Women and human services giving.

The first decades of the new century are expected to witness a dramatic increase in charitable giving. And women will be more influential than ever before in determining the beneficiaries of this giving. The purpose of the research reported in this article is to provide useful information for social workers involved in program fundraising by examining various factors that may influence women's future charitable giving to human services. Data for this study were taken from a representative national sample of 2,719 U.S. adults. The Gallup Organization conducted in-home face-to-face interviews in 1996 for the Independent Sector. The results of this secondary analysis indicate that people who give to human services, in contrast to those who do not, were more likely to be white women, have a higher income, and volunteer in human services. In addition, the analysis provides evidence that women are more committed to the role of charitable organizations in society and believe that they have the power to improve the welfare of others. Key words: charitable giving; funding; human services; philanthropy; women The first decades of the new century are expected to witness a dramatic increase in giving in the United States (Elder, 1997; Hamilton, 1994; Kaplan, 1994; Kaplan & Hayes, 1993; Shaw & Taylor, 1995). This projection is based on the coming together of three interrelated economic and demographic streams. First, partially as a result of the social policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations, the 1980s saw a significant buildup of wealth among upper-income groups in the United States. Second, older Americans, many of whom have done well financially over the past 40 years, are expected to make bequests of close to $10 trillion. And third, baby boomers are now reaching their peak giving years. Also important for the human services is the fact that women will be more influential than ever before in determining the beneficiaries of this giving (Kahn, 1997). Today, more wealth is produced jointly by working men and women and individually by working women. In fact, women own more than 60 percent of the wealth in the United States (Kahn; Lederer, 1991). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of the 3.4 million Americans now classified as top wealth holders by the Internal Revenue Service, more than 40 percent are women (Conover, 1996). Women are expected to give large portions or this wealth to programs that benefit women. According to the American Association of Fund Raising Council (AAFRC) (Gray, 1997), individual donations in constant dollars (that is, adjusted for inflation) increased from $114.30 billion in 1989 to $119.92 billion in 1996. In 1996 individual donations represented 79.6 percent of all private giving, which included the contributions of corporations (5.6 percent), foundations (7.8 percent), and bequests (6.9 percent). The problem of concern for social workers is that human services have difficulty in attracting sufficient private donations. Since 1989 total private donations (again, in constant dollars) to all major recipients except human services have increased (Gray, 1997). For example, charitable giving to religion increased from $62.22 billion to $69.44 billion; giving to health services increased from $12.93 to 13.89 billion; donations to education grew from $14.26 to $18.81 billion; and giving to the arts went from $9.77 to 10.92 billion. In contrast, private donations to human services organizations decreased from $14.84 to $12.16 billion. By far, the largest percentage of charitable contributions (46.1 percent) goes to religious organizations, with human services receiving only 8.1 percent of charitable giving (Gray). This study, a secondary analysis of national survey data collected for the Independent Sector by the Gallup Organization in 1996, examines women's giving to human services. The purpose of the analysis is to provide useful information for social workers involved in program fundraising by examining various factors that may influence women's future charitable giving to human services. …