Charities Report 2014 Giving Boost

The Nonprofit Research Collaborative has been feeding us great information on fundraising at American and Canadian charities since 2010, and their new winter report is out. For data geeks like me, it’s a great read, and here are a few highlights from the 1,200 organizations studied:

• 73% of responding charities in the U.S. met their fundraising goals in 2014, further evidence that we’re moving along post-recession and giving is increasing.
• About two thirds showed greater fundraising in 2014, with 65% of the 212 education sector respondents reporting an increase.
• The biggest growth in fundraising is in the U.S. West, with slower growth in the North and Canada.
• There’s a clear ramp up for both major and planned gifts over the past few years, so the “great wealth transfer” idea continues to be very powerful.
• Response vehicles continue to change, with online, social media and email showing the strongest growth. Social media gifts, described as “supplementing” other methods, and increased at 79% of the organizations. If you don’t have the ability for donors to “share” on social networks from your email gift receipts and online giving confirmation page, get it done soon.
• It was great to see that 56% of responding organizations saw an increase in their phone program revenue in 2014.

The report also spent some time on how our annual giving efforts continue to be a big part of major and planned giving. 60% of organizations said that more than half of the bequests came from lifetime givers. Just 25% of organizations said that the majority of their planned gifts came from non-donors. These results mirror planned giving data we’ve been hearing about for years, and confirm the research that annual giving doesn’t stop before or after a planned gift.

As we move further out of the recession, we can expect more reports like this. We’ll see some big totals in the coming years driven by mega gifts, but those donors will all have a story, and for most of them the story will include previous smaller gifts to the organization. It’s important for us to realize that donors have a path, and continuing to ask them regularly and thank them even more often is key.

Our plans must include a full multi-channel effort that involves an active conversation with donors. That’s how our communication of impact will translate into greater donor passion and action.

It’s not just the economy. In the NPRC report, two of the big factors that charities said influenced fundraising results in 2014 were big gifts and organized fundraising. When you look at the stats on the annual to major gift pipeline, those two factors end up being a pretty important combo.

The Nonprofit Research Collaborative includes great organizations like AFP, Giving USA and CFRE International. Download the 2015 Winter Report at npresearch.org