Corporate giving to education during economic downturns: General trends and the difficulty of prediction

Abstract

With the economic downturn starting in December 2007 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009), K-12 school systems, educational non-profits and institutions of higher education have found themselves questioning the degree to which they can rely on outside philanthropic giving to support their activities. Although some research has examined the role of individual giving to education during economic recessions (Goldthorpe, 1941; Drezner, 2005; Council for Aid to Education, 2009), less is known about the trends in corporate philanthropy to education during economic downturns. Using data from Giving USA, The Chronicle of Philanthropy Annual Survey of Corporate Data and the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's Corporate Giving Standard, this article examines general trends in corporate giving over the past 40 years and utilizes industry- and corporation-level financial data to illustrate the nuances which make it difficult to make precise predictions of corporate support for education during the current economic crisis. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.