After two years of decline during the recession, Americans’ giving to charity has begun to rebound.

National figures are up 2.1 percent, adjusted for inflation, according to a recent report from the Giving USA Foundation. In Kansas City, though, many nonprofits were spared the dip in giving that hit the rest of the country and report that donations are holding steady.

Kansas City lawyer Anne Schiavone is one reason. All it took was the mug shot of a lonely-looking dog in a Humane Society newsletter in 2004. She adopted Mackie, then a 2 ½-year-old, 65-pound skittish black lab mix, a few days after she saw the photo.

The adoption of a dog that “nobody wanted, that several hundred people had passed by” prompted her to start giving $10,000 a year to the Humane Society and to adopt two more dogs, Schiavone said.

And as the recession hit, she kept on giving.

“When people are going through foreclosures and giving up their animals because they can’t afford them, I feel that is when donations are needed the most,” Schiavone said.

Read the complete story at kansascity.com