Recession still hurting charities, new report says

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Charitable giving by Americans fell 3.6 percent last year to an estimated $303.8 billion, according to a report released today by the Giving USA Foundation.

The decline came during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and was the largest drop since Giving USA began tracking contributions in 1956, said Patrick Rooney, executive director of The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which conducted the research for the report. He was in Pittsburgh today to discuss details of the study at a conference on philanthropy.

When the figures are adjusted for inflation, last year's decline was 3.2 percent and not as severe as the 5.5 percent drop in giving that occurred in 1974 as a result of another economic recession, Mr. Rooney said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10160/1064319-100.stm

It's obvious.

go figure?