Foreword

This foreword introduces the importance and content of the book. The first paragraph reads:

As Jane Austen almost wrote: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a nonprofit in possession of an important mission must be in want of individual donors. Yet despite the essential role that private individuals play in supporting every type of nonprofit activity across the world, our understanding of what these donors need and want – and just as crucially what they don’t want – in order to gain and sustain their support, is often sadly lacking. The collective value of donations from individuals far outstrips the value of funding from corporations and philanthropic foundations (collectively known as ‘institutional donors’) by a ratio of 3-to-1, yet these latter sources of voluntary income get far more attention from scholars, practitioners and the general public. This is partly for practical reasons: institutional donors may only provide around a quarter of total nonprofit funding but they create a paper trail which makes them much easier to find, to quantify, to study and to pass comment on. They might have a website, issue press releases and have staff with easily accessible contact details. Institutional donors are often keen to be visible because their motivation includes achieving business benefits or securing legitimacy and the right to operate. Such is the domination of institutional philanthropy in the public imagination that when philanthropy, is being discussed - and especially when it is being criticized - what commentators and critics usually have in mind is foundations and corporations not individuals.