Decline in Percentage of Americans Donating to Non-profits

According to a new Gallup poll conducted in late April, the percentage of Americans who report donating to non-profits dipped to a historic low.  The survey asked about giving during the previous 12 months, but respondents may have focused only on the recent past.  Still, the findings reinforce earlier studies about the waning number of donors.  This slow decline parallels the shredding of social safety net programs which started nearly 40 years ago during the Reagan administration.  The Gallup poll, though, doesn’t take into account the hundreds of thousands of people who give directly to their families and friends through crowdsource fundraising.  We await studies which take that kind of direct giving into account.