News/Stats/Studies

The Alliance for Children and Families released a new, national report Oct. 17 that is designed to assist the nonprofit human services industry maintain high performance, despite difficult constraints, while also identifying game-changing opportunities.

The report, Disruptive Forces: Driving a Human Services Revolution, was developed through a partnership between the Alliance and national accounting and advisory firm Baker Tilly. It features six disruptive forces deemed to have the potential to greatly affect the nonprofit human services industry.

America’s big charities expect fundraising to rise in 2011, but the increase won’t come close to making up ground they lost in the downturn.

Nonprofits that made The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Philanthropy 400, the charities that raise the most from private sources, expect a median rise of 4.7 percent — meaning that half expect more and half expect less. That beats last year’s 3.5-percent median gain. Altogether, the charities in the survey raised $70.3-billion last year.

Blackbaud released a fundraising trends report based on monthly findings from The Blackbaud Index and featuring commentary from Association for Healthcare Philanthropy and American Health Assistance Foundation on the newly released specialty index focused on healthcare organizations.

Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s chief scientist and creator of The Blackbaud Index, noted that although overall fundraising grew by a healthy 6.8 percent during June through August versus the same period last year, the Index showed growth slowing in July and now August.

Tithing to mainline Protestant churches as a percentage of income is at its lowest level in at least 41 years, according to a new report, and churches are keeping a greater share of those donations for their own needs.

Parishioners gave about 2.38 percent of their income to their church, according to “The State of Church Giving through 2009,” a new report released by Empty Tomb Inc., a Christian research agency in Champaign, Ill.

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and craigconnects, released an infographic detailing the use of social media by leading nonprofit organizations.

"How the Top 50 Nonprofits Do Social Media" is a fact-filled, comprehensive look at which leading nonprofit organizations are most proactively and effectively using social media channels of communication like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds.

The American Technion Society has received a $30 million commitment from the estate of Henry Taub and The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. The gift, awarded Tuesday, will go to making improvements at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

From the fund, $25 million will go to the Leaders in Science and Technology faculty recruitment program. The other $5 million is scheduled to go to the university’s faculty of computer science.

A new type of company intended to put social goals ahead of making profits is taking root around the country, as more states adopt laws to bridge the divide between nonprofits and businesses.

California is the latest state to adopt a statute permitting what is called flexible-purpose corporations, new companies that are part social benefit and part low-profit entities. The companies are now allowed under laws in more than a dozen states and two Indian tribes.

There is a crisis in the nonprofit sector. Since the great recession began, donations to the largest charities in the U.S. have dropped by billions. But the financial meltdown has not affected all charities and nonprofits equally. More versatile, general-purpose charities are faring the worst. For more tightly focused nonprofits, the decline is not nearly as sharp.

The more fundamental core problem is strategic. These institutions lack a strategy for connecting their mission with their ability to deliver. In short, this is a crisis of coherence.

With billions of philanthropic dollars flowing into higher education each year, careful allocation of funds, based on specific community needs, is required in order to achieve maximum impact, a new study says.

To help national and community foundations better allocate their higher-education dollars, the Institute for Higher Education Policy has developed a framework for categorizing U.S. metropolitan areas based on their specific higher-education needs.

Monday, Alaska's nonprofit organizations had reason to rejoice as the Department of Revenue released preliminary numbers showing they will receive a record amount of money through the Pick. Click. Give. program.

The program allows Alaskans to donate a portion of their dividend to a local nonprofit group when they sign up online for the annual payment to citizens of a portion of income from the state's Permanent Fund.

This year, just fewer than 19,000 people gave $1.5 million.