This might be the last piece of evidence that we need to show that this economic downturn is going to hit the nonprofit world, and hard.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is going to scale back its grantmaking over the next year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
From the Chronicle:
Due to the financial turmoil in global markets, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation must scale back its plans for grant making in 2009, says Jeff Raikes, chief executive of the foundation.
In a letter Mr. Raikes has written for the organization’s Web site, the Seattle philanthropy will give more money to charity next year compared to 2008, but it will be less than the foundation had expected to award before the economic meltdown hit.“Nonprofit groups rely on steady funding to carry out their work, but with an uncertain economy and a volatile stock market, funders are having an increasingly difficult time,” Mr. Raikes writes.
“We plan to grow our payout by about 10 percent over our 2008 payout,” he says. “We will, however, reduce the planned growth in our payout. In other words, we will make more grants in 2009 than in 2008, as we have planned, but the increase will be smaller than our original expectation.”
