Fifty-four percent of donors in the United States have a negative view of the direction of the country—alongside growing concern with inflation and recent losses in the stock market—signaling weaker donor sentiment in 2022 and driving near-term pessimism among donors, a report from Dunham+Company finds.

Based on an online survey conducted in April 2022 of 1,400 American donors who gave at least $20 to charity in the past year, the report, Donor Confidence Falters in Light of Economy and Inflation (5 pages, PDF), found that despite a 15-percentage point increase from last year in the share of respondents saying they did not “feel good about” the direction the country was going in, 98 percent said they intended to continue giving—up from 97 percent in July 2021. The share of donors expressing caution about their giving rose modestly, to 63 percent from 59 percent. Among donors who said they would continue to give, 21 percent intended to give more (compared with 19 percent in 2021), 24 percent planned to give less (compared with 21 percent), and 55 percent intended to give the same (compared with 61 percent).

According to the report, the number of donors who viewed recent stock market losses as determinant of future giving had nearly tripled since last year, rising from 7 percent to 19 percent overall, and even more acutely among donors 45 and older: 23 percent for Gen X donors (up from 8 percent in 2021) and 21 percent for boomers (up from 6 percent). This shift is mirrored in households making $100,000 or more, where 17 percent (up from 5 percent) view the performance of the stock market as a determinant. While the report did not provide data on donors under the age of 45, it noted that boomers, who tend to give more overall, “expressed significantly less caution about giving than their younger counterparts.”

The report suggests that worries about inflation and the potential for an economic downturn are increasingly affecting donor sentiment. Over half of donors (53 percent) were unsure of the direction of the economy or believed it would decline in the coming year (compared with 36 percent last year). Among donors who expect a downturn, 92 percent believed a turnaround would take more than a year (up from 72 percent in 2021), while those believing a turnaround would take two years or more rose to 54 percent (up from 40 percent a year ago). In 2021, 74 percent of donors indicated “the economy” and “personal financial situation” as reasons for giving less. For the most recent survey, Dunham added “inflation and the increased cost of living” as a factor. All told, these three factors accounted for 89 percent of the reasons for giving less in 2022.

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