more households in 2008, compared with 2007, will choose the standard deduction instead of itemizing deductions when they complete their tax returns.

An estimated 65 percent of non- itemizing households contribute to charity (compared with 90 percent of itemizers). Among these donor households, the average gift is estimated to be about $1,025.

The total estimate for approximately 64 million non-itemizing households is $42.58 billion.

None of the announced gifts on the Center on Philanthropy Million Dollar List or on the Slate 60 list for 2008 was large enough to alter the rate of change by more than one half of one percentage point. With no single gifts at that level, the estimate for 2008 does not include a supplement for “mega-gifts.” The last year to contain such a supplement was 2006. The amount originally estimated for 2006 is now known and reported in this edition.

Individual giving during and
following recessions
Individual (also called household)
charitable giving is linked to income
and wealth. In general, during years
that are part of a recession, individual
giving has declined an average of
1. 5 percent. 4 The range of change in
individual giving during recession
years (adjusted for inflation) varied
from a drop of 5. 3 percent in 1974
to an increase of 2. 4 percent in 1981.

In addition to the change in giving during recessions, the historical record from Giving USA shows how long it has taken giving to attain pre-recession levels.

In 1974, the middle year of the long recession of 1973–1975, the stock market fell 33 percent and personal income dropped 0.2 percent. In that year, giving by individuals declined 5. 3 percent. Once the 1973–1975 recession ended, individual giving returned to its pre-recession level in 1977 (All figures are adjusted for inflation).

In the recessions of 1980 and 1981–1982, unemployment rates reached more than 10 percent and interest rates for home loans were 15 percent or more. Following that recession, inflation-adjusted individual giving reached pre-recession levels by 1983.

After the recession of 1990–1991, individual giving stayed fairly constant between $134 billion and $137 billion until the stock market began lifting assets around 1996.

There was a leveling off period in individual giving from 1999 through 2003, when inflation-adjusted individual giving ranged from $200 to $218 billion. Growth began again in 2004, as wealth grew in both markets—stock and real estate—and as incomes began to rise.

Some individuals giving through
family foundations
At least some family foundation grant-
making can be considered individual