Giving Circles Offer a New Way to Pool and Target Charitable Giving

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Image via Charles Fox, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

People like dietitian Dania Green of Wallingford are donating these days to women’s giving circles, a newer concept in charitable giving, writes Lini S. Kadaba for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Giving circles pool membership fees to make larger donations possible and they give control to its individual members over where the money goes.

The 46-year-old Wallingford mother of three joined Project W in Delaware County for $550 but the group will be able to award $35,000 in inaugural grants.

“If you donate money to any other organization,” Green said, “you’re writing a check. You don’t really see where the money is going. Here, we have a voice.”

Lauren Sustersic, 52, of Broomall conceived Project W last year.  Within months the giving circle had 57 memberships.  Grants from the group benefit Delaware County women and families.

Giving circles in general have quadrupled in number to about 1,600 in 2016 from 400 a decade earlier, according to a database maintained by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute.

Over time, 150,000 donors have given as much as $1.3 billion.

Giving circles started in response to the 2016 presidential elections and worries that federal funding would stop.

Read more about the upsurge in giving groups here.

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