Hello and welcome.

I'm Shaun Keister.

I'm the Vice Chancellor of Development and Alumni

Relations at the University of California, Davis.

We're so glad you're here.

Today, we're going to talk about the history and

impact of philanthropy in the United States.

We're going to cover a lot of different topics today,

and we have objectives that we would like to cover over the next 45 minutes to an hour.

We're going to talk about general knowledge about philanthropy in the United States,

what are some of the trends,

what are things that are happening,

who gives, what do they support, why did they give.

We're going to talk about fundraising terminology as

an introduction to fundraising and development work.

We want you to know the key terminology that is used in our field.

We're going to spend a bit of time talking about

some ethical principles that guide the work that we do in development and fundraising,

and we're going to talk about the donor development process,

what are the different steps in that process and how do you take a donor from

the stage of identifying them as

a prospective donor to actually securing gifts from them.

And we're going to talk about different types of campaigns.

There are many different ways in which we raise money,

a lot of different ways that we package fundraising

to be successful in hitting our fundraising goals.

We'll talk about some of those campaigns today.

Let's start with an overview of giving last year in the United States.

Over $358 billion were given as philanthropy in the country last year.

And you can see here by this chart who gives,

who in the United States makes gifts.

And the vast majority of gifts are coming from individuals, actual households.

72% of all gifts last year came from

individuals supporting their favorite charities and philanthropies.

Additionally on this chart,

you'll see a category called bequests.

These are gifts that actually come after

an individual's lifetime after they have passed away and the gift is then received.

So, in many ways, this 8% of the funds received last year or committed in

the United States are part of the 72% of individuals.

So, it becomes very clear in a hurry that 80% of all money that is

given into the nonprofit sector is done so by individuals.

Much smaller percentages, as you can see here,

comes through corporate philanthropy,

corporations that actually make charitable gifts to nonprofit organizations and

private foundations that also support philanthropy in our country.

And then we ask, where do these funds go?

In the United States last year,

these billions of dollars fall into many categories,

but the largest single area of financial support and philanthropy is religion.

Almost one third of all funds committed

last year went to various religious organizations.

This is a number that has begun to decline over the last decade.

Religion has shrunk in the actual percentage of funds that are given.

However, it does continue to be

the single largest entity or area at which nonprofit dollars are directed.

You can also see higher education is a distant second,

but it is the second most popular area

supported by individuals corporations and foundations,

followed by human services,

gifts to foundations, and health organizations.

And the rest are very small percentages of the overall philanthropy.

Let me just mention briefly that gifts to foundations actually are

gifts often rolled into individual or family foundations.

So, individuals with extreme wealth will often create their own foundations

and role their dollars into those foundations for a charitable deduction,

but the gifts are actually distributed at

a later time and over time after many years into the future.

So that actual 12% on this chart,

for the most part, is an designated portion of money.

It was given, but it has not yet been

realized or spent by a particular area or organization.

But the key takeaway here of course is that religion is by

far the dominant nonprofit sector in our society,

followed distantly by education and human services.

History and Impact of Philanthropy in the US

Fundraising and Development Foundations

Meet the Instructors