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While the economic recession is being felt at Sweet Briar, charitable giving remains a strength of the College. So far, its supporters have defied a downward trend in giving to educational organizations reported this week in Giving USA 2009, an annual publication of the Giving USA Foundation.

Sweet Briar recorded an 18 percent increase in total giving — which includes pledges and future intentions such as bequests — in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, over the previous year. Donations had climbed at a slower pace by the end of May 2009, when total giving was 4 percent ahead of the same period last year, said Heidi Hansen McCrory, vice president for development.

The slowdown was offset by a 14 percent increase in cash and other gifts actually received this fiscal year, however. Distribution of earlier bequests and a 10 percent boost in the vitally important Annual Fund led to that outcome, McCrory said.

The 4 percent total increase also contrasts favorably with the 5.5 percent slide in giving to U.S. educational organizations in 2008 estimated by the Giving USA 2009 survey. McCrory cautioned against making direct comparisons, though, because the survey is based on donations received by charitable organizations in the calendar year, not the July 1 to June 30 fiscal year used at Sweet Briar.

Nonetheless, "In light of the national statistics, Sweet Briar is having a strong year, in large part because of the continued and extraordinary philanthropy from our alumnae, parents, faculty, staff and friends," she wrote in an e-mail.

The Giving USA survey, which estimates all types of charitable giving, recorded the first year-to-year drop in donations without adjusting for inflation since 1987 and only the second since the foundation began publishing the reports in 1956, according to a Foundation press release. Still, it found that for the second year in a row, charitable donations in the United States exceeded $300 billion despite what is often characterized in the media as the worst economy since World War II.

Education is one of several types of charities, or subsectors, defined by the survey that saw declines, while some — religion, public-society benefit and international affairs organizations — realized small gains or were flat. The other subsectors were arts, culture and humanities, environment and animals; health; human services; and foundations, with the latter two being particularly hard hit in 2008.

The survey's education category includes primary and secondary schools, vocational and technical institutions, libraries and other entities, but 80 to 90 percent of giving in the subsector goes to colleges and universities, said Sharon Bond of Giving USA.

A June 10 story about the Giving USA survey in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Giving to Colleges and other Charities Declines Nearly 6 Percent," notes the Council for Aid to Education reported last March that college giving rose by 6.2 percent in fiscal 2008 thanks to a strong second half of calendar-year 2007.

"But interviews with fund raisers led it to predict that giving would decline in 2009 and perhaps again in 2010," the article said.

McCrory's e-mail cited several likely reasons that giving at Sweet Briar so far has fared better those predictions.

"This year, bequests have definitely pulled our numbers up to the tune of almost $4 million. That's the only unusual factor in our numbers this year — everything else is hard work and generous donors," she said. "And of course, the bequests came about because we did the work earlier, as a community, to engage, cultivate and solicit those gifts."

Particularly striking is the 10 percent jump in the Annual Fund, she said.

"Our numbers are good in the cash area this year, largely because of the realized bequests, but the increased Annual Fund numbers give, in my estimation, the truest and purest look at the health of an institution from a current philanthropy (gifts made today to benefit the College in the short term) perspective," McCrory wrote.

"Obviously, all commitments, short and long term, cash and endowments, are important but Annual Fund dollars are critical in years like this when other means of supporting the daily operations of the College (endowment most especially) are stressed."

The biggest spike in Annual Fund donations came from reunion classes, which totaled nearly $1 million, McCrory said, but the College also saw increased participation from faculty and staff and the Senior Class Campaign.