News/Stats/Studies

Blackbaud announced the release of a report focused on fundraising trends based on monthly findings from The Blackbaud Index and featuring commentary from Dave Strauss, president and chief executive officer of SCA Direct. Additionally, Blackbaud announced the release of a new specialty index focused on environmental and animal welfare organizations.

Governmental agencies, labor unions and nonprofit groups bought 41.7 percent more radio spots in 2010 than they did in 2009. They were the fifth-largest buyers of radio time last year, up from No. 10 in 2009.

“We have seen a shift where more and more and more government agencies are turning to media to get their point across—for example, urging people to get flu shots,” said Dwight Douglas, vice president for marketing at Media Monitors, the advertising research firm that compiled the figures.

Nearly 60 percent of people who donated to charities involved in the Haiti relief-and-recovery effort said they were either very confident or somewhat confident that their donations were well spent, according to a survey released to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the destructive earthquake.

Only 17 percent of the nearly 2,000 donors studied were not at all confident in how the charities spent money raised to support the relief efforts, said Charity Navigator, a watchdog group in Glen Rock, N.J.

Donors to the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund made more than 353,000 grants totaling over $1.2 billion to nonprofits nationwide during 2010, up 19 percent and 14 percent, respectively, compared to 2009, the fund said.

Incoming charitable contributions surpassed $1.6 billion during 2010, representing a 42 percent increase compared to 2009. This is the sixth consecutive year that the Gift Fund has accepted more than $1 billion in contributions from donors.

The 2011 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report was released yesterday. The 22-page report — conducted by Kivi Leroux Miller, president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide — reveals what 780 nonprofits believe are the most important communications tools for 2011.

In the year after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, Americans gave more than $1.4-billion to aid survivors and help the impoverished country rebuild, according to a Chronicle survey of 60 major relief organizations. Roughly 38 percent of that sum has been spent to provide recovery and rebuilding aid.

The outpouring, while generous, fell short of the $1.6-billion Americans contributed in the year after the South Asian tsunamis and the staggering $3.3-billion they donated in the 12 months following Hurricane Katrina.

Online donations rose sharply last year, say three big organizations that handle Internet gifts.

Convio says online donations to its 1,300 clients topped $1.3-billion, a more than 40-percent increase.

Giving to 5,000 charity clients of Blackbaud grew by more than 10 percent in December alone, though the company wouldn’t give the precise increase. It's preparing a fuller report on 2010 results to release within the month.

And Network for Good says it processed 20 percent more in charitable donations last year than it did in 2009.

In yet another sign of how the nation’s economic slump is causing struggles for many charities, big donations from individuals and their foundations fell for the second consecutive year. The 10 biggest gifts donated by Americans in 2010 totaled slightly more than $1.3-billion, compared with $2.7-billion in 2009 and $8-billion in 2008.

In addition, only six individuals announced gifts of $100-million or more in 2010, a minor decline from 2009, when seven donors gave gifts of $100-million or more, but a significant drop from 2008, when 15 philanthropists announced gifts of that size.

A huge charity gift by a high-tech tycoon has shone a harsh light on the philanthropic track record of India's established and emerging billionaires. Mr. Azim Premji announced earlier this month that he was giving US$2 billion (S$2.5 billion) to fund rural education.

In India, individuals and companies account for just 10 percent of charity funding, compared with 75 percent in the U.S.

Because it costs more to raise philanthropic money during a recession, nonprofit hospitals and other institutions who are willing to invest in fundraising personnel and emphasize major gifts and planned giving in their well-rounded programs will weather the current fiscal crisis in America, according to a “State of Philanthropic Health Care Address” released by William C. McGinly, Ph.D., CAE, president and chief executive officer, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP).