Blackbaud Releases Annual Charitable Giving Report, Five Key Takeaways

You know how your nonprofit fared in 2013, but how did the rest of the industry do? Blackbaud‘s annual Charitable Giving Report provides year-over-year changes in online and offline giving by nonprofit size and sub-sector. It’s always good to benchmark your organization’s performance against other nonprofits. The study includes data from over 400 nonprofits representing $1.7 billion in online fundraising. Here are five key points from the study. You can download the full report here.

1. Overall charitable giving grew 4.9% in 2013, while online giving grew 13.5%. Online fundraising continues to increase with 2013 being the second consecutive year to produce double-digit growth. Make sure your websites are informative, up to date and easy to navigate. Every nonprofit’s website should have a simple “click to give” presence somewhere on the homepage.

2. Online giving accounted for 6.45 of all charitable giving in 2013. While people are certainly giving online and continuing to give more through this vehicle, it is still a very small percentage of overall gifts to nonprofits. Remember that in-person meetings and relationship development are key to securing big gifts.

3. Large organizations had the greatest increase in overall charitable giving, while small nonprofits grew their online giving the most. No matter what the size of the nonprofit, charitable giving was up!

4. International affairs organizations grew the most in overall charitable giving, while faith-based nonprofits had the biggest increase in online giving. Each of the nine sectors showed year-over-year fundraising growth in 2013 compared to 2012.

5. More than one-third of overall charitable giving occurs in the last three months of the year, with the highest percentage coming in December. The last month of the year also saw a boost in giving due to an increase in #GivingTuesday donations online, which were up 90% from 2012, making this a trend to watch. Make sure you are taking the first three quarters of the year to plan for a successful end-of-the-year giving season and start sending your appeals in September or October. It sometimes takes a few touch points to get that annual fund gift.