Have you always dreamed of having your name on a building to honor your philanthropy and general awesomeness, but just didn’t have the cash on hand? You may be in luck: the threshold for building or wing names at colleges, hospitals, and other nonprofits is falling as charitable giving slumps. If you have money, now may be the best time for immortality.

Some organizations are struggling to find revenue as wealthy donors as well as corporate sponsors reduce contributions, said Andrew Hastings, vice president of external affairs at the National Philanthropic Trust in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, which helps donors establish charitable funds.

The number of gifts of $1 million or more from individual donors fell 50 percent to 133 in the second quarter of 2009 compared with a year earlier, based on a study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Overall, private gifts to U.S. organizations involved in arts, culture and the humanities declined 6.4 percent to $12.8 billion in 2008, according to a report by the Giving USA Foundation, the research unit of the Giving Institute in Glenview, Illinois.

If your actual net worth were no limit, what kind of building or fund would you establish?

Getting Name on Building Becomes Cheaper for Donors [Bloomberg]

(Photo: mattbuck4950)

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