Giving circles have come up a lot here. I loved Siobhan’s comment earlier about giving circles being the “E=MC2” of giving. That thought captures a lot of the excitement and growth of giving circles over the last few years. The Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers just last month released some original research on this growth, called “More Giving Together: The Growth and Impact of Giving Circles and Shared Giving.” The report can be downloaded at the Giving Circle Knowledge Center at http://www.givingforum.org/givingcircles. The report reflects results from 160 giving circles out of more than 400 that we know about (up from around 200 two years ago). The 400 are just ones we know about–we’re sure there are many more out there.

Some of the findings from the research include that:
–the giving circles surveyed gave around $13 million in 2006 alone, and have raised nearly $100 million altogether;
–nearly 12,000 individuals took part in the 160 giving circles surveyed;
–giving circles are diversifying, with more participation by men, people of color, and the LGBT community; and
–they’re here to stay: nearly a third of those surveyed have gone through five or more rounds of grantmaking.

In addition to the report, there is an extensive library on giving circles, with information ranging from reports and analysis, to profiles and step-by-step guidelines for starting, promoting, and continuing giving circles. People can also find giving circles near them on the site.

And Paul’s comments on the importance of leadership when starting a circle are very relevant. Circles without motivated leaders can falter; using information from circles that have already gone through the process makes a tremendous amount of sense.

Thanks again for doing this, and keep up the good work!

Daria Teutonico
Director, New Ventures in Philanthropy
Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers
http://www.givingforum.org/givingcircles

A few follow up comments are:

Giving Trends - Sean, Paul and others raised the question about what the trends are in philanthropy and in donors that are driving people’s attraction to Giving Circles. Here’s a link to the Report on the Feb. 2007 Giving Circles Networking event(http://www.givingcircles.org/GCNetwork07rpt.htm) during which Nazir Ahmad, President of Giving Works, addressed these very issues. What he says might be of interest to the readers. You can go directly to his presentation at http://www.givingcircles.org/GCNetwork07rpt.htm#top_issues_in_philanthropy_today

Giving Circles & Separating Individuals from Non Profits: One of the respondents raised a concern about this issue. My view is that non profits can and do access funding through a variety of means (including but not limited to Giving Circles), and that Giving Circles really mobilize more individuals in the giving process, which benefits non profits. Also, many times the individuals in the Giving Circles like to engage directly with the non profits, so the idea that GCs separate the individuals from the non profits is not really the case. In any event, bringing more donors and dollars to philanthropy — as well as in a way in which inidviduals seek to increase their awareness and engagement — are good things.

Giving Circle & Non Profit Learning & Value Set - Paul raised some interesting points about the ability for organizations to learn as quickly from mistakes in the non profit sector since they are not exposed to market forces. This is a good point and I appreciated the references provided. I also second the point he made about the value set and need for advice, training and expertise (not just money). A recent report by Angela Eikenberry raises these very issues as important in her study about the success of Giving Circles. I recommend readers to review her recent report to learn about that issue under AFPnet at http://www.afpnet.org/ka/ka-3.cfm?folder_id=2326&content_item_id=23980

Advice on starting a new Giving Circle - I would recommend that anyone wanting to join or create a Giving Circle should first learn about giving in general and about Giving Circles. This helps to avoid re-inventing the wheel and avoiding the mistakes that others have made as well as how to leverage their successes from the start. Two good sources are our website KB at http://www.givingcircles.org/KB.htm or the New Ventures in Philanthropy KB about Giving Circles at http://www.givingforum.org/s_forum/index.asp

SVP of course also offers a lot of excellent advice about starting a Giving Circle using the SVP network and model.

Thanks for the podcast, Sean, and for Paul’s comments.

Bruce, I’d define success at both an individual philanthropist and capacity building level. For individuals, we have many folks like Peter Bladin, the founding Director of http://tech.gfusa.org and Connie Ballmer who founded http://www.partnersforourchildren.org. That is what can happen when you get high potential people engaged in the right way. And here are case studies of successful capacity building - http://www.svpseattle.org/results/default.htm. As for lessons learned, we are gonna publish a compendium of our capacity building and philanthropy development lessons learned for our first 10 years in a few weeks. Check back with me then!

Kevin, I don’t know if there is a clear answer. I suspect some of it is from the whole social networking, community wave going on broadly. I’m also a little dubious about the accuracy of data like that.

re: Jeff and Jim, I’m not quite sure why they draw that conclusion. Their case assumes that a giving circle is the end game when it’s usually not and our evidence suggests that collaborative giving, in fact, is a stimulant to more individual action. More often than not, giving circles are a means to an end.

Tim, I know what it’s “supposed” to mean, but it’s such a hackneyed term after 10 years. What we (and others like VPP, NPI, REDF, Robin Hood) meant by “venture philanthropy” is characterized by engaged partnerships between philanthropic organizations and grantees, multi-year commitments, strong focus on building capacity and infrastructure, and an emphasis on outcome measurement. As for the trend, I think there is a definite upward trend on many of those individual elements – e.g. http://www.geofunders.org and capacity building, increased priority of outcomes, etc. But I don’t know that I see many more new org’s rolling up all of the elements into one organization.

And Siobhan, amen to that!

That said, I find one of the most interesting trends in giving circles to be that they are created and populated mostly by women. There may be a lot of reasons for this, but for those of us in the third sector, we need to understand this as a key way in which women increasingly give and the impact that has on our development strategies that historically have cultivated individual male donors.

Giving circles are not unlike any collective for change, though they may initially shield individually donors, in the long run they offer non-profits a network of knowledgable donors and informed advocates.

“… giving circles make it hard for nonprofits to get access to individuals, where connections and real relationships are built. It’s through these personal relationships we build with volunteers and donors that our organizations grow, and how we “move” donors through a variety of stages, ultimately to a place where they are sincerely engaged in what we do. Giving circles take away our access to the individual and limit the interactions we can have at a one-to-one level.”