2017 Trends Offer Good News for Fundraisers

While 2017 is starting as a year of uncertainty, especially in politics, a recent CauseVox post by staff writer Tina Jepson spotlights 10 fundraising trends that offer good news and opportunities for nonprofit marketers in 2017. Donation forecasts are upbeat for individual, corporate and recurring giving, Jepson shares. Philanthropy Outlook 2016 & 2017 predicts that an increase in individual and household income will help to boost fundraising efforts for nonprofits, charities, and NGOs by as much as 3.8% in 2017. Plus, with Gross Domestic Product and business savings on the rise, total corporate giving is predicted to rise by 4.7% in 2017. And monthly giving, which accounts for 17% of online revenue, also will continue increasing per the 2016 M+R Benchmarks report. At the same time, donor retention rates are at the highest rate since 2008 at 45.9%, and nonprofits and charities clearly should make retention a marketing priority to capitalize on this powerful fundraising engine, Jepson notes. Another positive for fundraisers is the growth in donor data as digital interactions—websites, e-mail, social media and now the Internet of Things (IoT)—combine with traditional channels such as direct mail to generate a wealth of information about existing and potential donors. So a key goal for 2017 is to gather, analyze and use actionable data effectively. Meanwhile, on social and mobile marketing fronts, nonprofits face challenges as well as opportunities. Social media platforms, including Facebook, now are promoting organic content prioritizing audience friends and family over nonprofit messages so that effective social media marketing will need to rely more on purchased ads and targeting of key demographics. And any nonprofit that hasn't invested in mobile optimization of websites and e-mails is missing a key donation source: Mobile giving makes up 17% of all online giving now and is projected to rise further in 2017. For suggestions on maximizing the fundraising impact of each trend, see our complete post at http://www.acculistusa.com/positive-2017-fundraising-trends-create-opportunities/

Online, Mobile Lead Charitable Giving Growth

Mobile giving scored headlines for Blackbaud's latest Charitable Giving Report, turning in a performance that shows nonprofits are "past the mobile tipping point when it comes to digital giving," per the report. Overall, the 2015 study found a 1.6% increase in donations via all channels from the previous year, but online outperformed with 9.2% growth--and mobile giving delivered 14% of those online donations. A NonProfitPro article recently provided a good summary of results from Blackbaud's 2015 survey of 5,000 nonprofits. Breaking out trends by nonprofit size and sector spotlights some key charitable giving ups and downs. For example, 2015's strongest donation growth was recorded by international giving, up 5.1% due to a number of big natural disasters, such as the Nepal earthquake, followed by faith-based appeals (up 3.9%) and health care (up 1.9%). Charitable giving actually slipped for other sectors, with human services donors the least generous last year (donations down 2.8%). Higher education, K-12 education, and public and societal benefit donations were also down slightly from 2014, while medical research appeals stayed flat. Yet almost all sectors showed big growth spurts in online giving, led by 15.2% more online donations for higher education, 12.3% growth for K-12 and an 11.2% online surge for environmental causes. Only medical research was down slightly for online donations. Looking at what Blackbaud calls the "key metric" of digital giving--online as a percentage of total giving--the new nonprofit benchmark for online dollars stepped up slightly to an average 7.1% share. But mobile giving stats, tracked for the first time, provide the eye-opener in this year's report, grabbing 14% of online giving dollars per those surveyed. For more detail, go to http://www.nonprofitpro.com/article/online-mobile-giving-grows-more-from-blackbauds-charitable-giving-report/