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US education-targeted philanthropy due to fall, says new forecasting tool

Fundraising | 17 Sep 2008

Growth in giving to education is set to slow in the US, according to the predictions of a new education philanthropy forecasting tool.

While for the past 20 years education fundraisers have enjoyed an average 7 per cent growth each year, this figure is expected to drop to 5.3 per cent for the year beginning 1 July 2008.

The predictions have come out of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), which launched its new forecasting tool, the CASE Fundraising Index (CFI) in New York recently.

“The CFI results suggest that the weak U.S economy will slow the rate of growth in educational fundraising in the coming year, but the results also suggest that giving will continue to grow,” said CASE president John Lippincott.

It remains unclear as to whether the rest of the world will see a commensurate slow down, given that educational philanthropy tends to be higher in the US and it is also where current hysteria about economic slow down is greatest.

CASE itself warns that the US experience is unlikely to be replicated in Britain. It is open to the possibility of adapting the index for the UK market, once the tool has been fine tuned, in order to monitor income levels.

“While the US situation is being watching by UK fundraising professionals, the UK is in a different place from a fundraising perspective,” said Rae Goldsmith, vice president of communications and marketing at CASE.

“In general, US fundraising operations are relatively mature, while newer UK operations are ramping up with additional investments in fundraising, more and better-trained fundraising staff, and an increase in the number of large campaigns. This momentum will likely contribute to increased growth in giving to UK institutions.”

UK-side, Oxford University continues to boast of its progress in securing its record target of £1.25bn from fundraising this year and recently reported that its online donation facility has exceeded all expectations, with peaks of over 1,000 visitors a day. (Oxford's Bodleian Library is pictured)

Head of individual giving at London South Bank University, Ulysses Tucker, is sceptical of reports of a slow down and says that colleagues back in the US, where he was based until early this year, are reporting strong figures from alumni giving. Virginia Tech, for example, has just reached target on a $1bn fundraising campaign, he said. 

“People like to forecast doom and gloom and despair, but people find comfort in universities. It’s like a safe haven from all the madness,” he said.

At London South Bank, Tucker reports that the university’s first ever comprehensive fundraising campaign has attracted nearly £1m in pledges in the few weeks since its 1 April launch. “It can only get better for us, because we’re just getting out of the box,” he said.

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