Direct Debit Cancellation Rate for August 2011 has been recorded at an all time high at 4.58% in the U.K. This is the highest cancellation rate seen in the month of August since Rapidata Services Plc, the charity transactions processing agency, began tracking regular giving trends eight years ago in 2003. The figure exceeds the August 2008 mid-recession figure of 4.4%.

GuideStar — the leading source of nonprofit information — published its 2011 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report, the only large-scale analysis of its kind that relies exclusively on data reported to the IRS. The report, which was GuideStar's first look at how the "Great Recession" affected salaries and benefits across the nonprofit sector, showed that the economy undoubtedly played a role in lessening compensation. In 2008, median increases in incumbent CEO compensation were generally 4 percent or higher. In 2009, increases were generally 2 percent or less.

Nonprofit organizations in the U.S. were better at retaining donors and shored up their net losses in donations in 2010, according to the latest report of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP). The FEP, a report of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, compares gains and losses of donors and donation amounts. The FEP indicates year over year growth by comparing how many new donors are acquired with how many stopped giving, and the donation levels of each.

UBS and Insead released a study on Asian family philanthropy. According to the report, the number one reason for Asian families to engage in philanthropy is ensuring the continuity of family values or creating a lasting legacy. The study’s findings indicate that while family philanthropy is growing rapidly in Asia, there are still challenges Asian families face in terms of developing a more effective philanthropic sector.

The Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Good360, formerly Gifts In Kind International, have completed the first year of a unique, ongoing collaboration designed to measure the impacts of corporate gifts-in-kind to non-profit organizations.

The collaborators have focused on evaluating the effects on community nonprofits of Framing Hope, a partnership between Good360 and The Home Depot Foundation in which unsold merchandise from Home Depot stores is donated to participating nonprofit organizations. More information and preliminary research results may be seen at http://www.indiana.edu/~spea/research/interdisciplinary_research/index.shtml.