Fundraising 2011

It has been a challenging period for nonprofit fundraising, so this article from Nonprofit About.com is a good overview of what some of the current research is telling us.

An excerpt, with links at the jump.

“I'm swearing off watching the stock market daily. I've decided to check in on my investments only once a month or so. I may even wait until the end of the year. That's because I'm getting a bad case of motion sickness watching the gyrations of the financial markets.

“Unfortunately, nonprofits can't ignore the fundraising tickers for their own organizations, nor for the sector as a whole. As dizzying as it sometimes seems, tracking the trends is part of the planning that must go on, whether it's for your end-of-year fundraising campaign, or looking out to 2012 and beyond.

“Over the past few weeks we've had a mountain of data come in via at least three surveys that leave us wondering what the trends really are.

“First up was the Nonprofit Research Collaborative's Nonprofit Report for Summer/Early Fall 2011. The Philanthropy Journal has a good summary of that survey, the upshot of which is that the fundraising climate is still tough.

“According to this survey, 44% of the nonprofits surveyed reported raising more in the first half of 2011, 20% raised less, and 25% raised the same amount. These figures are pretty close to the same figures for 2010, but are dramatically down from before the Great Recession.

“This week, the Chronicle of Philanthropy released an extensive survey of its Philanthropy 400. The list is made up of the 400 organizations that raise the most from private sources and are considered a bellwether for whence the sector goes. The Philanthropy 400 groups raise almost $1 of every $4 donated to charities in the US.

“The top 400 organizations did increase their donations by a median of 4.7% in 2011, much better than the 3.5% in 2010. However, that increase did not come close to overcoming the 11% decline they experienced in 2009. All in all, the report was pretty gloomy.”