News/Stats/Studies

According to a report released by The Conference Board, the global business research and membership organization, humanitarian needs and the size of a company’s workforce in the local market are the top drivers of the allocation decisions on international charitable contributions made by U.S. corporations.

The 2011 Corporate Contributions Report discussed findings from a survey of 139 U.S.–based corporations conducted by The Conference Board between April and July 2011.

GuideStar and Hope Consulting announced the results of a new study, Money for Good II (MFGII), that shows if nonprofits and information providers are able to provide donors, advisors and foundation grant-makers with the information that they want, where and how they want it, these donors would consider shifting up to $15 billion in charitable dollars to higher-performing nonprofits.

The Reeher Platform has introduced the Reeher Vista Fundraising Profile and Performance Scorecard, a year-end performance report that helps advancement leaders identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement. The Vista Scorecard examines a development department’s performance versus what its performance should be, given the factors unique to each organization.

Overhead is a touchy subject for many nonprofits. Donors who want most or all of their contributions to support an organization's cause may be overly critical of administrative costs and other overhead. Nonprofits, in turn, often feel pressured to keep overhead down and so may misrepresent those costs, reinforcing donors' unrealistic expectations.

Tom Tierney, chairman and co-founder of Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consultant to nonprofits, wrote "The Donor-Grantee Trap" with Richard Steele. Tierney spoke about how a "starvation cycle" is dangerous to charities and the people they serve.

The student-run nonprofit Elmseed Enterprise Fund clinched $25,000 last week after contacting panlists and engaging students outside of dining halls in pursuit of votes in a contest conducted by banking firm JPMorgan Chase.

Elmseed, which is run by Yale students and provides microcredit and consulting services to low-income entrepreneurs in the New Haven community, attained 1,757 votes from Facebook users over eight days to attain 28th place in the fourth Chase Community Giving contest, which awarded a total of $3 million to 100 U.S. nonprofits.

The nonprofit sector is big, getting bigger, and dominated by big organizations and the health and education fields, and it has been whipsawed by big swings in charitable giving over the past decade, a new report says.

The U.S. was home to more than 1.4 million nonprofits in 2010, up 19 percent from 1999, a total that included more than 1 million public charities, says the Nonprofit Sector in Brief, a highlight of trends from The Nonprofit Almanac 2011, which was prepared by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute.

Sage North America announced the results of its recently conducted Sage Nonprofit Insights, Q3 2011, survey of U.S. and Canadian nonprofit organizations, which focused on questions related to their year-end fundraising efforts.

According to the survey, organizations are generally optimistic about the final quarter of 2011, with a third (33%) saying they expect to raise more funds than they did in last year's final quarter.

The field of religious advocacy has mushroomed on Capitol Hill in recent decades, a new survey shows, with the number of groups growing fivefold since 1970 and hundreds of millions spent each year to influence issues from school vouchers and immigration to the right of women overseas to have abortions.

The report, released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, appears to be the most extensive research ever done on D.C.-based lobbyists and advocates on faith matters.

The survey identifies the work of 212 faith-oriented groups, which spend about $390 million per year.

Even as the nation weathers an economic downturn for a third straight holiday season, the majority of Americans are more committed than ever to charitable giving, according to a new American Red Cross poll.

A telephone survey of 1,020 adults conducted earlier this fall found that even though 67 percent of Americans didn’t think the economic downturn would last this long, they still want to give to charities, with more than seven out of 10 saying they expect to donate more or about the same this holiday season as they did last year.

The U.S. Postal Service ended its 2011 fiscal year with a net loss of $5.1 billion. The year-end loss would have been approximately $10.6 billion had it not been for passage of legislation that postponed a congressionally mandated payment of $5.5 billion to pre-fund retiree health benefits.

Total 2011 mail volume declined by 3 billion pieces, or 1.7 percent, from 2010. The Postal Service’s largest and most profitable product, First-Class Mail, continued its year-over-year decline, from $34.2 billion in 2010 to $32.2 billion in 2011 (5.8 percent).