52% of Donors Plan No Decrease in Giving in 2009

Meanwhile, donors who were forced to make cuts preferred to give smaller donations, rather than halting their support altogether.

Giving to New Groups
While a recession may not seem like the ideal time to seek out new donors, many people in the survey (42.5 percent) said they would give to a charity they had not supported in the past if someone they knew was seeking the gift. Many donors (40.3 percent) said they were also willing to give for the first time if the charity was working directly to help people hurt by the recession.

Sixteen percent said they would not consider supporting a new organization.
The study also explored whether donors would give again to nonprofit groups that were suffering significant fund-raising woes. People were more likely to make another donation for charities that were alleviating needs aggravated by the recession than they were to other kinds of charities.

Nearly 8 percent of respondents said they would not support a social-service organization if it cut services because of budget problems, while nearly 15 percent said they would stop giving to other types of charities.

Donors in the study said that, even before the recession, they were beginning to make some changes to how they gave.

For many, frequent solicitations were a big turnoff. Forty-one percent said they had stopped donating to at least one nonprofit group in the past five years because they felt overwhelmed by appeal letters, while more than a third said they were concerned organizations spent too much on fund raising.

Donors also said they were giving more to fewer causes (28.6 percent), being more thoughtful about their donations (29.4 percent), and donating more to local charities rather than national or umbrella organizations.

Among the study’s other findings:

* During the recession, online gifts and product donations are expected to become more popular, while telemarketing, door-to-door canvassing, and direct-mail appeals may be less successful.