Our country continues to be very generous and charitable giving grows again, matching a pattern of recent years.
An excerpt.
A Year of Big Gains
Largest charities saw donations rise 13% in 2005
By Noelle Barton and Holly Hall
Donations to America's largest charities grew by 13 percent last year, to $62.7- billion, according to The Chronicle's annual Philanthropy 400 survey.
That increase matches the highest percentage gain in the 16 years that The Chronicle has been ranking the 400 most-successful charities. At the height of the technology boom, in 1999, charities in the Philanthropy 400 achieved a 13.4-percent increase.
All signs suggest that the pace of giving continues to be strong this year: Among 49 charities on the list that projected a rise in 2006 giving, contributions are expected to grow by a median of 13 percent, meaning that half the groups expect a greater increase and half expect less.
The robust increase for 2005 reflects not only a strong economy but also the outpouring of donations following Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters.
Charities in the Philanthropy 400 reported that they raised $2.6-billion last year to help the victims of the two most devastating crises: the December 2004 tsunamis and Katrina.
New Fund-Raising Approaches
But those disaster donations do not account for the fund-raising success of many charities in the survey. Many organizations that were not involved in providing disaster relief also reported that giving rose sharply. When Katrina and tsunami contributions are removed from the total amount raised by organizations in the survey, giving still rose by 8.3 percent, even after adjusting for inflation, which was 3.4 percent last year.
Those results demonstrate the growing fund-raising prowess of charities on the Philanthropy 400 list, many of which worked hard to reverse declining contributions after the technology bust in 2000 by diversifying the methods they use to raise money, reaching out to new groups of potential donors, cutting costs through online communications, and hiring new development officers to seek big gifts from individuals and corporations.
