Donations predicted to decline until 2011

By John Plummer, Third Sector Online, 1 December 2008

Charitable giving will fall by 5 per cent next year and by a further 3 per cent in 2010 before recovering in 2011, according to Neil Parker, an economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Parker delivered his downbeat forecast to about 300 chief executives at the Acevo annual conference in London on Friday. "There is not a lot of good news, unfortunately," he said. The weak pound would erode income for charities that received funding from countries with stronger currencies, he said, and low...