{"id":122,"date":"2009-06-10T15:04:08","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/?p=122"},"modified":"2009-06-11T10:28:34","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T09:28:34","slug":"when-america-sneezes-we-may-have-had-the-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/2009\/06\/10\/when-america-sneezes-we-may-have-had-the-jab\/","title":{"rendered":"When America sneezes, we may have already had the jab"},"content":{"rendered":"

The newly released figures on charitable giving in the USA during 2008 make very interesting reading. The full press release from Giving USA is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the onset of a well-heralded recession, giving only slipped from $314 billion to $307 billion, and the decline is dragged down by larger decreases in corporate and legacy giving – individuals only slipped by 2.7%.<\/p>\n

I have long been arguing that there is no reason to assume that philanthropy will be dramatically affected by the economic crisis. Charitable giving is a very complex and personal decision that is not driven solely by how much spare money someone has.<\/p>\n

On the whole, people don\u2019t think: \u201cI\u2019ve got money so I can give\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve got less money so I can\u2019t give\u201d. \u00a0If the main reason that people made donations was because they could afford to, then every rich person would be a philanthropist, and every fundraiser who met a rich person would walk away with a big cheque. And if there were a direct, straightforward link between having money and making donations then people on low incomes would not be so generous, yet we know that the poorest 10% actually give away more as a percentage of their income than do the richest 10%\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, giving is not just a function of our capacity to give. The fundraisers know it and the research shows it. What a few decades of research into philanthropy shows is that people give:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 because they think the cause is important and their money can make a difference.
\n\u2022 because they feel good about supporting that cause or charity.
\n\u2022 because they care about others and the wider world.
\n\u2022 because they\u2019ve been brought up to believe they have a duty to give something back.
\n\u2022 because they want to be part of a charity that they admire.
\n\u2022 because their family and friends support that charity, so they want to as well.
\n\u2022 because their religion encourages them to\u00a0give away some of their wealth.
\n\u2022 because they enjoy attending the fundraising events and meeting new and interesting people.
\n\u2022 because they couldn\u2019t live with themselves if they didn\u2019t.
\n\u2022 because in so many different ways \u2013 and in different proportions depending on each individual donor \u2013 supporting charity enhances their life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I’m relieved to see that the Giving USA figures do not show a terrible slump in donations, as many people predicted. And given that UK giving has consistently been less than half of that found in the US (usually below 1% of GDP versus over 2% in the US) \u00a0let’s hope any decline we have is similarly halved. In fact, given the low starting point for our giving, let’s not assume it has to decline at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The newly released figures on charitable giving in the USA during 2008 make very interesting reading. The full press release from Giving USA is available … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/philanthropy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}