Each year, the Giving USA Foundation publishes a report on charitable giving researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Some experts expected a critical decline in giving in 2008, noting the struggling economy.

However, while charitable giving declined 5.7 percent in 2008 after adjustment for inflation, it remained almost as high as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) as the previous year (2.2 percent in 2008 versus 2.3 percent in 2007), according to the report.

"With the United States mired in a recession throughout 2008, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that charitable giving would be down," said Del Martin, chair of Giving USA Foundation. "However, what we find remarkable is that individuals, corporations and foundations still provided more than $307 billion to causes they support, despite the economic conditions."

These charities support a wide variety of organizations and groups working to improve education, help animals, protect the environment, or provide help for the needy both in the United States and internationally. (See "American Foundations Pledge Continued International Giving.")

INCREASE IN GIVING TO RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS, UNIVERSITIES

According to the report, giving to religious congregations and organizations -- about one-half of all individual giving -- actually increased 1.6 percent after adjusting for inflation.

U.S. religious organizations are an important source of development aid and disaster relief in the developing world, providing more than 1.5 times more aid ($36.9 billion in 2007) than the U.S. government, according to the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Prosperity (CGP), a Washington research organization. (See "A New Assistance Landscape.")

In Zimbabwe and Zambia, for example, the charity Forgotten Voices helps local communities care for AIDS orphans, while Engineering Ministries International provides volunteer designers, engineers and architects to work on infrastructure projects around the world.

When it comes to international aid, Americans long have preferred to donate their money through the private sector or to private charities rather than relying on government. The $115.9 billion provided by private foundations, corporations, voluntary organizations, universities, religious organizations and individual Americans in 2007, the most current data available, is more than five times the $21.8 billion of official aid provided by the U.S. government, according to CGP.

Private gifts to U.S. colleges and universities climbed in 2008 to $31.6 billion, the highest total ever recorded, according to a report released in March by the Council for Aid in Education. According to the CGP report, Americans also gave $3.9 billion in support to students from the developing world who studied in the United States in the 2007-2008 academic year, a 5 percent increase over the 2006-2007 level.

DECREASES IN SOME AREAS OF GIVING

Giving fell to foundations and organizations that focus on education, health, the environment, animals, the arts, culture and humanities, according to the report. Individual giving, which is always the largest component of charitable contributions, was an estimated $229.28 billion, or 75 percent of the total, in 2008. This is a decrease of 6.3 percent adjusted for inflation compared with 2007 estimates.

The percentage of Americans who told the Gallup polling organization they have donated to charity over the past 12 months (84 percent) in December 2008 was slightly higher than during the stronger economy of 2004, when 82 percent identified themselves as givers.

The Giving USA report does not take into account the value of contributions Americans make in terms of time and labor. More than 60 million Americans volunteer for charitable and national service organizations.

Americans contributed an estimated $3.5 billion worth of volunteer time in 2007 for relief and development assistance causes outside the United States and for international assistance organizations in the United States, CGP estimated.

CGP also said more than 1 million Americans travelled abroad in 2007 to volunteer, and an additional 341,000 volunteers contributed to international assistance causes in the United States.

The complete Giving USA will be available in early July 2009 from the Web site of the Giving USA Foundation.