Blackbaud Index for February 2011
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. The latest Index data covers the 3 months ending February 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010.
Overall Fundraising Trends
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports total revenue trends of 1,430 nonprofit organizations representing $2.21 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 increased by 3.0% for the 3 months ending February 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010. Large and medium sized organizations had a negative growth trend, but smaller organizations continued to experience positive growth.
In the latest Blackbaud Index Report, Blackbaud’s Chief Scientist Chuck Longfield notes that:
“Overall charitable giving once again increased in the latest three-month period, rising 3% over the prior year. This result represents the seventh consecutive period of increased giving, and though overall giving is still roughly 5% below pre-recession levels, shows that we are into a recovery in charitable giving. This increase is especially noteworthy considering the substantial giving to Haiti in the prior year period.”
Online Fundraising Trends
The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving is a broad-based fundraising index that reports online revenue trends of more than 1,837 nonprofit organizations representing $426.5 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 decreased by 8.6% for the 3 months ending February 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010. Small nonprofits were up 18.8%, medium sized organizations were up 1.3%, and large organizations were down 27%.
This decrease continues a trend from January and is attributable to the large amount of Haiti relief giving in 2010. If we exclude online giving to international relief organizations, which were substantially impacted by Haiti giving, the online index shows an increase of 2.6% for the three months ending February 2011, as compared to the same period last year.
Arts & Cultural Organizations
Blackbaud has added a new specialty index this month, focused on the arts, culture and humanities sub-sector. These organizations are defined by Giving USA as museums of all kinds, historical societies, humanities organizations; and media and communication charities, including public broadcasting. Blackbaud used these organizations’ National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) codes as reported on their 990 tax returns for grouping purposes.
The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving reports that arts, culture, and humanities organizations had an overall charitable revenue decrease of 3.1% for the three months ending February 2011, as compared to the same period in 2010. This trend is based on $221 million in 12-month revenue from 163 organizations.
The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving reports that arts, culture, and humanities organizations had an online revenue increase of 9% for the three months ending February 2011, as compared to the same period in 2010. This trend is based on $19 million in 12-month revenue from 153 organizations.
The latest Blackbaud Index Report includes a Q&A section with Ford W. Bell, President, American Association of Museums (AAM).
