News/Stats/Studies

Rapidata’s Charity Direct Debit Tracking Report 2011 reveals positive growth in regular giving for the third consecutive year in the U.K.

Wealthy people plan to increase their philanthropy to the levels at which they were giving before the recession, a new survey says. Forty-eight percent of the ultra-wealthy, or those with $5 million or more in investible assets, plan to give more this year, as do 38 percent of those with $1 million to just under $5 million, and 38 percent of those with $500,000 to just under $1 million, according to the 7th annual Wealth and Values Survey Investors' Outlook from PNC Wealth Management.

Here are some of the key findings from the U.S. edition of the 2011 Cygnus Donor Survey, Where Philanthropy is Headed in 2011.

Over the past decade, U.S. foundation support explicitly benefiting Native Americans declined from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent of total foundation giving. According to Foundation Funding for Native American Issues and Peoples, released by Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP) and the Foundation Center, total grant dollars targeting Native Americans dropped 30.8 percent in the latest year, compared to a 12.4 percent overall downturn in foundation giving.

A new research and community awareness project set to kick off next week will aim to zero in on the gender gap in the nonprofit sector — particularly why women nonprofit executives trail men in salaries.

The effort, called "74 percent: Exploring the Lives of Women in Nonprofits," is being launched by the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University with funding from the Bayer USA and Eden Hall foundations.

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit can still generate earned income. And plenty do. The National Center for Charitable Statistics estimates that nearly 70 percent of the $1.4 trillion generated by nonprofits in 2008 came from the sale of goods and services.

Generating income frees organizations from total dependence on philanthropic dollars. At the very least, the income is a safety net; it also means more money to invest in the mission. Unlike many grants, earned income is unrestricted and can be used however the organization chooses.

The Royal British Legion, RSA and Comic Relief are the top three U.K.-based charities with the largest “social media presence” — in terms of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube engagement — according to a major briefing, Social Media League Table.

By specific social media “platform”, the Royal British Legion heads the Facebook rankings, with 1,875,926 ‘likes’; the Tate heads the Twitter rankings, with 304,987 ‘followers’; and the RSA heads the YouTube rankings, with 79,341 ‘subscribers’.

As cities and towns attempt to patch budget holes caused by shrinking state support and tax revenues, several municipalities have started a new round of campaigns targeting property-tax-exempt colleges and other nonprofits.

It is not a new idea for cities to try to seek “payment in lieu of taxes,” or PILOT, agreements with nonprofits to help shoulder local costs. But the frequency and fervor with which municipalities have been proposing such plans recently could indicate a looming town-gown debate at a time when budgets for both are being squeezed.

Donors in the U.S. ages 20 to 35 prefer to give to organizations they trust, are motivated to give by a compelling mission or cause, and prefer to give online, a new study says.

Among nearly 3,000 "Millennial"-generation donors that age who responded to a survey by Achieve and Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates, 93 percent gave to nonprofits in 2010, with 10 percent giving $1,000 or more.

Though religious congregations are slowly recovering from the recession, many groups are still feeling the pain, according to a new study. The study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research combined the results of 26 polls taken to show the effects of the downturn and analyzed data from more than 11,000 congregations.

It found that more than 40 percent of congregations reported that their finances stabilized in 2010. About 10 percent reported increases in revenue last year and 22 percent saw a drop in revenue during the recession but have since recovered.