Please sir, can we have some more?

Ask and you shall receive did not hold true for charities in 2010. This was especially true when it came to the size of gifts from major donors. A recent survey looked at households with an income over $200,000 and a net worth of more than a million. This group contributes up to 70 percent of all individual giving. In the past year the average charitable gift dropped 35 percent per household from $83,000 to $54,000.

Overall giving fell 3.9 percent in the country. Understandably the economy is partly to blame and some suggest a change in tax breaks are causing penny pinching. The number one answer gathered in the survey however was that people are giving less because charities are asking more.

In the past 3 years an international humanitarian organization I had been working for went from emailing the database once a week to sending out multiple emails and donation requests each day. That didn’t include the social media messages let alone the personal communication the major donors received as well.

With more aggressive media tools, non-profits have access to their donors at the push of a button and they love to push that button. Interaction with constituents has completely changed from proof of performance to pure solicitation. Even when non-profits show donations in action, they make sure to ask for more.

Even though they are being more conservative with the contributions, 94 percent of wealthy families believe that it is on-profits that can solve the world’s problems and more than 98 percent of households made charitable contributions last year. Two thirds of those made them to charities they had previously supported in the prior fiscal year.

The list of charities that were specifically supported was topped with basic needs, education, and the arts. Donors preferred supporting non-profits that were transparent and effective. Most gave because they were able and wanted to make a difference.

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By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer, business owner and work-from-home mom.