Individuals Make Fewer $1-Million Gifts; Grant Makers Help Offset Decline

Feb. 25, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — Charitable gifts of $1-million or more from individual donors fell by 33 percent in the last half of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to a new analysis of big gifts by researchers at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.

A total of 333 gifts of at least $1-million were made in final six months of last year, down from a record of 495 gifts of that size in the same months of 2007. It was the largest half-year drop in individual gifts of $1-million or more since the center began tracking donations of that size in 2001, another recessionary year. Such gfits declined by 35 percent in 2001.