MarketWatch: Giving season struggles to earn its name

Giving season struggles to earn its name
Charitable endowment fund sees contributions drop steeply
By Sam Mamudi, MarketWatch


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The last few months of the year are usually known as the giving season. But as the markets tank this year, Americans are doing something they rarely do: keeping their wallets closed.

One senior executive believes the U.S. this year is on pace to give less money to charity than in the previous year for only the second time in the past 40 years.

While figures won't be available until well into next year, it's likely total charitable giving in the U.S. this year won't beat last year's total of $306 billion, said Ben Pierce, executive director of Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program. Pierce's firm has taken a hit in the midst of the recent financial storm -- contributions dropped to $66 million in October and November from $103 million for the same period in 2007. The number of individual contributors fell to just 56 new accounts compared to the 253 in October and November last year.

"The giving season this year is going to be late, and not great," said Pierce.

Still, despite previous recessions, since 1956 charitable giving in absolute amounts has increased in all years except one, before adjusting for inflation, according to a report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. A spokeswoman for the Center said figures from the Giving USA Foundation show that the only other time charitable giving fell year-on-year in absolute amounts was in 1987 -- and that can at least in part be attributed to changes in the tax code in 1986 that may have caused people to pay more that year and less in the following year. ......(more)

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