fundraising
Friday Fundraising Update: Giving USA Roundup 6-19-2015
The Friday Fundraising Update collects fundraising industry insights and success stories and delivers them to you each Friday from Ruffalo Noel Levitz.
This week marked
the release of the Giving USA report, a record of American charitable giving which has informed us for the past 60 years. Giving was up in 2014 and reached $358 billion, the highest amount on record. This is great news. Experts chimed in on the results and the specific trends which should inform our work as fundraisers in the coming years. Here are a few:
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
A great overview of the report with additional graphs was followed by a live panel this week. Key insights included: while individual giving is increasing, it is not increasing as much as corporation and foundation giving. Giving to foundations has also started to lag.
The Chronicle recently went through a re-design and added numerous interactive resources and tools for fundraisers. It’s a great resource, whatever your cause.
Michael Rosen Says
Michael put out a great post with an overview of the report results as well as video commentary by Patrick Rooney at the Lilly School of Philanthropy.
When you combine bequest, individual giving and family foundation numbers, 87% of US giving came from individuals in 2014, so our effort to connect with donors on a personal level is well spent.
Jeff Shuck at Plenty
Jeff offers some insight on the report, our new technologies, the drop in the volunteering rate, and the success that different charitable areas are having. His message: asking works, and investment by charities is important.
We agree, and it’s great to see that American giving has recovered a bit faster than many of us expected from the great recession.
If we can leverage new opportunities and maximize our return on traditional methods of connecting with donors, more good times are ahead.
Join us in Minneapolis
Want to spend three days connecting with great people who are ready to take action as fundraisers? There’s still time to register for the Ruffalo Noel Levitz summer fundraising conference next month in Minneapolis. Join industry experts, fellow fundraisers and friends for this great event, which also includes special phonathon and crowdfunding workshops.
We’ll see you there!