Donor Giving Trends for Today and Tomorrow, Part 4

• Your typical nonprofit now receives about 8 percent of its income online, which is still a relatively small slice of the pie, but growing.
• E-mail is the most powerful “direct” fundraising tool online today by a long shot, bringing in the largest percentage of online donations.
• Search engine marketing is the “unsung hero of online fundraising.” Paid ads and Google grants are raising money for organizations.
• Social media builds brand and excitement, but for the most part donations are still the exception, not the rule. However, in an NTEN study, 27 groups reported receiving more than $100,000 from social media.
• Mobile fundraising in 2011 is all the rage, but “hyperbole and enthusiasm often outrun reality,” as Roger Craver wrote in The Agitator.

That’s what’s happening today, but evidenced by the change in the past six years, the fundraising landscape will be different than it is today six years from now. So you must keep an eye toward what’s next.