Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving Reports 12.1 Percent Increase in Overall Giving
June 16, 2010
“Economic conditions, natural disasters, and market fluctuations have made itextremely difficult for nonprofits to make fundraising decisions informed by thelatest donor behavior,” said Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s chief scientist. “Thatis why we created the Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving – to providefundraisers with up-to-date data on fundraising trends and to couple thatinformation with valuable analysis by leaders in the sector.”
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving released today reported that overallrevenue increased by 12.1 percent for the 3 months ending April 2010 as comparedto the same period in 2009. A significant portion of this increase was relatedto the very generous outpouring of support to organizations helping with reliefefforts in Haiti.
“This new index offers the nonprofit sector valuable and timely information,”said Patrick M. Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy atIndiana University. “While not a random sample or census of the entire nonprofitsector, the responses from Blackbaud’s clients are likely to be very helpful ininforming our understanding of the latest trends in giving.”
The Index was released today as an information element of TheNonProfit Times’ economic dashboard, a tool that is featured on thenews outlet’s homepage and provides an at-a-glance view of key indicators forthe nonprofit sector. The dashboard will also include a specialty index fromBlackbaud that provides further analysis and insight into key trends.
Along with the launch of the Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving today,Blackbaud released additional data and analysis that reports on organizations bysize. The Index found that three-month revenue for small organizations (prioryear revenue of < $1 million) increased 12.3 percent in April, while revenueat medium organizations (prior year revenue of $1 – 10 million) decreased 2.5percent, and revenue at large organizations (prior year revenue > $10million) increased 19.2 percent.
The data show that donations for thesmaller organizations bottomed out in July of 2009, remained roughly flatthroughout the second half of 2009, and turned upward starting in January 2010.Donations to large organizations may have reached bottom in December 2009, butit is hard to tell which part of the large upturn in March was due to Haitiversus general improvement in ongoing donations, especially since donationsdeclined in April.
Roger Craver, editor-in-chief of The Agitator and founder of DonorTrends,provided guest analysis of the Index in a report that accompanied the release. “Blackbaud’s Indexof Charitable Giving carries some fascinating news,” he said. “In short, allsizes of nonprofits are now emerging from the recession, but smallerorganizations are recovering faster.”
Craver believes that since smaller organizations tend to be ‘local’ in natureand therefore delivering on meeting community needs like hunger, housing, andother human services, that donors focus more on them in tough times.
Thus, giving to small organization increases and leads this group out ofthe recession. On the contrary, he continues in the report that as a generalrule, large organizations have a far broader and deeper range of income sources,and that explains why giving to this group declined slower and rebound is alsohappening a bit slower than small organizations, although they lead the rolling3-month YOY revenue change in April.
Visit www.blackbaud.com/blackbaudindex for further data andanalysis and to download the report.
About Blackbaud
Blackbaud is theleading global provider of software and services designed specifically fornonprofit organizations, enabling them to improve operational efficiency, buildstrong relationships, and raise more money to support their missions.Approximately 22,000 organizations — including University of Arizona Foundation,American Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, The Taft School, Lincoln Center, InTouch Ministries, Tulsa Community Foundation, Ursinus College, Earthjustice,International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the WGBH Educational Foundation — useone or more Blackbaud products and services for fundraising, constituentrelationship management, financial management, website management, directmarketing, education administration, ticketing, business intelligence, prospectresearch, consulting, and analytics. Since 1981, Blackbaud’s sole focus andexpertise has been partnering with nonprofits and providing them the solutionsthey need to make a difference in their local communities and worldwide.Headquartered in the United States, Blackbaud also has operations in Australia,Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.
