Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF) has released its Giving in Minnesota, 2010 Edition research report, the most comprehensive analysis of charitable giving in the state.
The report shows giving by individuals, foundations and corporate giving programs totaled $5.4 billion for the 2008 research year, a decrease in overall charitable giving of 5 percent from 2007.
The 2008 research year, the most recent time period for which complete data are available, includes financial information from foundations and corporate giving programs with fiscal years ending between June 1, 2008, and May 31, 2009 – the height of the recession.
“This decrease in overall charitable giving in Minnesota reverses a long-term trend of slight increases or at least flat giving from year to year,“ says Bill King, MCF president. “But, we knew a drop was inevitable, given the steep recession and slow economic recovery.”
The news release, the research summary, as well as the full report, are available on the MCF website.
Among other key research findings:
- Individual donations accounted for 74 percent – or $4.02 billion – of all charitable giving in Minnesota in 2008. Reflecting the dramatic downturn in the economy, this is a 7.7 percent decrease from $4.4 billion in 2007.
- Foundation and corporate grantmaking accounted for 26 percent – or $1.42 billion – of charitable giving in Minnesota in 2008, an increase of 3.6 percent from $1.37 billion in 2007. This increase was driven by corporate foundations and giving programs. In 2008, corporate grantmakers increased their grantmaking by 14 percent to $669 million.
- The slight growth in grantmaking occurred despite an 11.5 percent drop in foundation assets to $17.30 billion. This was the largest single-year asset decline since 1994. The overall asset decline would have been much steeper in 2008 – 22.4 percent – if not for the first-time addition of the $2.12 billion in assets of the newly established Margaret A. Cargill Foundation.
- Analysis of giving by 100 of the largest grantmakers in the state – which represented 7 percent of all grantmakers in Minnesota and 82 percent of all grant dollars paid – revealed that giving to human services grew 8 percent. This increase led human services to displace education giving as the subject area receiving the largest share of overall grant dollars, representing only the third time since 1976 that education was not number one.
In early January, MCF will release its 2011 Outlook Report. This research will describe funders’ expectations for grantmaking in the coming year. (To see what grantmakers were expecting a year ago, see MCF’s 2010 Outlook report.)
- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate
