News/Stats/Studies

On Monday, fundraising technology provider Convio released its 2011 Online Nonprofit Benchmark Study. FundRaising Success spoke with Dennis McCarthy, vice president of strategy and business practice at Convio, and consultant Andy Prince about the key findings from the study and what they mean for fundraisers.

Convio today released the results of its annual Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study. The results of the study indicate that online is the fastest growing fundraising channel for nonprofits. In 2010, Convio’s clients raised more than $1.3 billion online, up 40 percent from 2009. The study shows that online engagement continues to play a crucial role for nonprofits: online legislative advocates grew 20 percent, email files continued to grow at a median 22 percent across all sectors and gift sizes increased in 2010.

In an effort to increase private funding to address social problems, a fledgling philanthropic concept that involves investing in programs that produce results is being studied in the U.S.

With a $400,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Nonprofit Finance Fund will study the feasibility of bringing "social-impact bonds" to the United States.

With social-impact bonds, first used in Britain, goals for desires social outcomes are set for proposed programs, which are funded by private investors who bear the risk for the effort's success or failure.

The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council and Epsilon today released the Q4 2010 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, which show an increase in conversion rates of 16.1 percent over Q4 2009.  The 2.9 percent conversion rate is the strongest over a two-year period.

Members of foundation boards are predominantly white, male and over age 50, and they do not receive compensation for their board work, a new survey says.

Eighty-five percent of board members at over 500 foundations responding to a survey by the Council on Foundations are white, 62 percent are male, and 74 percent are over age 50, with 19 percent age 40 to 49.

At family foundations, 16 percent of board members are under age 40, representing the largest share of board members that age among all foundations, says the survey.

1% for the Planet said its environmental donations grew by 40%. The organization is a network of companies in 43 countries who pledge to give at least 1% of their revenue to environmental causes. In the last three years, more than one company a day has joined the 1% network..

The Board of Directors of Operation Smile today voted to discontinue the proposed merger with Smile Train. The Board of Directors of Smile Train also has voted to discontinue the proposed merger, confirming an earlier report in the New York Times.

Grant making by the country’s richest foundations is expected to tick up only slightly in 2011, according to a new Chronicle survey based on data from 187 funds.

The modest increase would come after two successive years of gains in foundation assets following the 2008 stock-market plunge that gobbled up a third of the foundation world’s wealth.

However, foundation endowments remain roughly 17 percent lower than before the recession, according to data from 65 grant makers for which The Chronicle has five years of data.

Blackbaud today announced the release of two groundbreaking research studies at the Run Walk Ride 2011 Fundraising Conference at the Intercontinental Buckhead Hotel in Atlanta. The first studyrevealed the results of their first annual “Peer-to-Peer Event Fundraising Consumer Survey.” 

The second study reported on the findings of Blackbaud’s first annual “donorCentrics Event Benchmarking Summary,” a study based on in-depth analysis of fundraising performance data from six top nonprofit organizations from 2007 through 2009. 

A growing number of Canadians are worried about fraudulent charities that intend to pocket hard-earned donation dollars.

New survey findings show that 53 percent say they are less likely to give to charities because of concerns about charity fraud, while 65 percent report an increased concern over the possibility of fraud—particularly in the wake of a natural disaster.