Grant Making Up, Household Giving Nearly Flat Projections Say

  • Published January 23, 2019

Grant Making Up, Household Giving Will Be Nearly Flat This Year, Projections
by Heather Joslyn
published on philanthropy.com

Charities can expect giving to rise 3.4 percent this year and 4.1 percent in 2020, according to projections in a report released today.

The growth will be driven by increases in all forms of giving, though individual giving will nudge up only slightly, led by big jumps in foundation grant making and bequests.

The new projections indicate that giving will be stronger than average giving over the past 10 years, 25 years, and 40 years. Giving grew an average of 1.1 percent over the past 10 years, 3 percent over the past 25 years, and 2.7 percent over the past 40 years, according to the researchers’ analysis of “Giving USA” data.

The annual “Philanthropy Outlook,” produced by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and presented by fundraising consulting company Marts & Lundy, takes into account the full scope of economic indicators: the volatile stock market of recent months as well as job growth, wage growth, gross domestic product, and the new federal tax law, which cut taxes on corporations and households while also making it likely that fewer people would benefit from incentives for charitable giving.

This year’s report makes projections in an environment of relative uncertainty, given the partial government shutdown coming in the wake of the worst December stock-market performance since before the Great Depression. Last year’s report ventured a guess that 2019 would see an increase in giving of 4.2 percent.

Read the full article here: The Chronicle of Philanthropy