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Center on Philanthropy Panel Study

The Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) is the Center on Philanthropy’s signature research project that aims to follow the same families’ philanthropic behaviors throughout their lives.The study will provide nonprofit sector professionals, fundraisers, policymakers and public officials a unique perspective of families’ giving and volunteering behaviors over time.

The COPPS is conducted in conjunction with the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which has surveyed the same 5,000 households since 1966. As children of these respondents have matured, they have been added to the sample, which now exceeds 7,400 households. In 2001, researchers added the philanthropy component, designed and sponsored by the Center on Philanthropy. We hope to repeat the survey every two years thereafter, pending funding.

The COPPS is the only study that surveys giving and volunteering by the same households over time as families mature, face differing economic circumstances and encounter changes in their family size, health and other factors. It also is the only data available that asks families extensively about their wealth and philanthropy as well as income and other relevant factors.

Because the PSID employs genealogical sampling (those who are born or marry into sample families are included thereafter), the panel will allow researchers to study the transmission of philanthropic behaviors across generations and to study the relationship between helping family members and helping anonymous others. Finally, the panel data will help us distinguish types of donors who respond differently to economic, demographic, and environmental factors.

News release about the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study.

Million Dollar List

For thirty-three years, Arthur C. Frantzreb maintained a list of all reported gifts of $1 million or more. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University agreed in 1999 to compile and distribute the Million Dollar List to ensure that his unique record of significant gifts is continued, as a service to fundraisers, as a document for historians, and as an example for donors. Mr. Frantzreb, who passed away in early 2004, was an advisor to the Center on Philanthropy from its founding in 1987 and also had been a consulting member to the Center's Board of Governors. Gifts made to the Center on Philanthropy fund the research, compilation, and publication of the Million Dollar List.

A searchable database of Million Dollar gifts made between 2000 and 2006 is available to premium service members of the Center on Philanthropy. One week access to the database is also available.

First quarter, 2007 (January 1 to March 31)

• Executive summary, commenting on changes in the list over time.
• The complete report in Adobe Acrobat format: the executive summary, an itemized list of all gifts, a list of gifts by size, and a list of gifts by year.

Click here if you need to download the free Adobe Reader.

Center on Philanthropy Alumni Newsletter

Welcome to the first edition of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Alumni Association newsletter. The purpose of this newsletter is to increase contact between and share information about alumni of the various programs offered by the Center on Philanthropy. Each issue will contain examples of real life experiences of alumni involved in fundraising and philanthropy. We hope that this newsletter will serve as a networking tool and introduction to the talents and professional aspirations of your colleagues. If you would like to contribute a story, book review, commentary, resource guide, or any other material that you believe will help to further the understanding and practice of philanthropy and nonprofit management, please e-mail Jason Chandler.We hope that you enjoy this first issue.

Jason Chandler, Editor

Click here for the Acrobat version of the file (752K). Need to download the Acrobat Reader? It is available here.

Philanthropic Giving Index

The Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI) reveals current trends and future expectations in American philanthropic giving. The PGI measures attitudes about the philanthropic giving climate twice yearly. The December 2005 survey found that nonprofit fundraisers are divided on whether hurricane relief giving is hurting non-relief charities. Overall, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University survey finds the fundraising climate is better now than before the hurricanes.

News release about the December 2005 PGI.

Printed copies of the report are available from Kathryn Steinberg at the Center on Philanthropy, 317-278-8957.

Indiana Gives

As part of its ongoing commitment to studying giving and volunteering behavior, every four years the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University conducts a telephone survey (called Indiana Gives) of the giving and volunteering behaviors of Indiana citizens. As we prepared to conduct the Indiana Gives survey for the year 2000, we asked a larger methodological question: How much does survey methodology matter for generating accurate measures of giving and volunteering? The results are here in Acrobat format. Click here if you need to download the Acrobat Reader.

Giving USA

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University researches and writes the annual yearbook of philanthropy, Giving USA. The publication is released each year in late spring by the Giving USA Foundation. The book includes estimates of total giving in the prior calendar year by four sources: individual donors; bequests; foundation grants; and corporate giving. It also presents estimated distribution of charitable giving across eight subsectors: religion, education, health, human services, arts, public/society benefit, the environment, and international affairs. The text considers thirty-year trends in giving and presents research findings from other studies about philanthropic giving in the U.S.

"Everyone in a leadership role in a nonprofit needs to read this book--and read it every year. It is THE authority on the state of philanthropy in the US. Giving USA analyzes trends and reports all the numbers--in one convenient publication for you!"

--Dennis M. Tynan, Department of Public Administration
University of Texas at San Antonio

To order the book or graphs of key data as a PowerPoint slide show, call the Giving USA Foundation order line line at 1-800-462-2372. Orders may also be placed on-line at www.givingusa.org.