Charitable Giving Report Using 2019 Data to Transform Your Strategy by Blackbaud

“Charitable giving is changing. The incentives and motivations are changing. The demographics are changing. The organizations are changing. The channels are changing. The world is changing too. This year’s Charitable Giving Report offers deeper analysis of the largest data set of donations and more context around the numbers than ever before to help you meet the demands of these changes.

In 2019, charitable giving in the United States grew 1% based on meticulous analysis of $36.3 billion in donations by the Blackbaud Institute. Online giving grew by 6.8% compared to 2018 after analysis of $2.7 billion in online donations.

Of course, expressing charitable giving as a single number only paints a partial picture of our philanthropic landscape. It might make for easy headlines, but the real story is in the detailed analysis here. We see a three-year trend of overall giving up 5% and online donations up nearly 10%. We also see some subsectors of nonprofits like Environmental and Animal Welfare organizations with impressive giving growth trends. First-year donor retention continues to be a challenge among nonprofit organizations, but multiyear retention rates remain strong.

The percentage of total fundraising that came from online giving in 2019 was 8.7%. As a point of comparison, the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2019 accounted for 11.2% of total sales. This gap is now widening after several years of parallel tracking—perhaps because most major gifts still do not come via online giving.

Every year, we check and double-check the data and findings to publish the Charitable Giving Report.

It matters to us because these tables and charts aren’t just a report—they are an opportunity to see where giving is—and more importantly where it can go if leaders use this data to inform their approach.

For these numbers to be truly meaningful, you, the social good leaders, must consider the role your organization plays in shaping the trends.

To that end, this year’s report offers insight into how you can use trend data to benchmark your own performance. You will find highlights on the practices all organizations should be using to ensure that you can continue to attract, engage, and retain donors to achieve greater success in 2020 and beyond.

You can make the most of the information shared here to reflect on your own performance and enhance your strategies. Change is the one constant. Your mission depends on your ability to learn from these changes, grow, and move forward with data- backed strategies for greater success.”

Click the link below to access the report

BlackbaudInstitute_2019CharitableGivingReport