Four Key Insights for 2022

By: H. Art Taylor, President and CEO (give.org)

In the Heart of Giving Podcast, I go solo to share four insights on some key issues and developments from the past that I believe will continue with us into 2022 and beyond:

Giving and Generosity – By now most of you know about The Lilly School of Philanthropy’s study which found that only 49.6% of American Families surveyed report donating to a charitable organization.  The study uses 2018 data, the latest year available.  This is down from 66% in the year 2000.  It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause for this steady decline as there are many possible factors.  Here are some worth considering:

• Lack of Trust in Institutions – It’s possible that this is having a spillover effect on giving to charities.
• Different attitudes of Millennials and later generations – While it can be oversimplistic to lump people according to such categories when it comes to giving, it’s possible that these generations have less to give and don’t see it as important to give to charities when they do.
• Workplace giving was an engine that powered family giving through most of my young adult life.  I remember when people would compete within companies to see which departments would pledge the most to United Way or the Combined Federal Campaign.  These campaigns were effective in gathering large numbers of donors.  I’m certain they are not as powerful as they once were.
• Charities now go after large gifts. Evidence of this is that while the number of families giving to charities has gone down, the total dollars raised continues to increase.  Apparently, development offices are focused on cultivating large gifts and less so on obtaining large numbers of smaller gifts.
• Racial and cultural demographic shifts have made it more challenging for fundraising teams to reach and secure gifts from people of diverse backgrounds.  The old lists of donors do not have enough diversity, and the appeals may not resonate with the names they do have. Interestingly a Give.org Donor Trust Report finds that people of color say they would give more if asked.

I don’t see this trend changing overnight yet there are some reasons to be hopeful.  The Generosity Commission is taking a serious look at the causes and what can be done to change the trend.  Also, the Giving Tuesday numbers were up 9% in 2021.  It’s hard to know how much of this was due to small gifts. But given that substantial Giving Tuesday donations are online, it’s likely many are small and first-time gifts.

And, we will have to see how the rise in the standard deduction affects small donors who no longer get to itemize their donations for tax purposes.

Metaverse, Blockchain Applications, NFTs and Crypto Donations will likely continue to expand in 2022 and beyond.  The BBB Wise Giving Alliance’s GiveSafely.io, launched in 2020 as the first-ever charity donation portal built on blockchain, continues to gain steam.  We have partnered with The Giving Block, which is killing it when it comes to enabling charities to collect crypto donations – and there are others knocking on our door to find ways to support donors and charities.  We also have property in the Metaverse on Cryptovoxels where we host weekly gatherings each Thursday at 2PM to discuss ways to grow these opportunities to link charities and donors.  You’re welcome to join or share this link with anyone whom you believe would be interested. 

Diversity Equity and Inclusion efforts in charities spurred by America’s Racial Reckoning will continue, thankfully, because we have a long way to go.  Initially, charity commitments to become more diverse and inclusive were based on a sense of moral obligation.  Now, I’m hearing more charity leaders talk about these efforts in the context of organizational effectiveness. Both fairness and effectiveness are important.  We’ve watched the pendulum shift back and forth in the past when we frame DEI efforts in fairness terms.  However, it’s hard to argue against DEI if it enhances performance.  I do have friends who caution that the performance rationale can be problematic because charities may underperform for many reasons. We don’t want DEI to be the blame for poor performance when it occurs.  But if we get more leaders from different backgrounds injected into organizations, this won’t be an issue. The BBB Wise Giving Alliance will be launching a working group this year to see how we can support and influence organizations to start or strengthen their DEI journeys.

COVID-19 induced innovation and transition will continue for the foreseeable future.  The most obvious shift we experienced was from in-person to virtual gatherings.  But the longer the virus remains with us, the more change we will see in how charities operate and the more permanent those changes will become.  Virtual tools are getting better, and with some reluctance, people are becoming more comfortable with them. If you take schools as a case, in 5 years we can expect that equal numbers of students will have gone to school before as those who began during the virus.  Our workplaces will be affected not quite as dramatically, but people who began work after the virus will be different than people who started work before it.  This factor alone will require accelerated innovation and transition.

Recently, we released an episode with Allison Fine and Beth Kanter during which we discuss their upcoming book: The Smart Non-Profit – Staying Human Centered in an Automated World.  I have great admiration for how they think.  During the episode they capsulized many years of work focused on how charity and technology comes together.  It’s well worth a listen.

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