Online Fundraising and Overall Nonprofit Fundraising Increases (Marginally) According to Blackbaud

I regularly cover the monthly Blackbaud Index which provides nonprofit fundraising data on overall charitable and online fundraising trends. Last month’s results reflected the reporting period ending April 2013 and it showed a downward trend but the latest results reflect an increase in online giving after five consecutive months of a steady decline and a marginal increase in overall giving.

Based on giving to 3,200 US based charities and $10 billion in fundraising revenue the results show an increase of 1.1% for the three month period ending May 2013 in comparison to 2012. Broken down by organizational sector or size, the same three nonprofit types experienced gains compared to both the previous year and month. Compared to the previous year there was an increase of 8.1% for International Affairs, 7.4% for Environment & Animal Welfare and 3.7% for small organizations (those with revenues under $1 million). In comparison to the three month period ending April 2013 and in the same order there was an increase of 10% for International Affairs, 9.9% for Environment & Animal Welfare and 0.2% for small organizations.

Those on the lower end of the scale for year-to-year results included Medial Research organizations with -7.4%, Human Services with -4.9% and K-12 Independent Schools with -3%. In contrast to April 2013’s results K-12 Independent Schools had a decline of -7.8%, while Art & Culture had -6.1% and Public & Society Benefit had -32%.

On the other hand online giving saw an increase of 15.2% compared to 2012 results and its first increase in five months – almost returning to October 2012 levels. Based on online fundraising results of 2,500 nonprofit organizations raising $2 billion in fundraising revenue it also represented an increase of 5.1% compared to April 2013’s results.

The largest gainers were small organizations with an increase of 19.9% compared to the previous year, while close behind in second were K-12 Independent Schools with 19.7% and Medical Research with 16.2%. Compared to the previous month, small organizations once again came out on top with a 10.3% increase, International Affairs with 8.6% and Human Services with 4.6%.

All organization sectors and sizes experienced an increase when results were measured against 2012, however, those on the lowest end included Public & Society Benefit with an increase of 9.8%, Arts & Culture with 10.9% and Healthcare with 11%. Only three sectors experienced a loss compared to the month of April, those included Public & Society Benefit with a decline of -4.2%, Medical Research with -2.8% and Environment & Animal Welfare with -2.7%.

As I wrote last week, online giving grew approximately 14% in 2012 over 2011 according to recently released studies by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Although this year we’ve mainly seen a decline, hopefully there will be a rebound for strong second half of the year and an even stronger last quarter when most nonprofits are pushing towards their End-of-Year fundraising efforts.

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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.