News/Stats/Studies

Almost half of users (47 percent) who start an online donation fail to complete it, according to a new report which urges the sector to adopt a more personal approach to online donations.

The report, Charities fail to make an impact online, outlines how charities can improve the user experience and increase online donations.

The study was conducted by user experience company, Nomensa, and compared the online donation processes of Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

An Oklahoma hospital in Garth Brooks’ hometown must pay $1 million to the country singer because it failed to build a women’s health center in honor of his late mother, jurors ruled Tuesday evening.

Jurors ruled that the hospital must return a $500,000 donation to Brooks plus pay him $500,000 in punitive damages in Brooks’ breach-of-contract lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital. Brooks said he thought he’d reached a deal in 2005 with the hospital’s president but sued after learning the hospital wanted to use the money for other construction projects.

Members of Lions Clubs International are making significant contributions to philanthropy in the U.S. and internationally, a new study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University finds. The study reflects the responses of more than 2,700 Lions clubs members from 12 countries in five regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Lions clubs members’ rates of charitable giving and volunteering are significantly higher than the general population in all 12 countries.

Fidelity Charitable, which operates the nation's largest donor-advised fund program, announced that its donors' generosity reached an all-time high in 2011, setting records both for incoming contributions to Fidelity Charitable and for the dollar amount of grants made to charitable organizations. Fidelity Charitable donors made more than 380,000 grants, totaling more than $1.3 billion, to nonprofits nationwide during 2011, both up 8 percent compared with 2010.

Veteran fundraisers Tim Oleary and Carol Leister have purchased McPherson Associates from company founder Dick McPherson.

Newport Creative Communications announced that it has welcomed its first full-service client from Canada — Show Kids You Care — a significant first step of its expansion into this nation of generous givers.

Atlas of Giving announced results from its 2011 report on charitable giving. The report outlines charitable giving in the U.S. from 2011 and details how giving expanded at a faster rate than overall economic growth for the year. According to the report released by Atlas of Giving, total giving to U.S. nonprofits rose 7.5 percent in 2011, an increase of $24.2 billion over the 2010 total of $322.69 billion and its forecast shows that overall giving is expected to grow 3.9 percent in 2012 to $360 billion.

Boston nonprofits have boosted their voluntary contributions to city government over the past six months by 24 percent, advancing a longstanding goal of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, despite the misgivings of some institutions.

Since July, the city has received $9.4 million from tax-exempt institutions such as colleges, hospitals, and museums, a substantial increase over last year’s pace, according to the mayor’s office.

Country music star Garth Brooks testified Friday in his lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon, Okla. He says the hospital went back on its word to name a new women's center after his late mother, Colleen Brooks.

Now he's asking the jury to order the hospital to return his donation. The hospital's president and CEO, James Moore, testified that the hospital and Brooks never reached a formal agreement or understanding about how his donation would be used, or what part of the hospital, if any, Brook's mother's name would be attached.

Nonprofits added jobs at an average annual rate of more than 2 percent from 2000 to 2010, while for-profit jobs were cut by 0.6 percent each year on average, according to a new study by the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Even during the recession years of 2008 and 2009, charities increased their employment by nearly 2 percent, while for-profit jobs declined by nearly 4 percent, according to the report, which was based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.