U.S. charitable giving estimated at $307.65 billion in 2008
Charitable giving in the United States exceeded $300 billion for the second year in a row in 2008, according to Giving USA 2009. Donations to charitable causes in the United States reached an estimated $307.65 billion in 2008, a 2 percent drop in current dollars over 2007.

The 2008 number is the first decline in giving in current dollars since 1987. more ...

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Alarming decline in Philadelphia philanthropy
Less.

In a country where General Motors declares bankruptcy, Americans are learning to deal with less of everything.

Our region has less, too, including a dwindling pool of generous benefactors and civic leaders.

"This is the passing of an era," said family spokesman and Penn professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson of Leonore Annenberg's death in March. The family foundation had enriched myriad regional organizations with millions in grants.

On the very day the philanthropist died, officials at the foundation announced it was moving on as well, the headquarters transferring from Radnor to Los Angeles.

The foundation "will no longer have an impact in Philadelphia," said H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, 78, who partnered with Annenberg and the Pew Charitable Trusts to move the Barnes Foundation from Merion to the Parkway. The trio together also resucitated the Kimmel Center. more ...

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Family Charities Get Focused
When Charlie Brink sold his stock in Mona Vie, a beverage company that he co-founded in 2005, he wanted to use $5 million from his windfall to fund his family's charity work. But when the family launched the Brink Family Foundation, "everyone in the family had their ideas," of where to direct the funds, but there is "only so much our dollars can do in these economic conditions," he says. So the family decided to focus their giving with a formal mission statement directed toward two areas: access to education and their hometown of Tampa, Fla.

"If our foundation is going to weather this economic storm, we need to be serious and focused," Mr. Brink says. more ...

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When Rosenwald Asks, The Wealthy Can't Say No He swears that in the half-century since his mother pressed a single, tiny mustard seed into his hand, not a day has gone by that he has not touched that ancient symbol of faith and good fortune.

Fifty years is a long time, but given the persistent providence that has accented E. John Rosenwald Jr.'s life, it is possible to believe that he never left behind the seed for a second. Straight out of Dartmouth College's business school, he joined Bear, Stearns & Company, and raced lickety-split to the Wall Street brokerage's highest offices, becoming co-president, then vice-chairman, while amassing a fortune that he promptly started giving away.

Along the way, he found that he also had a knack for getting others to give away their money, often in prodigious amounts. more ...