News/Stats/Studies

Blackbaud released two new reports focused on peer-to-peer event fundraising at the 2012 Run Walk Ride Fundraising Conference. The company also announced a limited release of next generation Friends Asking Friends.

LW Robbins, a full-service direct-response fundraising agency that has exclusively served nonprofit organizations for more than 40 years, announced that it has acquired Baltimore-based digital marketing firm Adcieo.

Adcieo specializes in a wide range of digital marketing services for nonprofit organizations. Adcieo will retain offices in Baltimore and be structured as a division within LW Robbins. Adcieo founder Dennis Chyba will continue as president of the Adcieo division.

As the United States and Canada emerged from the Great Recession, charitable pledges to nonprofit health care organizations slowed in fiscal year 2010, jeopardizing the ability of health care systems in both countries to generate philanthropic funding necessary to meet their long-term, construction, equipment and patient needs. These and other findings were contained in two reports published by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) based on its detailed Performance Benchmarking Service survey of fundraising activities in both countries.

Network for Good is pleased to share what it's learned about online giving across different channels in 2011: charity websites, giving portals and social giving sites. The Network for Good Digital Giving Index has been updated with insights and trends from 2011, including a Q4 review. This index builds on data and observations from The Online Giving Study and is updated quarterly to provide timely and relevant snapshots of the state of online charitable giving.

Sage North America announced the results of its Sage Nonprofit Insights, Q4 2011, survey of U.S. and Canadian nonprofit organizations, which focused on questions related to nonprofits’ e-mail marketing (“e-marketing”) goals and objectives and use of e-mail marketing tools.

According to the survey, the most significant e-mail marketing challenges for nonprofit organizations are growing and retaining contacts (38 percent of respondents), integrating e-mail with other systems (38 percent), and integrating e-mail with other tactics (38 percent).

Altruism and social pressure both affect door-to-door charitable giving, with social pressure playing a greater role and reducing giving, a new article says.

Written by economists at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago, the article is based on a study that designed a door-to-door fundraiser among 7,668 households near Chicago.

The fundraising drive was for a well-respected local children's hospital and an out-of-state charity unfamiliar to most people being solicited.

Top officials at midsize nonprofits lack basic financial knowledge, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, also found that midsize organizations are lifting their focus from just breaking even to long-term planning.

The study surveyed more than 500 nonprofit officials who manage the finances of their organizations, which had revenues of $1-million to $5-million. Three quarters of the managers said they consider themselves financially knowledgeable, but just 36 percent correctly answered three questions they were given to assess their basic financial skills.

Investment by businesses in the arts has dropped to its lowest level for seven years in the U.K., despite a government drive to encourage philanthropy.

Companies gave $212.6 million in the financial year 2010/11, according to Arts and Business, which compiled the figures.

That is $15.9 million down on the previous year and the lowest since 2003/4.

But overall investment in the arts, including money from private donors and trusts and foundations, rose by $45.2 million to $1.1 billion, Arts and Business said.

Philanthropic giving by California’s foundations jumped from $2.8 billion to $6 billion over the past decade despite two economic recessions during that period, a new University of Southern California analysis shows.

Those numbers, adjusted for inflation, represent a 55 percent increase in giving from 1999 to 2009. Foundation giving nationwide increased 52.5 percent during that period, according to the report by the USC Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy based at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

The number of foundations based in California also soared from 4,208 in 1999 to 7,184 in 2009.

Foundation Source, provider of management and advisory services for private foundations, released preliminary findings on 2011 U.S. private foundation activity. This data was compiled based on the actual grantmaking behavior of 719 private foundations with philanthropic assets under $50 million.

Initial findings include: In general, small to midsize private foundations gave more than twice their 5 percent minimum distribution requirement; private foundations with less than $10 million in assets increased giving by 20.6 percent over 2010; and foundations gave 40.6 percent more to arts and culture organizations than in 2010.