Recent years have seen several charities rise quickly to the top of public awareness. It's anecdotal evidence, but it seems many of these popular charities follow a similar course: their rapid rise in popularity first brings quickly rising donations; next, over time the public's obsession turns into scrutiny; the scrutiny, in turn, breeds disenchantment with the organization and donations dry up.
The next chart demonstrates this point using four recent cases, plotting each organization's gifts, grants, & contributions as a percentage of that in their peak year. The pattern is remarkably similar though the underlying story of each is, of course, very different.
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| Gifts, Grants, & Contributions as a Percentage of Peak Amounts |
Does this pattern signal an overly fickle public? Or, does it represent a public slow to examine an organization before supporting it? I'm not sure, but maybe it does signal to other charities that find themselves in the spotlight that just because the public is fully supportive doesn't mean they won't soon be harder to persuade.
