Index of National Fundraising Performance - Q1 2008
Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, announced the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance for the first quarter of 2008. The index compares trends in key fundraising indicators from 72 organizations, including over 36 million donors and more than 66 million gifts totaling over $1.8 billion in revenue. The index findings include giving data from direct mail, online, telemarketing, events, and other fundraising channels. You can get a complete summary of the latest index findings here.
Helen Flannery, a Project Director with Target Analytics, co-authored the report and provided these comments about the findings: "Direct marketing organizations struggled this past quarter. It looks like societal benefit and international relief organizations had the most difficult time. But there are some bright spots in among the bad news; animal welfare and environmental organizations both had revenue growth in the first quarter, and animal welfare organizations also had huge increases in new donor acquisition.”
Nonprofits in the Index of National Fundraising Performance saw donor numbers in the index fall -4.0% from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008. Revenue fell -1.8% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008. This was the first time in two and a half years that revenue fell, but revenue per donor grew 2.1% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008, on top of 3.6% growth over the same period one year before.
The findings continue to show a year-over-year decline in donors from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008 that is part of a longer-term pattern. In spite of disaster-related spikes in 2005, donors were down significantly in total over the past three years. From the twelve months ending Q1 2005 to the twelve months ending Q1 2008, donors declined a cumulative -5.0%.
The index findings note that rolling index revenue has historically grown at an average of about 1% per quarter. Revenue continued to slow throughout 2007, paralleling the weakening economy, and had a steep downturn in the first quarter of 2008. When adjusted for inflation, revenue has actually declined -3.6% in real dollars over the same time period from Q1 2005 through Q1 2008.
It is important to note that this is also the first time in several quarters that increased per donor revenue could not make up for the overall donor decreases. For most organizations, overall donor declines have been due primarily to declines in new donor acquisition. New donors declined -2.3% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008, on top of a -5.3% decline over the same period one year before.
Donor retention and reactivation rates are also playing a role in donor declines. Retention rates dropped by -2.4% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008. The greatest decreases in retention came in first-year donor retention, which declined -6.6% in Q1 2008 over the same quarter one year before. Reactivation rates declined -5.0% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008.
Keep in mind that the first quarter of the year typically contains the smallest number of donors for the year and donors have only had three months to renew. These factors all impact the statistics and trends. Please also note that individual payments greater than $5,000, soft credits, and matching gift payments are excluded from the index findings.
The Animal Welfare and Environmental sectors had the best performance among all the other groups. The Societal Benefit sector continued to have the biggest challenges and Human Services was essentially flat. International Relief witnessed the biggest decrease in new donor acquisition followed by the Health sector. More detailed information from the results can be found online here.