RESOURCE GENERATION | giving resources: philanthropy and race

Social Change Philanthropy | Creating a Giving Plan | Young People in Philanthropy | Family Philanthropy | Philanthropy Statistics

Philanthropy in the United States Statistics

How much funding goes to progressive social change?
In 1997, $336 million went to progressive social change out of a total of $13.8 billion in giving, or less than 3%. This amount includes family foundation, private independent foundation and public foundation giving. (National Network of Grantmakers)

How much funding goes to communities of color?
Although people of color make up nearly one-third of the general U.S. population, grants explicitly targeted to benefit them constituted only seven percent of foundation giving in 2001. (Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

In 2001 grants designated to communities of color was approximately 1.2 billion dollars. In 2001 funding explicitly for African-American communities fell to 1.4% of totally foundation giving. In 2001 grants to African-American communities totaled $237 million. (Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

In May 2004 to mark the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, African-American philanthropist Alphonse Fletcher Jr. committed $50 million to institutions and individuals working to improve race relations and to close the class divide between African-Americans who have benefited from the Civil Rights Movement and those who have not. (New York Times. 5/18/2004) With this gift Fletcher dramatically increased the percentage of funding going towards African-American communities.

Asian-American/Pacific Islander communities received between 0.3-0.5% of total grant dollars between 1994 and 2001. Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

Latino focused organizations received an average of 1.48% of large foundation grants between 1994 and 2001. Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

In 2001, giving to Native Americans/ American Indians accounted for 0.5% of total foundation giving equaling its lowest level in the past decade. Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

Support for immigrants and refugees totaled 121 million dollars in 2001 representing only 0.7% of all large grant dollars. This is a particularly small proportion considering the fact that foreign-born U.S residents total more than 11 percent of the population. Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color)

How many family foundations are there?
Over 40,000 (National Center for Family Philanthropy and The Foundation Center)

How much money is controlled by family foundations?
In 1998, family foundation giving of $7.2 billion surpassed corporate, community and operating foundations.

Family foundations provided almost half of independent foundation giving and assets in 1998.

Three out of five family foundations held assets in 1998 of less than $1 million. Top 1 percent of family foundations provided half of all giving in 1998.

Most family foundations limited giving to their local communities, states, and regions.
(National Center for Family Philanthropy and The Foundation Center)

What percentage of all foundation staff are people of color?
17%:
Asian/Pacific Islander female 5.8%
Asian/Pacific Islander male 1.4%
Black female 9.7%
Black male 6.9%
Hispanic female 4.5%
Hispanic male 3.9%
White female 48.9%
White male 17.4%
(Joint Affinity Groups)

What percentage of family foundation board members are people of color?
2.2%
(Joint Affinity Groups)