The Giving Guide 2020
November 3, 2020
A recent Council on Foundations report starts with the observation that 2020 has been “a year of multiple, compounding, and ongoing crises that are affecting millions of Americans” and urges “a rapid and strong response from our [nonprofit] institutions, including philanthropy.”
The report documents three concurrent developments: the direct and indirect effects of the Covid-19 pandemic; urgent calls for accelerated action against racial injustice across the United States; and an estimated 33 percent annual rate decrease in real GDP in the second quarter of 2020. By the end of June, 18 million Americans were unemployed, with disproportionately higher rates of job losses among people of color.
Report authors surveyed 250 philanthropy leaders midyear to understand whether and how they are responding to 2020’s challenges. They asked whether philanthropies were spending a higher percentage of their endowment than planned, whether they had shifted funding toward racial equity practices and advocacy causes, and how their internal operations had been affected by 2020’s onslaught.