Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud
There is often a lot of speculation and guessing about what’s happening to fundraising in the nonprofit sector. With more than half of 2010 now over, it might be helpful to review some updated statistics.
Online Giving Remains Positive
The recession certainly had an impact across the entire nonprofit sector. But the latest online giving data shows continued growth. The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving was launched this year and measures online giving data from more than 1,700 organizations. The Index looks at trends on a rolling three-month basis to smooth out seasonal or episodic spikes in the data and is the largest and most timely study being done in the industry.
The Index shows that online giving remained positive during most of 2009 and the trends for 2010 have been very encouraging. Online giving growth in the first part of 2010 was largely due to the overwhelming response to the Haitian earthquake. Through June 2010, online giving was up 11.7% year-over-year on a three-month rolling average.
Size Matters in Online Giving
The size of an organization is also something important to consider when looking at online giving trends. The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving found that large organizations (more than $10 million in revenue) are up 14.9% YOY, medium sized organizations (between $1 million and $10 million in revenue) are up 9.2% YOY, and smaller organizations (less than $1 million in revenue) are up 8.0% since the same period last year.
Another aspect of the Index data that is interesting is the growing percentage of total fundraising that comes from online channels. Blackbaud looked at total giving for almost 1,400 organizations and found that online revenue accounted for 5.7% of their overall fundraising revenue. What was more telling was that small-sized organizations had 7.3% of total revenue come from online giving. Mid-sized nonprofits were at 7.0%, and larger organizations were slightly below the average at 5.1%. This is a trend that has continued to grow for many years now.
Multichannel is Magic
Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, has been looking at trends in online and offline giving for many years now. A recent meeting of the donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Group reviewed online and offline giving between 2005 and 2009. The group was comprised of 14 very large nonprofit organizations. The trends of multichannel donors are very encouraging.
In 2009, median revenue per donor for multichannel supporters was $339 compared to $88 for offline and $170 for online donors. 13% of multichannel donors are new donors, and they represent 28% of donors that give in five or more consecutive years. This is a positive acquisition and retention trend that nonprofits should give some attention.
Multichannel donors are more loyal than offline or online donors alone. First year retention for multichannel donors was 51% compared to 30% for offline donors and 22% for online donors. Multi-year multichannel donors do even better, with 75% being retained versus 59% for offline and 52% for online.
The reactivation rate for multichannel donors was 16% compared to just 7% for both online and offline donors by themselves. This is important because in many cases, reactivation is the new acquisition.
While multichannel donors still represent a smaller percentage of overall supporters, their growth, value, loyalty, and importance should make nonprofits take notice.
These are just some of the trends and interesting findings in the latest online giving data. Look for more updates and insights in the future.
Steve MacLaughlin is Blackbaud’s director of Internet solutions. His blog Connections uses no artificial sweeteners. He is the co-editor of the new book Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools, and Trade Secrets.