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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Charities Getting Short-Changed
Aired October 27, 2003 - 08:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: When the economy turns down, so do contributions to charities.
Andy Serwer is here minding our business, got that story.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, a sad side effect of the weak economy, Jack, and not that unexpected, but charitable giving is down. This is kind of surprising, the first time in 12 years charitable giving declined in this country. This is as of last year, according to "The Chronicle of Philanthropy," down only about 1 percent, but still, that really counts. What are the numbers, 47.5 billion last year as opposed to -- $46 billion as opposed to $47 billion the previous year.
And you know, it's kind of interesting if you look at -- can you guess what the No. 1 charity is in the United States, Jack?
CAFFERTY: United way?
SERWER: I thought United Way. They're not even in the top 10.
CAFFERTY: Really.
SERWER: Yes.
Here you go, National Red Cross. Salvation Army has been No. 1 for years and years. Red Cross leapfrogged above it, mostly because of 9/11, a lot of concern. You can see there, and of course the tragic bombing today puts that in focus even more.
Gifts in Kind, it's kind of a new thing where you give products. Cancer Society. Fidelity is part of the Fidelity Mutual Fund.
Let's go to through six through 10. It's kind of interesting just to look at some of the biggest things here, Lutheran Church, YMCA, Nature Conservancy, USC, connected to that wonderful university in Southern California, and Feed the Children.
Double whammy here of course, too, because not only are gifts going down to charities, but they also have their endowments in the stock market, and those have been declining for a couple of years as well.
CAFFERTY: Merger Monday, got a big deal out there today.
SERWER: Yes, sir. Fleet Bank being bought by bank of America, $47 billion deal. Largest deal since Pharmacia back in July of 2002. So what does this big deal mean for consumers? Well, it creates the largest consumer bank in the United States, 5,700 branches all over the place, so if you bank with Fleet, you can bank in California, North Carolina, all over the place. That's No. 1.
Second important point here is they don't do these big deals, the CEOs don't do these big deals, unless they're optimistic about the economy and the future. So the market's going to be heading up this morning probably. Fleet stock is on fire, as you can imagine. And so it's a good sign about the economy.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What are they going to call it? I'm sorry.
SERWER: We don't know that yet, probably Bank of America. I'm just guessing. That really is just a guess, because it's such a great national name, and fleet is more of a regional name.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, and Fleet was already an amalgam of a bunch of New England banks.
SERWER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: This is global domination we're talking about here.
SERWER: World domination, Miles.
O'BRIEN: That, too.
CAFFERTY: The Bank of the World.
SERWER: That would be a good name. Yes, you should get a fee for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 27, 2003 - 08:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: When the economy turns down, so do contributions to charities.
Andy Serwer is here minding our business, got that story.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, a sad side effect of the weak economy, Jack, and not that unexpected, but charitable giving is down. This is kind of surprising, the first time in 12 years charitable giving declined in this country. This is as of last year, according to "The Chronicle of Philanthropy," down only about 1 percent, but still, that really counts. What are the numbers, 47.5 billion last year as opposed to -- $46 billion as opposed to $47 billion the previous year.
And you know, it's kind of interesting if you look at -- can you guess what the No. 1 charity is in the United States, Jack?
CAFFERTY: United way?
SERWER: I thought United Way. They're not even in the top 10.
CAFFERTY: Really.
SERWER: Yes.
Here you go, National Red Cross. Salvation Army has been No. 1 for years and years. Red Cross leapfrogged above it, mostly because of 9/11, a lot of concern. You can see there, and of course the tragic bombing today puts that in focus even more.
Gifts in Kind, it's kind of a new thing where you give products. Cancer Society. Fidelity is part of the Fidelity Mutual Fund.
Let's go to through six through 10. It's kind of interesting just to look at some of the biggest things here, Lutheran Church, YMCA, Nature Conservancy, USC, connected to that wonderful university in Southern California, and Feed the Children.
Double whammy here of course, too, because not only are gifts going down to charities, but they also have their endowments in the stock market, and those have been declining for a couple of years as well.
CAFFERTY: Merger Monday, got a big deal out there today.
SERWER: Yes, sir. Fleet Bank being bought by bank of America, $47 billion deal. Largest deal since Pharmacia back in July of 2002. So what does this big deal mean for consumers? Well, it creates the largest consumer bank in the United States, 5,700 branches all over the place, so if you bank with Fleet, you can bank in California, North Carolina, all over the place. That's No. 1.
Second important point here is they don't do these big deals, the CEOs don't do these big deals, unless they're optimistic about the economy and the future. So the market's going to be heading up this morning probably. Fleet stock is on fire, as you can imagine. And so it's a good sign about the economy.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What are they going to call it? I'm sorry.
SERWER: We don't know that yet, probably Bank of America. I'm just guessing. That really is just a guess, because it's such a great national name, and fleet is more of a regional name.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, and Fleet was already an amalgam of a bunch of New England banks.
SERWER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: This is global domination we're talking about here.
SERWER: World domination, Miles.
O'BRIEN: That, too.
CAFFERTY: The Bank of the World.
SERWER: That would be a good name. Yes, you should get a fee for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
