Fundraising Returns to Pre-Recession Levels

The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving reports that fundraising has returned to pre-recession levels. Through the first 11 months of 2011, overall giving is up 3.4% over 2010, and is now officially above the level of giving last seen in 2007. Most economists agree that is when the recession began.

“Total U.S. charitable giving appears to finally be back to its pre-recession levels. Fundraising remains challenging but hopefully the worst is behind us, and nonprofits will continue to see positive growth in 2012,” according to Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s chief scientist.

He also noted that while giving is up, the increase is not uniform across all sub-sectors. However, most nonprofits saw greater stability and predictability in their 2011 fundraising than in the past few years.

There are two important caveats to the trends. First, the demand for services from nonprofit organizations remains high and in some sectors continues to grow. Second, when adjusting for inflation, fundraising dollars are not yet back to where they were before the recession began.

The other good news is that the Blackbaud Index of Online Giving continues to show double-digit growth in November. This marks seven consecutive months with growth over 10% on a year-over-year basis. Online giving growth remains very positive across small, medium, and large sized nonprofit organizations. These trends are important to see in the last quarter when a very significant amount of online giving happens.

Overall Fundraising Trends

The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports total revenue trends of 1,281 nonprofit organizations representing $2.5 billion in yearly revenue on a monthly basis, both offline and online. The Index is based on actual revenue statistics from nonprofit organizations of all sizes representing arts, culture, and humanities; education; environment and animals; healthcare; human services; international affairs; public and society benefit; and religion sectors.

The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving reports that overall revenue increased by 1.4% for the 3 months ending November 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010.

Online Fundraising Trends

The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports online revenue trends of more than 1,769 nonprofit organizations representing $383 million in yearly revenue on a monthly basis. The Index is based on actual revenue statistics from nonprofit organizations of all sizes representing arts, culture, and humanities; education; environment and animals; healthcare; human services; international affairs; and public and society benefit sectors.

The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving reports that online revenue increased by 12.0% for the 3 months ending November 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve MacLaughlin

Steve MacLaughlin is the Vice President of Data & Analytics at Blackbaud and bestselling author of Data Driven Nonprofits.

MacLaughlin has been featured as a fundraising and nonprofit expert in many mainstream publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, USA Today, The NonProfit Times, Bloomberg, and has appeared on NPR.

He is a frequent speaker at events including the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), American Marketing Association (AMA), Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association (DMFA), Giving Institute Summer Symposium, National Association of Independent School (NAIS), Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), Institute of Fundraising National Convention, Civil Society Conference, Resource Alliance’s Fundraising Online, and a keynote speaker at such events as the Crescendo Practical Planned Giving Conference.

Steve serves on the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) Board of Directors and supports its focus on both the growth and professionalism of the nonprofit technology field as well as building knowledge and information sharing capacity throughout the sector.

He is a frequent blogger, published author of a chapter in the book People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities, and is a co-editor of the book Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools & Trade Secrets. His latest book, Data Driven Nonprofits, became a bestseller in 2016.

Steve earned both his undergraduate degree and a Master of Science degree in Interactive Media from Indiana University.