Hot donors: climate for giving better than last summer.

Nonprofit fundraisers are more optimistic about the conditions for charitable giving now than they have been in the past year, the Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI) released by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University found.

Fundraisers' overall optimism about the climate for giving in the United States increased 4.3 percent compared to this time last year and increased 3 percent from December, 2005.

The PGI, similar to a Consumer Confidence Index for charitable giving, includes three indexes, on a scale from 0 to 100, based on a semiannual national survey of fundraisers. The Present Situation Index gauges the current giving environment. The Expectations Index assesses the climate for the next six months, and the overall PGI is an average of the current and future indexes. Higher scores indicate more positive or optimistic attitudes about the climate for fundraising.

In the latest survey, the overall PGI was 88.9, increasing from 86.3 in December, 2005 and up from 85.2 in Summer, 2005. The Present Situation Index was 86.6 (plus 2 percent from December, 2005, and plus 5.3 percent from Summer, 2005) and the Expectations Index was 91.2 (plus 4.1 percent from December, 2005, and plus 3.4 percent compared to Summer, 2005).

"Fundraisers are reporting an improved giving environment," said Patrick M. Rooney, director of research for the Center on Philanthropy. "Despite higher gas prices, continued war in Iraq, and falling housing prices in some areas, 45.4 percent said the economy is having a positive impact on fundraising."

One-third (33 percent) of those surveyed reported success with Internet solicitations for charitable dollars, more than at any time in the history of the PGI. A greater share of the fundraisers (37.8 percent) predicted that Internet giving would be successful in the next six months. The percentage of fundraisers indicating success with Internet solicitations has increased steadily since December, 2004; however, respondents continue to rank it among the least successful fundraising techniques.

"It appears more nonprofits are using the Internet to raise money and donors are responding," said Timothy L. Seiler, director of Public Service and The Fund Raising School at the Center on Philanthropy. "But while people are becoming more comfortable with giving over the Internet and its success is likely to continue to grow, most charitable donations still come from other fundraising methods such as direct mail, major gifts and planned giving."

Fundraisers for human services organizations were the most likely to say Internet solicitations are successful (46.7 percent), while only 14.3 percent of fundraisers from Public Society-Benefit, Environment/Animal and International (PEAI) organizations reported success. Healthcare fundraisers were statistically significantly less optimistic about the future of Internet giving than their peers at other nonprofits; only 15.4 percent of healthcare fundraisers predicted it would be successful in the next six months, a lower percentage than currently report success with it (20 percent).

Personal solicitation techniques remain the most successful methods for raising charitable dollars, survey participants said. Nearly 88 percent reported success with major gift solicitations and 77.3 percent reported planned giving was successful, both all-time highs for the PGI.

The latest PGI also asked about the impact that relief giving in the wake of last year's U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes had on non-relief charities. Survey participants continued a split in perceptions between what fundraisers said they experienced at their own organizations and how they perceived that nonprofits in general were affected, a difference first seen in the December, 2005 PGI results. In the Summer, 2006 survey, equal percentages of fundraisers reported that 2005 hurricane relief giving did and did not come at the expense of giving to other non-relief charities (42.9 percent and 42.2 percent, respectively) in the immediate aftermath of the hurricanes. However, only 28.6 percent said last fall's relief giving came at the expense of giving to their own organization, while 53.8 percent said it did not. The vast majority of fundraisers in the survey said that hurricane relief giving is not currently affecting contributions to their organizations or to other nonprofits.

"These results suggest that most nonprofits in the survey were not significantly affected by giving for hurricane relief, and to the extent that they were, for most the impact appears to have been relatively short-lived," said Eugene R. Tempel, executive director of the Center. "Less than 9 percent of respondents said that hurricane giving is still affecting their organizations this summer."