News/Stats/Studies

President Obama released the Administration’s 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, which coordinates an unprecedented government-wide public health and safety approach to reduce drug use and its consequences in the United States. The Administration’s new Strategy features Milwaukee’s Safe & Sound program, a partnership between law enforcement agencies, local residents and young people to prevent youth gang activity, crime and drug use.

Global spending on humanitarian aid hit a record $16.7 billion in 2010 despite the financial crisis, but devastating disasters and rising delivery costs meant almost 40 percent of needs still went unmet, new data showed on Wednesday.

Governments poured $12.4 billion into emergency relief, up 6 percent from the year before, while private donors gave $4.3 billion, according to preliminary estimates by Global Humanitarian Assistance, a British-based aid monitoring group.

Donor-advised funds are benefiting from small family foundations' closing or suffering drops in endowment assets as the costs and administrative burden of running the foundations have become too great.

“Families with private foundations are increasingly deciding to unwind foundations into donor-advised funds,” said Laura Solomon, an attorney at Laura Solomon & Associates who works with a few hundred charities and foundations. “The funds offer a cheaper solution with less administrative hassle and still allow families to further their charitable mission.”

NASA has selected the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space Inc. (CASIS) to develop and manage the U.S. portion of the International Space Station that will be operated as a national laboratory. At the conclusion of successful negotiations, the independent, nonprofit research management organization will help ensure the station’s unique capabilities are available to the broadest possible cross-section of the U.S. scientific, technological and industrial communities.

Personal connections with a charity are important to people who offer philanthropy, new research from the University of Texas and other universities confirms.

Researchers from UT, the University of Chicago and Sungkyunkwan University conducted five studies of 1,462 people.

When people identified less with a cause, they were more motivated by appeals that focused on what had already been accomplished.

By contrast, people who identified more with a cause were better persuaded by appeals focused on what the group needed to meet its goal.

Blackbaud announced the release of a report focused on fundraising trends based on monthly findings from The Blackbaud Index, featuring commentary from Drakes Bay Fundraising and CARE USA. Additionally, Blackbaud announced the release of a new specialty index focused on international affairs organizations.

“For the 10th consecutive month, The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving has shown positive growth, and for the first time in a very long time, that growth exceeds 10 percent for the three months ending May 2011 over the prior year,” said Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s chief scientist and Blackbaud Index creator.

Fewer nonprofits are using text-to-give fundraising technology, while more are turning to mobile Web-based media, with constituent-engagement emerging as the main motivation for nonprofits to launch mobile programs, a new report says.

Forty-seven percent of nonprofits using mobile media do not use it for fundraising, and as many as 50 percent of fundraisers say they are wary of early mobile-giving results, says New Directions, a report by Kaptivate and the Association of Fundraising Professionals based on a 2011 survey of 233 organizations.

Four fundraising experts discussed donor giving trends and what they mean for fundraisers at the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater New York Chapter's Fund Raising Day in New York. Margaret Holman, president of Holman Consulting, tackled individual giving.

U.S. nonprofit healthcare organizations reported an average return on investible assets of 10.9 percent for fiscal year 2010, a decline from the average return of 18.8 percent registered in FY2009 but a significant improvement over the average of -21.2 percent recorded in 2008, the Commonfund Institute reports.

According to the 2011 Commonfund Benchmarks Study of Healthcare Organizations, the average returns on "investible assets" (i.e., endowment/foundation funds, funded depreciation, working capital, and other separately treated assets) for 2009 and 2010 represent the best back-to-back annual performance in the nine years of the study.

Three out of four fundraisers predict that donations to their organizations will drop if the White House’s FY2012 budget proposal to limit the charitable deduction is enacted into law, according to an online poll by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). More than half said that the proposal would have a significant impact on giving.