Blackbaud’s Nonprofit Fundraising Industry Survey Anticipates 2012

Blackbaud releases several meaningful reports throughout the year which provide informative statistics or survey results on the state of nonprofit fundraising and other various areas within our industry. I have featured results from the Blackbaud Index, the 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report, the 3rd Annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report 2011 and The Nonprofit Research Collaborative report (and Part 2).

Blackbaud also released a report titled the 2011 State of the Nonprofit Industry Survey (SONI) which is an annual survey that reflects the degree in which nonprofits anticipate change within their organizations in the present and following years. It also serves as a benchmark to gauge the levels of optimism, to help with forecasting and to share strategies being employed by nonprofit leaders.

The survey was conducted in June 2011 and included 2,203 respondents who answered questions in several areas including general operations, fundraising, technology, internet use, impact reporting and board performance.  Participating countries included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.

Despite nonprofits having to face a challenging period of flat funding, tighter budgets, newer and always changing technology, pressure to meet fundraising goals and increased expectations from supporters, they remain optimistic in seeing continued growth in 2012.  However this growth is not just in charitable income, but also an increase in staffing, an increased demand in services, as well as an increase in expenditures.  Most participating countries saw charitable donations remain the same or slightly increase in 2011, but were definitely more optimistic for 2012.

Most nonprofits see the main source of growth being amongst individual donors.  Nonprofits also remain optimistic in the strength of current fundraising initiatives including individual giving, corporate donations and special events, while door-to-door collections and text messaging being the least or not utilized methods.

What has remained consistent thus far is that although newer communication tools such as the use of social technology are being more accepted and integrated into fundraising campaigns, these have not replaced traditional fundraising channels such as direct mail and telephone fundraising to existing and potential donors, which to almost all nonprofits continues to perform very well.  However, it seems nonprofits do understand the importance of social media and are still willing to invest the time and resources to help drive online donations. I fully expect social technology to make great gains in nonprofit fundraising in 2012.

Interestingly, Holly Ross, Executive Director of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), believes that when it comes to mobile devices, mobile optimized websites will have a stronger impact over SMS Text campaigns that generally consist of a restricted donation amount imposed by the mobile carriers.  I tend to agree, as it gives the supporter a more connected experience to the cause, where SMS Text campaigns can be more useful for urgent disaster fundraising campaigns.

Adrian Sargeant, a Fundraising Professor and Consultant, believes monthly giving campaigns can help nonprofits increase a donors lifetime value and can help nonprofits weather challenging economic times in addition to integrating online and offline campaigns, effective multi channel communication management and smarter donor acquisition.

Despite the combined optimism and uncertainty for 2012, Andrew Watt, President and CEO of AFP gives nonprofits some sound advice and words encouragement:

“The future requires clear and confident leadership from charities, their executives, and chief volunteers [….].  We can still be very successful and have a lot of impact. That’s a key message we have to carry to our donors and supporters. Now is not the time to hang our heads, but work diligently, focus on stewardship and create the connections and partnerships that make fundraising and philanthropy possible.”

You can read the executive overview of the report via this link. You can also read about Blackbaud’s searchable database which assists nonprofits to find donors.

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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.