Key Facts on Community Foundations (April 2011)

Although 2010 marked the first consecutive-year decline in community foundation giving since 1981, a majority of community foundations say their giving will increase or hold steady in 2011, a new Foundation Center report finds.

According to Key Facts on Community Foundations (6 pages, PDF), giving by community foundations declined an estimated 2.1 percent in 2010, following a 7.1 percent decline in 2009. The outlook is improving, however, with half the respondents (50 percent) saying they anticipate that their giving will increase in 2011, while 16 percent expect it to remain flat.

Some other key facts from the survey:

• $4 billion -- Estimated giving by community foundations in 2010
• 737 -- Number of grantmaking community foundations in 2009
• 44.6 percent –- Share of community foundations reporting more than $1 million in giving in 2009
• 9.1 percent -– Community foundation giving as a share of all foundation giving in 2009

As the charts below show, education (28 percent) and human services (22 percent) were the top funding priorities of communty foundations in 2009, followed by health (14 percent), arts and culture (12 percent), public affairs/society benefit (10 percent), environment/animals (6 percent), religion (4 percent), international affairs/development/peace (2 percent), and science/technology (2 percent). Community foundations were also more likely than independent or corporate foundations to provide funding for education and human services, and less likely to provide funding for health, international affairs, and science and technology.

Finally, the report found that the largest community foundation by total giving in 2009 was the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation ($183,493,211), followed by:

• Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($154,255,000)
• Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta ($142,126,513)
• California Community Foundation ($129,907,000)
• New York Community Trust ($123,411,403)
• Tulsa Community Foundation ($117,692,000)
• Chicago Community Trust ($110,608,629)
• Foundation For The Carolinas ($89,879,356)
• Boston Foundation ($82,464,000)
• Columbus Foundation and Affiliated Organizations ($79,774,602)

For a list of the top twenty-five foundations by total giving and/or to download a copy of the factsheet (6 pages, PDF), click here.