These days, philanthropy is a pretty exciting field – with emerging trends like impact investing aiming to re-think how we look at grantmaking, donor advised funds being opened at historically high levels, and rising social tensions surrounding race, gender, and social inequity – there is plenty of disruption at play. So what should we watch for in 2018? We’ve pulled these top 5 predictions from an Inside Philanthropy article as part of their Philanthropy Forecast, 2018:
- Charitable giving doesn’t drop…yet.
While some estimates showed the new tax law could reduce charitable giving by as much as $20 billion a year, at least one forecast is predicting that net giving will hold steady or even rise thanks to the bullish market.
- New philanthropic dollars will go to address climate change.
Several big pledges to address climate change were made in 2017, and it’s likely this trend will continue this year.
- Giving by most alumni keeps falling.
Although wealthy alumni are giving more, the rest are giving less – a trend expected to be reinforced by the tax law changes.
- Corporate giving gets more strategic.
Corporate giving will continue to become more sophisticated and more focused on overall charitable impact.
- Community Foundations up their game.
While competition from Donor Advised Fund providers will increase, Community Foundations will up their game and polish their value proposition as brokers of knowledge and community leaders in order to attract new donors.
For the full list of Philanthropic Predictions for 2018, check out the full article from Inside Philanthropy.