The main trends in fundraising: comparison of the experience of Ukraine and the United States

Abstract

Fundraising is the process of raising funds to achieve specific goals through implementation of certain projects. Funds are raised for various directions and areas of activity, as well as by attracting different sources of funding. However, the use of fundraising tools in Ukraine began to be widely analyzed in the research literature after about the 2000s. The goal of the article is to analyze the main trends in fundraising in Ukraine and the United States and compare them.

The article states that fundraising is often identified with charitable activities, and this area was chosen for analysis. Fundraising is quite common in the United States. Fundraising tools are widely used by non-governmental non-profit organizations in finding funds to implement projects, for which it is difficult to obtain funding from the government agencies or business representatives. In Ukraine, the similar fundraising and charity activity began only with the country's independence.

The dynamics of the volume of donations in the United States over the past 40 years is presented, and the main directions and changes in the structure of donations by types of philanthropists are identified in the article. In general, there is a significant increase in the amount of donations by the Americans. And such growth took place almost every year, even taking into account inflation and pandemic crisis. For comparison, the similar indicators in Ukraine for the past few years are presented. It is determined that the directions of consumption and the structure of sources of funding for charitable activities in the United States and Ukraine differ significantly.If we assume that funds are collected, as a rule, for those projects that are poorly supported or not supported at all by the government, then it can be noted that these areas in these countries have problems with support from government agencies and funds.

Thus, fundraising processes are implemented differently in each country depending on the factors that affect them. Taking into account the main trends in fundraising and the comparison of the experience of Ukraine and the United States, the factors influencing fundraising processes are defined. These factors require further research.