Past Economic Downturns and the Outlook for Foundation Giving
Source: Foundation Center

Since the current economic crisis began in the latter half of 2007, we at the Foundation Center have been fielding questions about the possible impact of a downturn on foundation giving. Each new bank buyout or failure, stock market drop, or prediction of a long and deep recession has led to renewed concerns about the health of the nonprofit sector and of the foundations that serve as one of their sources of support.

The scale of the current financial market meltdown and the reach of its impact throughout the United States and globally feels, in many ways, unprecedented. With no clear bottom yet in sight, it can be tempting to conclude that the work of many institutions will be imperiled or, at a minimum, substantially compromised. But short of a complete economic collapse, the behavior of institutions during prior economic downturns does provide some perspective on how they may weather today’s challenges. This certainly seems true for foundations.

Since the Foundation Center began collecting data on all grantmaking private and community foundations in 1975, the country has weathered several recessions. During each of these recessionary periods — 1980, 1981-82, 1990-91, and 2001 — U.S. foundation giving in inflation-adjusted dollars did not decline and, in fact, increased slightly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Nonprofits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.