Philanthropy expert gives her predictions for 2012

In this turbulent economic time, we asked philanthropy expert and Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy co-director Cathy Pharoah to predict what might happen in the coming year. She predicts new trends in giving powered by digital development and market sophistication, more competition between charitable sectors as fundraising capacity develops and a greater focus globally. She says a weak economy as predicted is bound to impact on levels of giving. Here are her top 10 predictions:

• Charities that have adapted their fundraising techniques to the new economic environment will increasingly see a return on their investment

• Donors will become increasingly interested in social investment as a form of philanthropy and the social investment market will grow and gather pace

• Giving by major donors will increasingly take on an international perspective, and donors will design and tailor their own giving programmes to address global issues of inequality, sustainability and economic growth

• If we continue to see weak or no growth in the UK economy, as currently predicted for the next year or so, we are unlikely to see much growth in levels of giving, because there is a link between trends in giving and in economic growth

• Donor’s enthusiasm for giving through opportunities that allow them to participate in exciting or rewarding events will continue to grow

• The popularity of crowd-sourced fundraising, like ‘Buy a brick’ schemes to fund a new building, will continue to grow as people have less money but still want to make a difference – in hard times they might even want to make more of a difference

• More new fundraising products and techniques will come on the market as fundraisers make more use of cheaper, online approaches 

• The philanthropy bandwagon will slow down as the space begins to get over-crowded and growth in demand outpaces growth in suppl

• Competition for donations will ramp up as sectors such as arts and education increase their fundraising capacity, and social sector organisations look for alternatives to government contracts

• Lack of adequate data on giving by the better-off will continue to make it difficult to assess whether there is any progress in increasing the overall level of philanthropy