Jan 22, 2010 by Marion Lee
Recently, I was asked to facilitate a roundtable discussion for a local civic group. This is an organization of women leaders in business, education, nonprofit, science and almost any profession you could name. With less than a day to consider a topic, I chose one that has been on my mind a lot lately: How is the economy really affecting your giving?
As fate would have it, I ended up with a stellar group: Three bank professionals in charge of philanthropic trusts, one former corporate foundation leader, and the rest a group of diverse, generous, active women who have made philanthropy a part of their lives. And this is what they said:
- We are still giving at the same level, but are more cautious where we give it.
- We are more thoughtful about making multi-year pledges.
- We give more where we are most active.
- We are concerned for the organizations that depend so heavily on state, federal or local funding.
- We are giving less or not at all to organizations that have passive or inactive boards.
Some of the responses echo what we are all hearing through the Association of Fundraising Professionals and other resources, but it’s one thing to hear it secondhand and another to have the donors tell you what they are actually doing.
Most interesting to me was the concern for organizations that are dependent upon government funding and the concern for board participation. Are any of you seeing this trend or having one-on-one discussions with your donor base to discover their perspective?