Nonprofit Literature Blog

Social Justice Philanthropy

The Foundation Center has just released Social Justice Grantmaking II: An Update on U.S. Foundation Trends. In 2007, social justice giving reached $3 billion, or 13.7 percent of overall grant dollars. In addition to statistical analyses, the report summarizes findings from interviews with 18 leading social justice funders and eight advocates/activists. Here is a sampling of perspectives from interviewees.

What some funders are saying:

-If you are having trouble advancing a multi-issue, multi-constituency collaboration, try “pursuing a strategy of ‘small tent’ collaborations, which contain fewer groups, and are seen to be more
nimble and disciplined and provide a higher level of trust and mutual accountability.”
-Evaluation is necessary, but can be counterproductive without clear protocols for measuring social justice progress quantitatively.

What some practitioners are saying:

-Interviewees believe there continues to be a divide between practitioners and grantmakers, and that there needs to be “more opportunities for honest, joint exchange—but not more ‘show-and-tell’ conferences.”

Find out more by downloading the report highlights or purchasing the full report at the Gain Knowledge area of the Foundation Center’s web site.

New Foundation Center Reports

Take a look at the latest giving statistics released by The Foundation Center this month:

Key Facts on Corporate Foundations
While giving by corporate foundations remained at an estimated $4.4 billion in 2008, the figure represented a 3 percent decline after adjusting for inflation. About half of the survey respondents expected decreases in giving in 2009. Download

Key Facts on Community Foundations
Community foundations increased their giving to a record $4.6 billion in 2008, which translates to a 2.7 percent increase after adjusting for inflation. Nearly 75 percent of the community foundations in the survey indicated that their giving will decline this year. Download

These reports also present trends in giving from 1990 through 2008 and include analyses of giving by subject focus, type of support, and region.

Nonprofit Marketing: A Benchmarking Survey

The American Marketing Association and communications firm Lipman Hearne conducted a survey earlier this year to provide charities with benchmarking data on marketing at nonprofit organizations. Here are selected findings, based on responses from more than 1,012 participants.

Priorities: Nonprofits currently rate building awareness and revenue generation as top priorities. In five years, however, organizations expect revenue generation to be a greater challenge.

Budgets: The data indicates that marketing budgets are generally 2% to 3% of the operating budget (excluding salaries and benefits). Larger organizations spend a smaller percentage on marketing budgets.

Evaluation: Many participants indicate that their organizations are not measuring web activity effectively (28% do not track web statistics).

For full results of the survey, download the report, The State of Nonprofit Marketing: A Report on Priorities, Spending, Measurement and the Challenges Ahead from the Lipman Hearne web site (registration required).

The Financial Health of Youth-Serving Organizations

The latest issue of Nonprofit Quarterly explores a number of financial issues including budgeting and investing. In one of articles, Clara Miller, president and CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), highlights the results of a new study conducted by the organization. A research team examined tax filings of 1,085 youth-serving groups and evaluated three areas:

Diversified Revenue Sources – The results indicate that few of the organizations have more than two funding sources since a third may generate more costs than benefits.

Government Funding – Organizations that are dependent on government funding may be challenged by low cash reserves.

Real Estate Ownership – Nonprofits should think carefully about facility ownership since the increased costs could reduce liquidity and limit resources for programs.

Learn more about the study on youth-serving organizations in “Truth or Consequences: The Implications of Financial Decisions.”

This Nonprofit Quarterly issue is available at the Foundation Center libraries.

The full text of the article is also available on the Nonprofit Finance Fund web site.

Online Communications: How does your nonprofit organization measure up?

Is your nonprofit’s online communications strategy meeting expectations? Perhaps you might want to compare your results with data from other groups by examining the 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study: An Analysis of Online Messaging, Fundraising and Advocacy Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations. Findings are based on an assessment of 21 national organizations by NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network and M+R Strategic Services. You will learn from the report that the average open rate for e-newsletter messages in 2007 was about 17.6% percent. The percentage of people who then clicked on a link within a newsletter was 3.6%. The average online gift amount was $87.

The full report is available at the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study web site.

The Nonprofit Sector in the U.S.: A Brief History

Some of you may know that the Internal Revenue Service provides aggregate tax data through it Statistics of Income (SOI) program. To celebrate SOI’s 90th anniversary, the program began to publish a series of retrospective articles on a number of tax-related subjects.

In particular, you might be interested in “A History of the Tax-Exempt Sector: An SOI Perspective.” As expected from SOI, you will find statistical data on public charities and foundations from tax years 1985 to 2004.  What's surprising is the section of the article that covers the legislative history of tax-exemption in the United States. If you are giving a presentation this topic, Figure A or Appendix B can be used as handouts since they concisely describe major legislation from the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 to the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

The full article is available at the SOI web site.

The Size and Scope of the Nonprofit Sector

Researchers who are studying the growth of the nonprofit sector in the United States will want to ask our staff for the Nonprofit Almanac 2008. Published by the Urban Institute Press, the highly anticipated volume provides statistical data and analysis on all types of organizations.

Here are examples of some of the facts you will find in the new edition:

In 2005, nonprofits employees accounted for nearly 10 percent of the nation’s non-farm workforce (p. 21).

While nonprofit revenues have been increasing, savings has been declining since the late 1990s (p. 125).

In 2005, among the 1.4 million nonprofit organizations registered in the United States, 876,164 were 501(c)(3) public charities. There were 323,530 reporting public charities with more than $25,000 in revenues that filed Form 990s (p. 212).

If you are searching for additional information, have a look at our FAQ, “Where can I find statistical data on U.S. charities?”

Corporate Giving Statistics

If you looking for statistics on corporate philanthropy, there are several resources that may provide the information you need:

Ask our librarians for Giving USA, an annual report written by researchers at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Go directly to the chapter “Giving by Corporations” to get a broad overview of data collected from various sources, including the Conference Board and the Foundation Center.

If you find that you need more specific statistics, such as contributions as a percentage of corporate income or sales, you might need to ask for the Conference Board’s Corporate Contributions Report. The findings are based on an annual survey of nearly 200 major companies.

How about statistics on matching gift programs? Try the Giving in Numbers report from the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. The full report is available online.

For estimates of giving in 2007, as well as forecasts for 2008, download the Foundation Center publication, Key Facts on Corporate Foundations.

Need more information? Search the Catalog of Nonprofit Literature for other statistics related to corporate philanthropy.