Giving by type of recipient as a percentage of total giving, 1969–2008 (Five-year spans; does not include “unallocated”)

5.6% 4.8%

15.0%

9.8%

7.5%

8.1% 10.1% 9.9%

13.3% 12.9%

7.8% 8.9% 8.3% 8.2%

3.2% 4.3%

8.0% 8.4% 7.5% 8.0%

4.7% 5.6%

4.3% 4.8% 5.0% 4.7% 1.7% 1.9% 2.4% 2.3% 2.2% 2.6% 3.8% 4.8%

9.8% 4.7% 4.9%

12.5% 1.0% 13.8%

6.1% 7.3% 8.1% 5.3% 4.1%

12.2%

12.0%

8.6%

14.3%

12.6%

11.4%

11.2%

13.0%

14.1%

14.6%

56.0%

49.5%

50.0%

53.3%

51.0%

43.7%

37.4%

36.2%

Environment/ animals

International affairs

Arts, culture, and humanities

Public-society benefit

Health

Human services

Foundations

Education

Religion

1969–1973 1974–1978 1979–1983 1984–1988 1989–1993 1994–1998 1999–2003 2004–2008

Each subsector has increased in dollar amounts, yet the allocation or percentage share for each type of recipient has shifted to reflect different giving patterns and preferences, especially of households and foundations.

Giving to religion dropped to less than 40 percent of the total in the 1999–2003 period. In that same period, giving to foundations rose to 11 percent of the total (from less than 9 percent previously).

Education, which was 14 percent of the total in the 1969–1973 period, returned to that level in the 1999–2003 period after decades at less than 13 percent.

Human services declined in total contributions, and as a share of the total, from the 1969–1973 period through the 1984–1988 period. Giving to this subsector began to increase in amount and as a proportion of the total in the 1989–1999 period and has remained near 10 percent since the 1999–2003 period.

Health has gradually declined as a share of the total from more than 13 percent in the 1969–1973 period to just 8. 2 percent in the 2004–2008 period. It was a lower percentage of the total in the period from 1984 through 1993, but has been bolstered recently by grants made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and in gifts to major hospitals and children’s hospitals (see Giving USA 2008).

The public-society benefit subsector jumped as a share of the total in the early 1990s from 5. 3 percent (1984–1988) to 8.0 percent (1989–1993). It has remained between 7. 5 percent and 8. 5 percent since then.

The arts, culture, and humanities subsector has been between 4 and 5 percent of the total in all periods except 1974 to 1978, when it reached 5. 6 percent of the total. It is

4. 7 percent of the total for the 2004–2008 period.

The international affairs and environment/animal subsectors have become larger shares of the total since they began to be tracked in the late 1980s.