Decline in Nonprofit Fundraising Continues According to Latest Blackbaud Index

I have covered many types of nonprofit fundraising reports and research from various sources like the Global Social Media Check-Up Reports, the 2012 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, the Millennial Impact Report, How America Gives and Engaging Board Members in Fundraising. However, I always look forward to the latest Blackbaud Index to reliably provide accurate data that paints an overall picture of the current nonprofit fundraising landscape. Most recently I wrote that Nonprofit Fundraising Results Show Decline According to Latest Blackbaud Index and how I was cautiously optimistic that the summer downward trend would end in September and that stronger results for the remainder of the year would balance out a rather erratic year. It seems that I was more on point with being cautious than being optimistic according to the latest Blackbaud Index results.

Hopeful the coming months bring an increase in fundraising results

For a second consecutive month the index results show a decline in overall charitable giving posting a -3.1% for the three month period ending September 2012 in comparison to the same time frame in 2011. Also important to note is that these are the first 2 months in the last 13 that resulted in a decline, making the results more worrisome. It’s not clear what has caused this decline and therefore we can only speculate. Have donors been distracted with returning to their routine of work, school and family life that donating has been overlooked? Could the results be reflective of complacent fundraising in a period that is significantly slower than the rest of the year? Or have the summer results significantly skewed the reporting period’s results (July and August also included as part of the 3 month results)? If the latter is the case, then we should see a significant rebound in October and then again in November.

On the bright side Environmental and Animal Welfare organizations saw an increase of 10.6% and Healthcare organizations who posted a decline for 9 consecutive months had an increase of 0.5% over the same period last year and an increase of 9.4% from the previous month. In terms of a decline by organization size and type, only large organizations (those with annual revenue over $10 million) and International Affair organizations had a decline of -7.2% and -31.2% respectively. Each continued a downward trend that they have experienced for 3 consecutive months with no indication that there may be improvements in the foreseeable future.

The Index of Online giving shows that there was an increase of 2.7% compared to the same period last year, however that is down -1.2% from August’s results. Similarly to overall fundraising, large organizations and those in the International Affair category were the only organization types to show a decline in online giving as well (-3.3% and -24.2% respectively). Despite increases from the previous year’s reporting period in the remaining organization types, K-12 was the only organization type to post an increase from the previous year (17.6%) and previous month (5.5%).

K-12 is a new organization type added to the Blackbaud Index and represents nonprofits that serve schools that teach kindergarten to grade 12. This newly analyzed category currently represents 132 organizations that raise $29.5 million in overall giving revenue. What is remarkable about this subsector is that in the past 13 months they have posted an increase in both overall giving and online giving for every reporting monthly period and most notably had an incredible 50.6% increase in online giving in March 2012.

Results for October through December cannot be predicted with any certainty but we can hope for stronger end-of-year fundraising results that will surpass 2011’s results. You can read a recent post I wrote titled 5 Strategies for Stronger End-of-Year Nonprofit Fundraising Results for some ideas that may help you plan the coming months.

What strategies are you using for your end of year fundraising push?

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.