As the stock market plummets to new lows, charities are feeling the brunt, as both corporations and the wealthy are curtailing their luxury spending and their charitable donations as never before, Reuters reports.

“This is the worst fund-raising environment I have worked in my 25-plus-year career in fund raising for nonprofit organizations,” said Jeff Towers, the chief fund raiser at the American Red Cross.

U.S. corporations donated an average of 1.5 percent of their pretax profits to charity in 2004, but that portion has since declined to 0.7 percent, said Mark Shamley, of the Association of Corporate Contribution Professionals, in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

With the recent implosions by finance giants like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the gloomy outlook for fund raising is likely to get worse as charitable donations from corporations have continued to decrease or remain flat, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s most recent survey of corporate giving.

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