Sector Report: Fundraising 2009-2010

The biggest challenge was hitting revenue plans generally driven by smaller average gifts and a lack of large/midsize gifts. A second major challenge was new-donor acquisition — there was a stark decline in new-donor acquisition rates/dollars.

Most charities faced the situation by cutting costs. A few chose to invest strategically in areas like online marketing to help grow out of the recession, and to respond to changing donor preferences/channels. Those investments encompassed technology, key people and investment in new-donor acquisition, e.g., online list development.