2013 Report Measures Nonprofit Fundraising Effectiveness

Many strategies are created through various channels to optimize nonprofit fundraising results. How these overall strategies perform can be a determining factor on the overall success of fundraising campaigns. Accurately measuring the performance can be a task all on its own but fortunately there are many resources to help assess and compare how our organizations are performing in comparison to others in the industry. I have spotlighted various related research in posts like 4 Nonprofit Fundraising Insights from 2013 Donor Survey, Nonprofit Fundraising Study Reveals why high Net Worth Donors Give and 4 Insights from 2013 Social Media Marketing Report Nonprofits Can Learn From. A recently released report titled the 2013 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report prepared by the AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) and the Urban Institute “helps nonprofit organizations measure and compare their annual growth in giving by gain/loss category and increase the net by maximizing their gains and minimizing their losses.”

The report identifies an excellent way to measure an organization’s overall fundraising effectiveness by combining the amount raised through acquiring new donors, recapturing lapsed donors and increases in gift amounts and comparing these to the downgraded gift amounts and lost gifts from new and regular donors. The following are some highlights from the report which analysed 2,840 survey respondents for 2011-2012 fundraising results that can benefit nonprofits:

• $34 Million Net Growth – Despite a loss of $735 million through reduced gifts and lapsed donors, there were gains of $769 million from new gifts, upgrades and return of lapsed donors. Essentially for “every $100 gained in 2012 was offset by $96 in losses through gift attrition” and representing an overall growth in giving ratio of 2.6%. It’s certainly a good sign that despite the slow economic recovery fundraising is growing.
• Decrease in Donors – Although there were 866,000 new and returned lapsed donors, there was an overall loss of 909,000 in donors which resulted in an overall loss of 43,000 donors representing an overall loss of -2.7%. These results, combined with the overall revenue new growth, could represent that despite the decrease in number of donors they are on average giving more individually.
• Larger Organizations – Nonprofits that raised $500,000 and more experienced an average net increase of 16.6%, while smaller organizations saw a loss where organizations raising $100,000 to $500,000 saw a decrease of -5.1% and those under $100,000 saw a decrease of -13.5%. Interestingly the organization sizes in this study differ from those in other similar reports like the Blackbaud Index where smaller organizations usually come out on top and regularly see an increase in fundraising revenue.
• New Donors – Represented the largest growth with a gain of 24.9% in amount of gifts and 40.1% increase in number of new donors. There was also an increase in monetary upgrades of 21.8%, while recapturing of lapsed donors accounted for a 14% increase in number of donors and a 13% increase in amounts of gifts.

The report recommends that the best and most cost effective strategy to reduce losses and increase overall net fundraising revenue is by retaining existing donors. The 2013 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report can help fundraisers make decisions on where to best invest resources to improve their overall fundraising effectiveness.

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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.