Network for Good

The "donate" button on your nonprofit's website is big deal! Your supporters have become accustomed to it — they expect to see it when they arrive on your website. It's also the starting point for your online fundraising. Even though you may have other exciting campaigns going on, your "donate" button is a constant fundraising opportunity.

This simple button can be very effective — and we're here to help you perfect it! These questions may seem basic, but the answers could help make the difference in your 2013 fundraising.

The Nonprofit Federation of the Direct Marketing Association (DMANF) is pleased to announce the selection of Lynn Edmonds, president of LW Robbins, as its 2013 Max L. Hart Nonprofit Achievement Award recipient. The Max L. Hart Nonprofit Achievement Award, presented annually at the Washington Nonprofit Conference, recognizes career accomplishments by an exceptional fundraising professional with a track record of service, leadership, innovation and integrity.

Donors are making bigger online gifts to charity this month than they did last year at this time, but they are making fewer gifts, according to data provided by Network for Good, a giving site that provided information on online contributions to 8,700 charities. Last week, the average online gift made through Network for Good was $122.55, up from $113.57 for the same week in 2011. The average gift size rose by a similar percentage in the previous week.

Propelled largely by charities’ push to promote #GivingTuesday, the amount of money charities collected online last week increased 42 percent when compared with the same week last year. That finding is based on a study of 8,700 charities that used Network for Good to process online gifts. But while charities got bigger gifts, they did not necessarily do so well in attracting new donors last week. The number of donations increased by only 1.2 percent this year, to 14,026.

Check out recent posts from Network for Good and the Wild Apricot Blog.

#GivingTuesday may well become a new holiday tradition, as donors generously responded to charities' pleas to take time off from shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday to give and volunteer. The amount of online donations processed by Blackbaud, a processor of online gifts, shot up 53 percent to $10 million on Tuesday, compared with the same day last year.

Americans gave a lot more to charity in the past week than they did at this time a year ago, producing a 61 percent surge in online donations. The data come from a Chronicle of Philanthropy analysis of gifts processed by Network for Good, which handles online donations for charities. The Chronicle looked at gifts that the group processed for more than 8,700 nonprofits in both 2011 and 2012 and found that not only did the amount of donations increase, but so did the number of donations.

Nonprofit organizations are starting to mobilize donations to help victims of Hurricane Sandy, but so far the sums appear to be small. That’s in part because the two big groups involved in disaster fundraising, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, declined to release a tally of how much they have collected so far.

Check out recent posts from The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Network for Good.

Check out recent posts from the About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs and Network for Good blogs.