Donations to U.S. nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems were up 8.2 percent last year, according to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy’s Report on Giving-USA.

Philanthropy is absolutely vital for not-for-profit healthcare organizations, and it is encouraging to see that recent trends in giving have been more promising.

“Philanthropy is absolutely vital for not-for-profit healthcare organizations, and it is encouraging to see that recent trends in giving have been more promising,” said William C. McGinly, president and CEO of AHP, in a statement. “Foundations that maintained their efforts during the recession and its aftermath are beginning to experience some significant progress.”

Fundraising costs are also improving but remain above prerecession levels, reflecting the country’s slow economic recovery. In 2011, the average cost-to-raise-a-dollar for the healthcare industry was 31 cents, down from an all-time high of 34 cents in 2008 and up two cents from the prerecession cost-to-raise-a-dollar.

Healthcare fundraising seems to be an outlier in the context of broader giving trends. Total U.S. giving in 2011 increased by only 0.9 percent after adjusting for inflation, according to the Giving Institute’s Giving USA 2012: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2011.

The average charitable-giving growth rates in 2010 and 2011 represent the second slowest of any two-year period following all recessions since 1971, the report noted.

“If we continue to grow at this rate, it will take more than a decade to get back to where we were in total giving in 2007,” Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Giving USA 2012 also found that gifts to foundations declined by 8.9 percent, once adjusted for inflation.

 

(TMG archive photo)