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How can major individual givers best support nonprofits?

There is tremendous opportunity for philanthropy to contribute significantly to progress against the toughest social problems that defy government and market solutions.

While philanthropy alone cannot solve all of the world’s complex social problems, it can take on pressing challenges that other actors in society cannot or will not.

Individual donors have long been a significant source of philanthropic support, and are currently the largest source of philanthropic support, making up 68 percent of the total charitable giving in the United States. However, a recent decline in giving by small and medium-gift donors has left many nonprofits to become increasingly reliant on major donors, and led those considered major donors to have a progressively more important role to play.

Last fall, CEP set out to investigate what this means for nonprofit leaders and major donors alike. How can major donors better support nonprofits? What kinds of support are major donors currently giving? And what are the differences in nonprofit leaders’ experiences in working with a major donor versus a staffed foundation?

CEP’s new research report out today, Crucial Donors: How Major Individual Givers Can Best Support Nonprofits, shares some answers to those questions, based on the perspectives of 198 nonprofit leaders from across the country, all of whom are part of CEP’s Grantee Voice panel.

Read the full story at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.

Photo: Nick Fewings, Unsplash

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