News/Stats/Studies

Not many charities are raising significant amounts of money through social networks, but the ones that are come in a variety of sizes, according to a new study.

Fewer than 3 percent of the 11,196 nonprofit groups that responded to the Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark survey said that they raised more than $10,000 on Facebook in 2010.

But of the 27 charities that reported raising more than $100,000 on Facebook, 30 percent had annual budgets of $1-million to $5-million.

The vast majority of nonprofit organizations sharing office space in nonprofit centers report significant improvements in their overall effectiveness and efficiency, a new study from the NonprofitCenters Network, a program of Tides, finds.

Sponsored by the Kresge and Lodestar foundations, the study, Measuring Collaboration: The Benefits and Impacts of Nonprofit Centers, surveyed U.S. and Canadian organizations in nonprofit centers and found that such arrangements provide a range of benefits to the organizations involved, including access to higher-quality facilities in better locations for rents that can be as much as 75 percent below market value.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy released a survey at its conference in Boston that injects some new data into the debate about whether foundations are doing enough — or too much, in the eyes of some — to measure their performance.

Seventy-two percent of the 537 foundation chief executives surveyed said that assessing their organization’s performance is a high priority, and 68 percent believe grant makers have made great progress in measuring their performance over the past decade.

A steep drop in financial support from foundations and individual donors is still hitting nonprofit organizations hard, but many have shown a resilience to carry on programs and keep up with rising demands brought on by the recession.

The need for charity services, which many turn to in tough economic times, have overburdened nonprofits over the last few years while, at the same time, funding for such growing needs has diminished significantly, according to consultants and local charity organizations.

"Philanthropy in Israel is still based on a lot of foreign funding and the relative increase in Israeli donations doesn't reflect the wealth is Israeli society," claims Professor Hillel Shmidt, a senior faculty member at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy.

According to new data set to be published by the center, Israeli philanthropy makes up only 0.7% of the Gross Domestic Product compared with 2.1% in the U.S. and 0.73% GDP in England.

Rapidata’s Charity Direct Debit Tracking Report 2011 reveals positive growth in regular giving for the third consecutive year in the U.K.

While their assets, gifts and grants all grew in 2010 in the wake of the recession, community foundations are walking a fine line between focusing on immediate and long-term needs, a new study says.

Assets at over 250 community foundations participating in the annual survey by the Columbus Foundation grew 13 percent on average in 2010, compared to a decline of 12 percent in 2009.

Yet while nearly one-third of community foundations increased their overall operating expenses by 19 percent on average, roughly one-fourth reduced their expenses by 20 percent on average.

Wealthy people plan to increase their philanthropy to the levels at which they were giving before the recession, a new survey says. Forty-eight percent of the ultra-wealthy, or those with $5 million or more in investible assets, plan to give more this year, as do 38 percent of those with $1 million to just under $5 million, and 38 percent of those with $500,000 to just under $1 million, according to the 7th annual Wealth and Values Survey Investors' Outlook from PNC Wealth Management.

Here are some of the key findings from the U.S. edition of the 2011 Cygnus Donor Survey, Where Philanthropy is Headed in 2011.

A new research and community awareness project set to kick off next week will aim to zero in on the gender gap in the nonprofit sector — particularly why women nonprofit executives trail men in salaries.

The effort, called "74 percent: Exploring the Lives of Women in Nonprofits," is being launched by the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University with funding from the Bayer USA and Eden Hall foundations.