Blackbaud

As nonprofits and direct marketers look ahead to 2014, the future is anything but certain. Here, five top industry insiders share their wisdom on the potential threats facing our industry — and offer their best advice — so you can be prepared for whatever 2014 has in store.

David Whitehead of AARP Foundation, Dennis McCarthy of Blackbaud, Anirban Basu of Sage Policy Group, Joe Schick of Quad/Graphics and George Lizama of Production Solutions make their predictions and offer advice.

It’s mid-December and Giving Tuesday has come and gone. It’s been reported by Blackbaud, #GivingTuesday and many other news sources that significantly more money was raised this year compared with 2012. While most of our clients sat it out and put all their efforts into other year-end giving campaigns, the groups that did participate in Giving Tuesday felt it was a success. Still the question should be asked: Is it worth it?

Content Marketing Institute and Blackbaud’s 2014 Nonprofit Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America report just hit the scene. In my world, this is exciting news, as it’s the first-ever research report to benchmark what’s going on with content marketing in the nonprofit sector — the sector I’ve spent the past 10 years of my life serving.

Needless to say, I’ve been geeking out over the data, so I thought I’d offer a few thoughts and insights based on the findings …

All signs are pointing to a robust Giving Tuesday haul as nonprofits report big increases in their fundraising. Online donations processed by Blackbaud on Giving Tuesday rose 90 percent, to $19.2 million from some $10 million during last year’s event. The average gift online yesterday was $142, up from $102 on Giving Tuesday 2012, Blackbaud says.

Network for Good, which processes online donations, said it handled $1.8 million in gifts on Tuesday, compared with $1 million on Giving Tuesday 2012.

Blackbaud updated The Blackbaud Index with charitable giving trends through October 2013 and announced the launch of a new faith-based specialty index that tracks fundraising revenue for congregations and other faith-based organizations. Based on data from 3,828 charities that raised more than $12 billion in the prior 12 months, The Blackbaud Index reported that overall charitable giving grew 2.3 percent for the three months ending October 2013, as compared to the same period in 2012.

FundRaising Success is blessed and proud to work with some of the brightest stars in the fundraising firmament. Meet our latest 2014 Editorial Advisory Board members.

I can’t help but feel that there is an incredible group of loyal and passionate donors out there who are overlooked and forgotten in almost every instance — the donors who aren’t recruited at all … I’m talking about the people who seek you out and give without solicitation.

These are the donors who are simply passionate about a cause and will look for a charity that can help them fulfill their own personal missions, creating the world they hope for.

Is this about new donors? Just about the cash? Raising awareness?

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and Blackbaud have released the findings from a first-time study that shows how nonprofit professionals in North America approach content marketing. The study shows that 92 percent of nonprofit professionals use content marketing. Ninety-one percent use Facebook to distribute content, and 65 percent are producing more content than they were one year ago.

The Valencia College Foundation took its six-week fundraising campaign, First One, online using peer-to-peer fundraising to supplement its offline campaign activities. At the end of the day the foundation raised $203,817, which included a matching grant, recruited 152 fundraisers on 36 teams, and attracted 170 first-time donors.

Donna Marino, Valencia College Foundation’s donor stewardship manager, shared some points of the foundation's success as well as some important lessons to take into planning for the next campaign.