Blackbaud has just released its latest Index of Charitable Giving, showing 11.3% growth for the three months ending May 2011 over the same period last year. This is 50% higher growth than any period during the past year.
The overall Blackbaud Index is based on actual results from 1,383 US organizations, compiled and refreshed monthly on a rolling three month basis. It includes revenue from all sources of fundraising activities: direct mail, telemarketing, face-to-face fundraising, email, online giving, mobile giving, small- and large-scale events, and major and deferred giving.
Blackbaud’s Index of Online Giving, measured across 1,833 organizations, shows online giving up 6.7%.
Growth was strong across organizations of all sizes, but two sectors did not enjoy such donor largesse — environmental groups, whose overall giving was down 9.1%, and human services, down 5.4%.
Blackbaud also introduced a new sector index for groups involved in international affairs. Based on data from 17 organizations, overall giving was up 13%; while online giving, based on data from 52 organizations, fell 0.3%.
Although the Blackbaud Index now shows 10 months of consecutive growth, BB’s Chuck Longfield cautions: “…with job growth flat the past two months and the economy weakening; a real challenge for all nonprofits going forward will be maintaining this momentum.”
Amen!
Tom
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I’m confused. On Tuesday we heard that “fundraising effectiveness” in 2010 was down -8.1%, then today we hear that the “index of giving” in 2011 (so far) is up 11.3%. I know they were measuring different statistics, but at first glance it appears that, basically, the difference between the good news and the bad news is about 20% in just a few months! Is this just another example of how you can tell any story, depending on which way you slice the numbers? Which of these reports best reflects conditions in our sector? Does (should) this sort of reporting have any practical bearing on our work, or our work plans? Maybe I’m short-sighted (or just not smart enough to connect the dots), but I can’t see how to put this information to practical use. My only take-away –as always– is: respect and steward your donors well to hold on to them as long as you can. Who among us doesn’t know that already?
James,
I agree that statistics can be used to tell almost any story but hopefully that is not what we are doing here.
Each of the statistics that you quote (2010 Fundraising Effectiveness is down 8.1% and the Blackbaud Index for March-May 2011 is up 11.3%) is a year over year comparison. In a simple sense, fundraising was down 8.1% in 2010 as compared to 2009, and it is back up 11.3% in 2011 as compared to 2010. Combined, fundraising is now approximately where it was in 2009.
As for putting this information to use, the best option is to find the index that most closely matches your organization and compare your year-over-year results to the index. We are trying to provide a number of indices by industry, by size of organization and by channel. We don’t have all industries or channels covered yet but we’ve made a pretty good start.
If you want to carry this type of benchmarking to the next step, you should find a peer group of organizations and try to meet on a regular basis to compare business practices. For example, if a peer organization has a better matching gift percentage, what are they doing to achieve these results? Are they asking donors if they work for a matching company? Are they sending donors blank matching gift forms? Have they provided a list of matching companies on the donation page of their web site. These business practices can significantly affect the fundraising results.
And I couldn’t agree with your last sentence more. It is extremely hard to find new donors today. Organizations should do everything possible to steward and keep their existing donors. It is job #1.
Chuck