Blackbaud Index for August 2012
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving and The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving provide fundraisers with up-to-date data on fundraising trends and to couple that information with valuable analysis by leaders in the sector.
Blackbaud updates these indices each month and they are based on a three-month moving average of year- over-year percent changes in revenue. This makes them less sensitive to small timing issues or large fluctuations over a short period of time.
Overall Fundraising Trends
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports total revenue trends of 2,878 nonprofit organizations representing $8 billion in yearly revenue on a monthly basis, both offline and online. The Index is based on actual revenue statistics from nonprofit organizations of all sizes representing arts, culture, and humanities; education; environment and animals; healthcare; human services; international affairs; public and society benefit; and religion sectors.
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving reports that overall revenue decreased by 3.4% for the 3 months ending August 2012 as compared to the same period in 2011.
Throughout 2012, charitable giving growth has been limited to single digits with a slightly downward trend, but this is the first time since March 2011 that giving has been negative. This was due to the spike in disaster giving related to Haiti relief work during the same period in 2010. Setting aside the slight negative (-.8%) in March 2011, the last time the Index dropped into negative territory was in July 2010.
Online Fundraising Trends
The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports online revenue trends of more than 1,978 nonprofit organizations representing $406 million in yearly revenue on a monthly basis. The Index is based on actual revenue statistics from nonprofit organizations of all sizes representing arts, culture, and humanities; education; environment and animals; healthcare; human services; international affairs; and public and society benefit sectors.
The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving reports that online revenue increased by 2.4% for the 3 months ending August 2012 as compared to the same period in 2011.
High levels of giving to International Relief organizations in 2011 in response to a record number of natural disasters impacted the Index of Online Giving. Excluding International Relief organizations, online giving was up 7% for the three months ending August 2012.
