{"id":1224,"date":"2008-10-23T09:30:41","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2008\/10\/philanthropy_in_economic_hard\/"},"modified":"2008-10-23T09:30:41","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:30:41","slug":"philanthropy_in_economic_hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/philanthropy_in_economic_hard.php","title":{"rendered":"Philanthropy in economic hard times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The general assumption about all forms of philanthropy in economic hard times &#8212; individual, foundation, corporate &#8212; is that as money tightens, contributions decline. All such gifts are influenced, after all, by the donor&#8217;s actual or perceived level of wealth and income. When assets deflate by 30 percent, and cash gets more scarce due to credit constraint, you would expect the philanthropic system to go into the deep freeze.<\/p>\n<p>And there are certainly many indications that it is doing so. Many\/most of my colleagues are working on budget projections with 5 to 30 percent declines in combined revenues (some have multiple scenario budgets underway). And rumors are circulating about suddenly stalled annual and capital campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>But if history is any indication, at least <a href=\"http:\/\/pndblog.typepad.com\/pndblog\/2008\/10\/a-week-or-so-ag.html\">these charts suggest<\/a> our general assumption may be wrong. Prepared by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahmp.com\/\">Alexander Haas Martin &amp; Partners<\/a>, and presented (or so I&#8217;m told) during the recent Grantmakers in the Arts conference, they show obvious increases in philanthropy during stock market rallies, but also increases during market lags.<\/p>\n<p>And we&#8217;re even seeing a few bold philanthropists (in Warren Buffet style) <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122463722341457039.html\">increasing their giving and their staff<\/a> during this financial freefall.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, another useful chart would show how the <i>distribution<\/i> of philanthropic giving changes during tough times. My guess is that growth in giving goes disproportionately to human welfare and social service causes, rather than (or perhaps instead of) arts and culture. Does somebody have that chart?<br \/><i><br \/>[ Thanks Paul, for the link! ]<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: Tommer Peterson at Grantmakers in the Arts sent along the following chart (click to enlarge image) that shows trends in foundation giving by category over a ten-year period (recall that the particularly nasty market was from 2001 through 2002 and 2003). For specifics, see his comment below.<\/p>\n<p><\/i><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/images\/giving_trends.php\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/images\/giving_trends.php','popup','width=700,height=796,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/images\/giving_trends-thumb-400x454.jpg\" alt=\"giving_trends.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" height=\"454\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The general assumption about all forms of philanthropy in economic hard times &#8212; individual, foundation, corporate &#8212; is that as money tightens, contributions decline. All such gifts are influenced, after all, by the donor&#8217;s actual or perceived level of wealth and income. When assets deflate by 30 percent, and cash gets more scarce due to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}