All research on this page is prepared by the Community Foundation Research and Training Institute. We welcome your comments. Also, if you have an idea for a future research topic you would like us to pursue, please let us know.
How Do Donors React to Changes in Administrative Fees?
Posted May 2025
How will your donors react if you change administrative fees on the funds that you manage? In this report, we provide a summary of an academic paper that tries to answer this question.
Economists refer to changes in demand subsequent to changes in price as “elasticity”. As noted in this report, reaction to a change in administrative fees is negative (demand goes down as fees go up) and significant. But for a variety of reasons, it might actually be understated
You can read the full report here.
New Report Examines Donor Advised Funds at Community Foundations
Posted October 2024
The Community Foundation Research and Training Institute (CFRTI) has published a report on donor advised funds at community foundations.
Donor advised fund assets of US-based community foundations in 2022 stood at $53.2 billion, representing about 36% of all assets at community foundations.
In addition to the report, you can download a spreadsheet showing donor advised funds at all community foundations.
To read the full report, click here.
For an Excel spreadsheet showing summary information for donor advised funds at all US-based community foundations, click here.
Community Foundation Census
Posted September 2024
The United States is home to about 900 community foundations. In our 2022 census, we summarize financial information for those foundations.
Assets of US-based community foundations declined 9.6% from 2021 to 2022, falling from $146.3 billion to $132.2 billion. This was the first aggregate decline in total assets for the field since the economic crisis of 2008-09.
To read the full report, click here.
For an Excel spreadsheet showing summary information for all US-based community foundations, click here.
Report on Gift Processing at Community Foundations
We sent a small gift to 100 randomly-selected community foundations. Our goal was to measure the speed and accuracy of gift processing.
What we found may surprise you.
To read the report, click here.
New Report Measures Community Foundation Awareness, Understanding and Trust
The Lilly School of Philanthropy in Indianapolis has released a wonderful new report entitled “What Americans Think About Philanthropy and Nonprofits”. The report contains a mountain of data related to charitable giving, and buried in the report is a nugget about the extent of awareness, understanding and trust of community foundations in the United States.
For community foundations to attract donors and grow, three things must be true. Potential donors should be aware of community foundations, should understand them, and should trust them. It looks like community foundations are winning the battle for awareness and understanding; as far as trust goes, the news is not so good.
In a random sample of more than 1,300 adults ages 18 and over, nearly one-third (32%) said they were familiar with community foundations. Another 50% said they had heard of a community foundation, but were not familiar with what they do. Only 18% said they didn’t know anything about a community foundation.
While this information can be interpreted in several ways, in my opinion it’s good news for the community foundation field. While we like to say that community foundations are “the best kept secret” in philanthropy, if this information is applied across the nation nearly one-third of the adult population is familiar with community foundations. The field still has more work to do to raise awareness and understanding, but this data shows that community foundations are well-known and understood.
