Giving to arts and culture in the United States in 2009, the second full year after the recession began, fell 2.4 percent from 2008 to $12.3 billion, according to a report published by the Giving USA Foundation, reports Patrick Cole for Bloomberg. That decline was less than the 6.4 percent drop to $12.8 billion in 2008 says the Glenview, Illinois–based organization.

Charitable giving to all categories of charities and nonprofits declined 3.6 percent in 2009 to $303.6 billion from $315 billion, the study said. That was worse than the 2 percent drop to $307.7 billion in 2008 but not as severe as the 5.5 percent decline in giving in 1974, the third-worst recession since World War II. Experts had anticipated a much sharper drop last year amid the worst recession since the Great Depression.

“It’s unfortunate that giving fell at all, but it could have been worse,” Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, said in a phone interview. Rooney’s group researched and compiled the data for the Giving USA survey.

Since the U.S. recession began in December 2007 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. the following year, arts and cultural organizations have struggled as many donors and foundations reduced gifts. Among the cultural organizations that had to close in the past two years were the Las Vegas Art Museum and the Fresno Metropolitan Museum in California.