The nonprofit community’s ongoing trend of fewer donors providing increasing amounts of funding and volunteer hours is disturbing. The drop in volunteerism, as well as potential funders pulling back on making small donations, creates lack of agency — a loss of faith that individuals’ actions are meaningful. If this trend continues, it could erode social cohesion and self-governance within the United States.
That was the base thesis from Jane Wales, a vice president of the Aspen Institute. She is also executive director of the Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation at the Aspen Institute and co-chair of the Generosity Commission. Wales presented her thoughts at Donor Trust and Participation, a recent forum in New York City hosted by BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Charity Monitoring Worldwide.
Wales backed her thesis with several disturbing pieces of data. Between 2000 and 2016 some 20 million households moved away from giving roles. While it is true that both financial giving and volunteering hours have risen in most years, these contributions are coming from a smaller concentration of individuals.
“That’s frightening, because you have both a concentration of wealth and a shrinking middle class, which is not only bad for people but bad for democracy,” Wales said. “It also begs the question as to whether there is a concentration of agency.” The issue, according to Wales, is whether that inequity in impact giving sets roles and limits in an individual’s perceived capacity to make a difference.
The decline in middle class financial giving has its roots in a sense of economic precarity — the feeling that, regardless of how non-wealthy people are actually doing, at any moment their financial situation could change. Furthermore, pulling back from supporting nonprofits, either financially or with donated hours, has been accelerated by social isolation. Isolation has risen as online interactions have become more ubiquitous, a trend that was accelerated by the sheltering-in-place policies of the coronavirus.
Whatever the reasons, these pullback trends have disproportionately hit smaller local and regional nonprofits and the people they serve, according to Wales.
Through The Generosity Commission, Wales is advocating that nonprofit leaders heighten their efforts to celebrate and support everyday volunteers, and that the nonprofit community at large illuminate the role everyday donors and volunteers play in both society and civil government. Additionally, leaders should constantly be looking for ways to broaden participation and grow both volunteers’ and donors’ numbers, she said.
A key aspect of this effort will necessitate nonprofit leaders reconsidering the nature of individuals’ contributions. “The job of tracking and analyzing giving in all of its forms is all-important,” Wales said. “Part of that is realizing and acknowledging that the impact of each kind of giving is different, and volunteering is giving.”
Wales continued: “There is a process of reimagination of the philanthropy of volunteers. Understanding that this is happening will be all-important to understanding modern generosity.”
The payoff for encouraging volunteerism, especially among previously unengaged individuals, can have social benefits beyond a given nonprofit. “A first-time volunteer is the most likely [cohort] to become a first-time registered voter,” Wales said.
