Foundations Today: Foundation Yearbook, 2010 edition (Highlights)

Giving by this country's more than 75,000 grantmaking foundations fell by an estimated 8.4 percent to $42.9 billion in 2009 -- a roughly $3.9 billion decline from the prior year's record high. This followed a more than 17 percent drop in foundation assets in 2008. Among factors helping to moderate the overall decline in giving were the decision of a significant number of funders to reduce their operating expenses and/or use their endowments to shore up their giving during the crisis; increased giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; continuing gifts and bequests from donors into new and existing foundations; and the practice of asset-averaging by some foundations, which reduces the impact on giving of year-to-year fluctuations in asset values