Reading tea leaves, #8: despite the recession, we’re still doing good…

Tracking the impact of the recession on giving...

Despite the recession-heavy economic reports and forecasts and the general acceptance that ‘things have been pretty bad’, people are still ‘doing good’ and feeling good about ‘doing good’.

The ‘holiday effect’ has, as expected, depleted the number of reports and surveys arriving at Philanthropy UK over the last fortnight, but those that did arrive included rays of genuine optimism.

The Association of Payroll Giving Organisations reports that the number of employees signing up to payroll giving schemes has fallen only slightly.

Figures from APGO's five member professional fundraising organisations show that 60,366 employees signed up to a payroll giving scheme in the 2008/09 financial year, compared with 60,942 in 2007/08.

The average donation declined just a few pence from £81.08 in 2007 to £78.99 last year, prompting Sophie Pritchard, chair of APGO, to claim that payroll giving is a “recession-proof form of fundraising”.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisation’s (NCVO) latest quarterly Charity Forecast Survey reveals the voluntary and community sector is showing signs of renewed optimism in the UK economy.

A growing number of charity leaders believe that economic conditions in the UK will improve over the next 12 months, with overall confidence levels up 28 percentage points compared to the previous quarter (January to March 2009).

Despite around one third of respondents (37%) fearing that conditions are set to worsen for their own organisation in the next 12 months, almost half (46%) of charity leaders plan to increase their services, despite having to balance increased demand and falling resources during the recession.

Even the reports that take a darker view, such as one from The Law Society, bearing the headline ‘Junior lawyers believe recession threatens pro bono work for charities’, can’t resist a touch of positivity.

Of 213 respondents to the poll, carried out by the society's junior lawyers division, 58% said they believed pro bono services would be cut.

But LawWorks, a charity that helps individuals and charities access pro bono legal services, said the number of firms offering their services in this way had actually increased.

"We've already hit our membership target for the year and it's only June," said Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of LawWorks.

"Lawyers have seen the need that has developed for pro bono services and they have responded. They've shown a genuine commitment to try to help."

The real ‘downer’ from the world of giving was a new report out of the US, where giving has been harder hit than here in the UK. As we reported in our last News Bulletin, Giving USA reported that total charitable contributions in the US declined by 5.7% in 2008 adjusted for inflation, the biggest one-year drop since 1974.

Despite this substantial drop however, last year was still one of the best years on record, in terms of total dollars, at $307.7 billion. The bad news is that it might take a few more years to restore charitable giving to those 2007 levels.

But then 2007 was a vintage year for giving in the US, and that’s worth remembering when using it as a benchmark – it creates statistics that look particularly gloomy.

But to end on an upbeat note, Raisa Gorbachev’s fourth annual fundraiser, held on 16th June at Hampton Court, raised £2.5m in aid of  Russian child cancer sufferers – in 2007 it reportedly raised £808,067.