Connections : fundraising trends

Blackbaud’s 2009 Conference for Nonprofits - Day 4

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:04:00 GMT

This is the final day of Blackbaud's 2009 Conference for Nonprofits and there's a big focus on Internet topics today.

This morning I am doing a session called "The Future of Blackbaud’s Internet Solutions" which will be full of surprises about some great new things we're working on. And then the online focused content kicks into high gear!

Blackbaud added an extra set of Internet related sessions on today's agenda. Blackbaud's Internet Afternoon is an exclusive networking and training opportunity for our Blackbaud Sphere and Blackbaud NetCommunity customers. There's was no extra cost for these sessions for conference attendees.

I'm doing the keynote presentation as part of the afternoon Internet sessions. I'll be covering some of the major trends in online fundraising that are changing how nonprofits engage with supporters.

Today's Live Sessions:
Can't attend the conference? Watch these sessions live online:
12:00 to 1:30 p.m. ET, Keynote Session, presented by Steve MacLaughlin
1:30 to 2:45 p.m. ET, Google Analytics® and Search Engine Optimization, presented by Bo Crader and Chris Tuttle
3:15 to 4:45 p.m. ET, Launching the Space Shuttle: Practical Advice to Ensure a Smooth Launch of Your Website, presented by Raheel Gauba

Follow the conference on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bbcon and by using the hash tag #bbcon.
Other Links: Conference Sessions | Special Internet Sessions | Live Streaming Sessions

Blackbaud’s 2009 Conference for Nonprofits - Day 3

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:04:00 GMT

This is the third day of Blackbaud's 2009 Conference for Nonprofits here in Charleston, South Carolina.Yesterday was pretty action packed and the tweetup event was a lot of fun.

The morning begins with keynote speaker Derreck Kayongo, a former Kenyan refugee who fled political despotism in Uganda, Derreck will share how he chose an uncommon path on life’s journey — a path that has led him to his current work of changing the world. Derreck will share his story and his personal mission in a context that will reenergize attendees and challenge them to sharpen their focus as they continue on their personal journeys.

I'm doing two sessions today. The first one is "Online Metrics Demystified: Understanding Your Hits, Clicks, and Errors" where I'll be covering metrics for the web, email, online fundraising, and social media, industry benchmarks and trends in online metrics, and how to pull them all together to measure your online success. The second session is with Blackbaud product manager Ryan Frere and is called "Leveraging Blackbaud Enterprise CRM for Strategic Online Fundraising." In this session, we will review the native internet capabilities within BBEC and how customers can successfully leverage these features and functionality on the Infinity platform

Today's Live Sessions:
Can't attend the conference? Watch these sessions live online:
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. ET, Keynote Session, featuring Derreck Kayongo
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. ET, Future-Proof: Making Viable Plans in Uncertain Times, presented by Dean Feener
3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ET, DIY (Do It Yourself): Is Your Fundraising Strategy in Need of Makeover? Presented by Richard McPherson

Follow the conference on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bbcon and by using the hash tag #bbcon.
Other Links: Conference Sessions | Special Internet Sessions | Live Streaming Sessions

Blackbaud’s 2009 Conference for Nonprofits - Day 2

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:50:00 GMT

Today Blackbaud's 2009 Conference for Nonprofits really swings into high gear after yesterday's kickoff events. This is going to be a very busy day with lots of sessions, meetings, and events on the agenda.

Today's Live Sessions:
Can't attend the conference? Watch these sessions live online:
8:30 – 9:15 a.m. ET, General Session with Blackbaud CEO Marc Chardon
9:30 – 10:45 a.m. ET, Skill Building: Ethics Under Fire, presented by Jay Love, Joy Simpson, and Paul Clolery
3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ET, The Tough Questions We Aren’t Asking Ourselves, presented by Holly Ross (NTEN)

Today's Special Event:
There will be a #bbcon Tweetup at 5pm to 7pm tonight. Get more details and tell your friends.

Follow the conference on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bbcon and by using the hash tag #bbcon.
Other Links: Conference Sessions | Special Internet Sessions | Live Streaming Sessions

Blackbaud’s 2009 Conference for Nonprofits - Day 1

Steve MacLaughlin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Today is the start of Blackbaud's 2009 Conference for Nonprofits in Charleston, South Carolina. This is the 10th year of the conference and every year it just gets better and better.

There are a lot of pre-conference workshops going on today. I'm attending the Blackbus.org User Group meeting this afternoon. I have put together a bunch of things for show and tell. Plus, I know they will probably have a lot of questions about our Internet solutions.

The welcome reception starts at 6pm tonight. Should be a good start to a great week of sessions and meeting with clients from across the nonprofit sector

Follow the conference on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bbcon and by using the hash tag #bbcon.
Other Links: Conference Sessions | Special Internet Sessions | Live Streaming Session

2009 State of the Not-For-Profit Industry Survey Results

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:08:00 GMT

Blackbaud Europe has released the 2009 State of the Not-For-Profit Industry survey. Blackbaud teamed up with The Resource Alliance for the second year in a row to produce this pan-European benchmarking study. The results were unveiled at the International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands.

SONI 2009 attracted over 648 completed survey entries from fundraising organisations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, France and Italy. The results provide an overview to help not-for-profits benchmark their operations across five key areas:

General operations (staffing levels, budgets, service delivery requirements and organisational challenges)
Fundraising (top methods in terms of income and investment, increase or decrease for each fundraising method against the previous year and predictions for the next 12 months, and methods most commonly used to communicate with donors)
Technology and Internet Usage (use of new media techniques and social networking, and database requirements)
Accountability and Stewardship (looking at transparency of expenditure)
Demographics

Key findings from SONI 2009 include:

Charities in France are most optimistic about income growth for this year against last year with 59% of charities in France expecting to see an increase in individual donations and 51% anticipating growth in total income
Charities in Germany reported the highest anticipated decrease in total income (44%) and charitable donations (36%)
Charities across the board are seeing the biggest decrease over the past year in investments (followed by corporate giving), with the UK reporting the most significant fall at 61% and only 10% reporting an increase.
All nations report an increased demand for services, with three quarters (73%) of UK charities and two thirds of respondents in France (66%) and Italy (65%) reporting this.
Major donor fundraising is the top driver for fundraising contributions in all nations except the Netherlands, where it is direct mail.
86% of charities in France expect income from major giving to stay the same or increase this year, against last year
More than 40% of charities in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands don’t yet raise funds through email.
Charities in France (45%) and Italy (46%) are investing more heavily this year in fundraising staff, and in outsourcing, reporting 52% and 51% increase respectively in consultancy services..
Meanwhile, around twice as many charities in Germany expect to see a decrease in investment in direct mail and telemarketing as other nations at 13% and 14% (compared to a range of 2-10%)
Charities in France aren’t investing in their websites, 7% don’t have an online strategy or see it as a major income driver.
56% of charities in Italy report increased demand for donations to be restricted (47% in Germany).
There is some optimism for income growth in 2010 with more than half of charities in the UK, France and Italy expecting an increase.
Charities in France are far and above the most optimistic nation for charitable donations growth, with 80% expecting an increase (against just 40% for UK and Germany).

A complete version of the 2009 State of the Not-For-Profit Industry survey will be posted online shortly.

NTEN Webinar Links - The State of Online Fundraising

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:05:00 GMT

Later today I'll be hosting a webinar called "The State of Online Fundraising" as part of NTEN member appreciation month. It's free to NTEN members and Blackbaud customers.

My presentation is full of lots of information, metrics, benchmarks, and more. Below are some of the reports, research, and links that I reference during the session:

These links should give you plenty to think about and take action on when building better online fundraising programs. And here are my slides from the presentation:

The State of Online Fundraising

View more presentations from Steve MacLaughlin.

I'm looking forward to other sessions like this in the future.

NTEN Webinar - The State of Online Fundraising

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:12:00 GMT

November is NTEN member appreciation month and they are having several free webinars for members. I am fortunate enough to get to host a session called "The State of Online Fundraising" on Wednesday, November 4th from 2pm to 3:30pm EDT / 11:00am to 12:30pm PDT.

The State of Online Fundraising webinar will be free for NTEN members. You can learn more and register by visiting the NTEN website. Blackbaud customers can also attend the webinar for free. Please look for registration details in the October issue of the NetWits Think Tank enewsletter and The Connector enewsletter.

This webinar is a 90-minute session based on the NTEN Connect e-newsletter article I wrote called "The State of Online Fundraising" that recaps trends, research, and other useful information about online giving. I will also be covering information from across online giving research we've been doing for a while now.

If you're not already an NTEN member...join. Individual memberships start as low as $85 per year and there is certainly more value in just this session than the cost of an annual membership.

Full disclosure: I am member of the NTEN Board of Directors.

Generation Thumb

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:05:00 GMT

A popular topic at conferences and water coolers in recent months has been how different generations engage with nonprofits. This is a subject that I've covered in my presentation "The Changing Nature of Online Fundraising" over the past year.

This week at the Blackbaud's 2009 Relationship Management Conference here in London the topic of generations came up once again. I had the chance to sit down with some people from Sponge, our mobile messaging partner in the UK, to talk to them about what they are seeing in the sector. Roger Jones from The Good Agency also brought up the topic in a discussion we had about charities and social media.

Right now a lot of nonprofits are trying to understand how to engage Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y supporters. A lot of time and attention is being spent on how social media and mobile can be used to build relationships with Gen Y or Millennials. And there's another group to add to the mix: Generation Thumb

Now, before I dive into Generation Thumb it's probably helpful to do a quick recap on the different generation groups. There is some debate on exactly when these generations start and end. I won't wade into that academic debate, but I use this chart in presentations to help explain the general age ranges and sizes of Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y.

		     Born     	    Age	          Size
Baby Boomers	 1945 – 1960	  49 – 64	78 million
Generation X  	 1960 – 1980	  29 – 49	51 million
Generation Y	 1980 – 1995	  14 – 29	75 million

There is a lot of research into how each of these groups think, act, and engage differently. The biggest change to the nonprofit sector is that both Gen Xers and Gen Yers do not share the same giving attitudes as the Baby Boomers. While Boomers are more likely to view giving as part of a civic responsibility, the younger generations place a much higher emphasis on peer-to-peer and direct impact-based giving. This in part explains the growth of friends asking friends event fundraising, alternative giving options like Heifer International's gift catalog, and websites like Kiva.org and Change.org.

Nonprofits need to balance how different generations have preferences to give their time, talent, and treasure based on where they are in their lives. It has certainly been well documented how Gen Y has been a positive source of volunteers for many nonprofit organizations. Blackbaud often does an age segmentation exercise with clients to get them to start thinking about how their constituents are spread across the different generations.

This leads us back to Generation Thumb. This group was born mostly after 1995 and their primary communication is mainly done on mobile devices. This means they spend a lot of time using their thumbs to type and navigate. It also accounts for the explosion of acronyms and abbreviations used to decrease typing time. An article in the Telegraph earlier this year noted that children get their first mobile phone at the average age of eight.

We don't know what they think about nonprofits just yet, but the commercial world is doing a lot of research to try and understand them. As you continue to plan around inspiring and engaging Gen X and Gen Y then also begin to put Generation Thumb on your radar screen. This is a distant early warning that they are an even more unique audience.

Blackbaud's 2009 Relationship Management Conference - Day 2

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:54:00 GMT

It's the second full day of Blackbaud's 2009 Relationship Management Conference here in London. You can follow the conference on Twitter using the #bbeconf09 hashtag.

I'm doing a sessions today called "The Changing Nature of Online Fundraising" that covers a variety of topics. Lots of stats, trends, and information from across online giving, email, social media, etc. in this session.

There are 30 different sessions today and here are some that might be of interest:

Email Marketing For Fun(draising) & (Non) Profit! – Margaret Farmakis, Return Path
Cool Tools – How Technology Is Changing The Way We Communicate With Our Supporters – Robert McAllen, Program Manager, Blackbaud Europe
Launching the Space Shuttle – Practical Advice To Ensure A Smooth Public Launch Of Your Website – Raheel Gauba, Creative Director, Blackbaud Internet Solutions
donorCentrics Helps Me Make Decisions! – Stephen O’Neill & Kevin Morton, MS Society
Deep Dive into Blackbaud NetCommunity - Robert McAllen, Program Manager, Blackbaud Europe

Blackbaud's Chief Technology Officer Shaun Sullivan is the plenary speaker today. I'm sure he'll have a few new surprises for the attendees.

Look for updates on this blog and Twitter.

Blackbaud's 2009 Relationship Management Conference - Day 1

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:45:00 GMT

I'm back in London this week for Blackbaud's 2009 Relationship Management Conference at the Victoria Park Plaza hotel. You can follow the conference on Twitter using the #bbeconf09 hashtag.

Today's activities start off with the keynote presentation by Paul Williamson, Head of Ticketing for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Paul the ultimate responsibility to fill the 35 stadiums to capacity for the wide range of events, from gymnastics to judo, archery to paralympic boccia.

I'm doing two sessions today:

Online Metrics Demystified: Understanding How To Measure Your Success
You’ve Got Mail! Now What? Improving Your Email Communication

There are 33 different sessions today and here are some that might be of interest:

Your Website In Focus – Does Your Website Meet Your Organisational Objectives? – Raheel Gauba, Creative Director, Blackbaud Internet Solutions
Creating A Post Crisis Charity Mindset: Moving Beyond The Transaction – Steve Bridger, nfp 2.0
Your Audience Judges Books By Their Covers: Make The Best First Impression & Keep Your Audience Engaged – Raheel Gauba and John Wells, Blackbaud Internet Solutions
The Bespoke Raiser's Edge - Real Wold Customisations - David Zeidman, Zeidman Development

Blackbaud's Chief Scientist Chuck Longfield is the afternoon plenary speaker today.

Look for updates on this blog and Twitter.

2009 Online Giving Trends - Q3

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:00:00 GMT

The year is rapidly coming to a close and we have more information about online giving trends for the third quarter of 2009 from Blackbaud clients. This is part of a series of published insights from all of 2008, Q1 2009, and Q2 2009. This information comes from approximately 2,200 nonprofit organizations using Blackbaud's Internet solutions and represents the largest sample size studied in the nonprofit sector.

Online Fundraising Growth Trends
An analysis of nearly three years of online fundraising data reveals a giving pattern for Blackbaud clients. Online revenue in the third quarter of 2009 was up 41% compared to the same time period in 2008. The trend data also illustrates how online fundraising is entering its traditional peak period during the final quarter of the year. Data from across 33 months shows that the largest amount of online giving takes place in Q4 followed by Q2, Q3, and Q1.

Online Major Giving Trends
Last quarter we published some findings around trends among donors making significant online gifts in excess of $1,000. These gift amounts mark a threshold for many nonprofits between annual support, transitional gifts, and major gifts to the organization. Blackbaud's research identified 1,429 nonprofit organizations in the analysis with least one online gift of $1,000 or more in 2009. 41% of those organizations had their largest online donation within a gift range of $1,001 to $4,999. That was the largest segment in the breakdown followed by 21% of the nonprofits having their largest single online gift at the $1,000 level. The highest gift range in the analysis was $10,001 to $50,000 and 7% of the nonprofits had their largest single online gift in this group. Blackbaud also did a year-over-year comparison from 2008 to 2009 and found that the median gift amount for online donations of at least $1,000 has held steady at $2,500. Blackbaud’s research continues to show measurable evidence of donors making significant gifts online as part of their giving behaviors.

Economic Impact on Online Giving
There are a variety of perspectives on how the global and domestic economy is impacting fundraising. The latest Target Analytics Index of National Fundraising Performance continues to show a decline in revenue and donors across the sector. Our research suggests that the majority of nonprofit organizations are still in a growth phase for online giving, compared to well established offline channels, and the impact of the recession is largely masked. Online transactions are still growing at 56% year-over-year and this volume growth overcomes any declines in gift amounts. The emerging trend in the data is that a nonprofit's online fundraising mix might influence their year-over-year results. More research and analysis on the impact of fundraising mix is certainly required.

Notes: All data is calculated directly from online transactions processed by Blackbaud. Online recurring gifts and pledges are not included in the entire data analysis. The single largest online gift ($75,000) and single smallest online gift ($1) during the analysis period were removed.

Index of National Fundraising Performance - Q2 2009

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:02:00 GMT

Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, announced last week the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance for the second quarter of 2009.

The index compares trends in key fundraising indicators from 77 organizations, including over 36 million donors and more than 68 million gifts totaling almost $2 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.

Revenue and Donor Trends
Index revenue declined a median 7.7% from Q2 2008 year-to-date to Q2 2009 year-to-date. This continues declines that were reported at the end of 2008 and in the first quarter of 2009. Revenue declines were widespread across the index with only 18% of the organizations in the index had positive revenue growth over the period.

Donor numbers in the index fell a median 3.5% from Q2 2008 YTD to Q2 2009 YTD. Donors have been declining consistently for the past three years; the index has not experienced positive year-to-year donor growth since the 2005 U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes. 34% of the organizations in the index had positive donor growth from Q2 2008 YTD to Q2 2009 YTD.

Donor declines are, again, due primarily to declines in new donor numbers, which fell 7.6% from the first half of 2008 to the first half of 2009. Fewer than 32% of the organizations in the index had positive new donor growth over the period. For most organizations, overall donor declines continue to be caused mainly by declines in new donor acquisition.

Over the past five years, from the twelve months ending Q2 2004 to the twelve months ending Q2 2009, new donor numbers have fallen a cumulative median 9.7%. This is an effective annual rate of decline of 1.9% per year. New donor declines have been particularly steep since the start of the recession. New donor numbers fell a cumulative median 10.9% from the twelve months ending Q4 2007, when the recession began, to the twelve months ending Q2 2009.

Trends Across Different Organizations
The societal benefit sector had flat donor growth this quarter while all other sectors saw declines. As with revenue, the religion and animal welfare sectors had the smallest donor declines. The relief sector had the largest revenue and donor declines in the index in the first half of 2009. This may be in part a rebound from strong disaster giving in 2008.

New donor acquisition was down from the first half of 2008 to the first half of 2009 for almost all sectors in the index. This was the primary cause of overall donor declines in the index. Religious organizations were the only ones to see any positive growth in new donor acquisition in the first half of 2009. Environmental and relief organizations had the largest new donor declines over this period.

Click here to get a complete copy of the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance.

The State of Online Fundraising in NTEN Connect

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:25:00 GMT

The September 2009 edition of the NTEN Connect e-newsletter is out and it's all about raising money online.

It contains an article that I wrote called "The State of Online Fundraising" that recaps trends, research, and other useful information about online giving.

My recommended next steps: Give it a read. Sign-up for the newsletter. And become a member of NTEN.

Online Giving Trends in Higher Education

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:05:00 GMT

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) recently released a report called "Click Here to Donate: Results of the CASE 2009 Survey of Online Fundraising." The report was prepared by Dr. Chris Thompson, former CASE Senior Research Director, and respected nonprofit consultant Robert L. Weiner. Thompson is now Director of Editorial Research for the Chronicle of Higher Education and The Chronicle of Philanthropy in Washington, DC.

The CASE "Click Here to Donate" report is the latest in a series of reports that give nonprofits a clearer picture of what is being done online. It references the Target Analytics 2008 donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis study as well as data from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The CASE report has a lot of good information and insights in it. I thought I would share just a few of them with readers.

Survey Background
The survey was conducted in March through April of 2009 and was sent only to CASE members. 562 CASE member institutions responded to the survey. The sample is slightly more skewed toward research/doctoral and private institutions than the Voluntary Support of Education survey’s participating institutions, but it is geographically representative of CASE’s membership, with more than 85% of survey respondents coming from the United States.

Main Findings
There are a lot of insights in the study but these are the ones that I thought stood out the most:

Almost two-thirds of the institutions have been raising private funds online for five years or less.
72% of the online fundraising opportunities are located on institutions’ main Web pages, 59% from links inside e-mails, 58% on alumni office Web pages, and 51% from links inside e-newsletters.
Fewer than 2% of institutions are using new media such as blogs, Twitter and mobile giving.
The total value and number of online donations are the two most frequently reported measures of success used, but even these have been implemented by fewer than two-thirds of the respondents.
34% of institutions report "we do not measure performance."
30% of respondents think their online donors are younger, while only 1.5% think they are older and 18% think they are about the same age as other donors.
45% of respondents did not know the average age of their online donors.
About 20% of respondents reported that online fundraising exceeded their expectations, and 22% said it met their expectations.
Just over 38% reported it was below their expectations, and for 17% it was "very much below" expectations.

Too Many Unknowns
My first reaction to the report was the significant amount of unknowns. This was surprising because my experience working in and with higher education institutions is that they live on a steady diet of data and information to make decisions. For a variety of reasons, the online fundraising realm remains mysterious for many of the survey respondents.

When asked about the effectiveness of online fundraising compared to other channels, the most common response was "Don't Know." The section on "Online fundraising success compared to other routes" has "Don't Know" as the most common response for half of the routes surveyed. Respondents were asked for their predictions of the next big thing in online fundraising. The most frequent responses were "I have no idea" and social networking. It was good to see the survey show a strong adoption of social media to make connections with constituents.

Missing Measurements
If you can't measure it, then you can't manage it. Period. The CASE study finds a tremendous amount of undermeasurement happening. 34% of respondents said "We do not measure performance." This was the third most common answer, behind the total value (56.5%) and number of online donations (55%) coming in through all channels. The irony here of course is that the Internet is overflowing with measureable metrics compared to traditional channels like direct mail. At least there's an admission that the right kinds of metrics and measurements aren't being used as much as they can be.

The report suggests that the reason for the lack of measurement might be because "online donations may arrive via third parties and not be linkable to donor profile records or to existing measurement systems used with other types of donations." There is a high degree of fragmentation in the systems and data being used by higher education institutions. Another theory put forth is that "data collection systems take time and resources to put in place, and investment may not yet be perceived as worthwhile given the relatively small stream of online funds." This sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. If it's not perceived as worthwhile, then it's probably not going to get the right amount of attention in the organization.

Professor, We Have a Problem
There are a few bright spots in the report, but the overall message is troubling. More institutions are fundraising online, the average gift amount is $241, and some of them have had tremendous online revenue growth in recent years. But the survey responses suggest that many institutions are doing just the basics online, make judgments about the effectiveness of online giving without meaningful metrics or measurement best practices, and use fragmented systems that prevent them from getting a more holistic view of their donors.

A few years ago this might have been acceptable, but research from across the entire nonprofit sector indicates that educational institutions are getting sub-par results. Research for 2008 online giving done by The Chronicle of Philanthropy shows that colleges and universities are underperforming compared to other nonprofit groups. The 67 colleges and universities in The Chronicle's analysis had 0.97% of total fundraising revenue coming from online giving. Compare that to other sectors like health (4.43%), religious (3.62%), and international (3.36%). Target Analytics found some organizations with online giving exceeding 10% of total fundraising revenue. Even with some outliers and statistical fluctuations — that's not good comparative performance by higher education institutions.

A Working Theory
Having recently spent a lot of time looking into online giving trends, I have one working theory as to what's going on in higher education. These institutions have traditionally relied heavily on major gift programs for the majority of their fundraising. The culture of fundraising is focus on a small number of large gifts instead of a large number of smaller gifts. The exception is at colleges and universities where a strong and well developed annual fund is in place. These organizations have been able to leverage online giving to contribute to the annual fund and a growing number of online major gifts. But this requires change within the institution to really succeed.

Compare this to nonprofits that traditionally raise the majority of their revenue from direct marketing programs. These organizations raise tremendous amounts of dollars both online and offline through smaller gifts. Their adoption of online giving required much less change in the fundraising culture of the organization. They simply added another channel and applied many of the same direct marketing principles. These nonprofits represent the largest online fundraisers and raise a much higher percentage of total revenue from online giving than educational institutions.

This is just one working theory based on countless hours looking through data, talking to nonprofits, and attempting to connect some dots. I've heard plenty of other reasons and excuses. It could also have something to do with gravitational forces, plate tectonics, or fractals. But I doubt it.

Only 33% of 2009 Remains

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:11:00 GMT

Today is September 1st, 2009. According to WolframAlpha only 33.42% is left of 2009. Another way to look at it is that there are 121 days left in the year and only 87 weekdays until December 31st.

What's your plan to take advantage of the ramp up to the largest fundraising period, both online and offline, of the entire year? Do you already have the email, direct mail, telephone, person to person, and other channel campaigns in place? Do you know how well you've done as of today and what you have left to do before the clock strikes midnight? Have you thought about what you're going to do differently in 2010?

Think back to this time in 2008. Were you having the same thoughts then? What did you do about it? Are you in a better position today? Are you worse off and really need to focus on improvement? What are you going to do this time around to turn it around? Tick tock. Tick tock.