Many of us have set our 2024 business goals, but maybe we haven’t updated those tasks we need to do each year about this time. Consider this list:
I’m certain you can add even more to the task list above. By cleaning up your data, you’ll also enhance your thank you letters.
So, it’s time to grab your favorite beverage―hot or cold―and take a small break. As usual, I’ve been collecting a few articles and thoughts and wanted to share them in case you’d like to catch up on your reading.
“Donation trends are very volatile right now, and there’s a lot that’s going on that’s very concerning, including a decrease in donor participation,” Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday, told the Chronicle before the total had been tallied.
(Our results at RKD Group were a bit better. We analyzed online giving for 44 RKD clients and found a 4.3% increase in revenue on GivingTuesday and a 10.5% increase for the full GivingTuesday campaign.)
Lower participation could be one reason the day failed to bring in significantly more donations than it did in 2022. Just 34 million people made contributions on GivingTuesday, down 10 percent from last year.
“On the one hand, this is fantastic,” said Woodrow Rosenbaum, GivingTuesday’s chief data officer. “Tens of millions of people in the U.S. came together once again to have a huge impact for causes they care about, including donating an enormous amount of money in a 24-hour period.”
But the number of donors was down about 10% from 2022, which Rosenbaum called a worst-case scenario for the sector: “We’re seeing less dollars from the big donor that we’ve been relying upon and fewer grassroots donors who are so important to our resilience and long-term health of the sector.”
Nonprofit organizations and industry groups have been warning that donations this year are down, which follows a drop in overall charitable giving in 2022 for only the fourth time in 40 years, according to Giving USA.
It’s still too early to know whether end-of-year giving will pull charitable donations back up this year.
We’ll focus on the practical “in the weeds” analysis that can support you in making data-driven decisions that go well beyond this time of year.
Let’s take a look at the impact of what we call the “Generosity Experience”—the overall trust that a supporter has when interacting with a nonprofit’s marketing, revenue or impact activities.
A common misconception about GivingTuesday is that it’s a day focused only on extracting money out of people. If that’s the case, we’d expect to see a high volume of one-time donations made by donors who never engage with a nonprofit after their initial transaction. But healthy donor retention numbers within Neon CRM users show that donors are more than happy to support organizations they’ve previously been involved with.
Digital-forward campaigns are still powerful new-donor-acquisition opportunities: 57% of new donors who gave to organizations using Neon Fundraise were acquired through digital channels. Small dollar donations continue to be the primary driver of GivingTuesday revenue, both online and off, which is a powerful testament to the day’s significance in reaching new individual donors.
This marks a notable increase from the results of a similar survey conducted in April 2022, which found that only 37% of American donors had given half or more of their charitable contributions to disaster relief efforts. But the new survey also suggests that donors encounter challenges when trying to respond charitably to disasters.
When it comes to charitable giving in general, the survey found that Americans remain committed. Nearly 3 in 4 Americans (73%) reported having given a monetary donation to charity in the past 12 months, on par with the 74% who reported doing so the year before.
During the maelstrom of the pandemic years, individuals, foundations and corporations dug deep to meet the needs of the public-health emergency, but fundraisers are unsure how much of that support they can still count on. With an uncertain economic outlook, they worry more donors may stop giving.
As fundraisers scan the horizon, there are both rays of light and dark clouds. Unemployment is low and gross domestic product is up—clear signs of economic health. But inflation and interest-rate hikes are holding back consumer spending, and many Americans feel the economy is in poor shape.
Put it all together, and fundraisers don’t know what to expect.
Three-quarters of fundraisers say their organizations have raised as much or more than they did the previous year. That breaks down to 34 percent raising more money, 42 percent holding steady, and 23 percent raising less.
Today, print marketing remains the most trusted advertising format for the majority of people. And it turns out, being able to hold and look at something physical and tangible coming from their mailbox does make it more personal for about two-thirds of people than the same communication being conveyed through digital channels.
Reading through direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort than email, and importantly, it’s far less ephemeral. If you think about how long an email lasts in your inbox, you’re either deleting it or letting it sit in your inbox beneath an ever-growing pile of messages that can run thousands of messages deep. Mail’s shelf-life in your home is 17 days, giving it a far better opportunity to land with consumers and donors alike.
The way direct mail performs with younger generations is by driving awareness ahead of conversion—44% of people visit websites after receiving postcards, and another 34% search online. What direct mail is doing is proving trustworthiness, while websites, with easy forms of payment and additional useful content, prove validity.
It’s certainly not flashy or at the vanguard of the newest technology, but as mailboxes have thinned out, trust in mail hasn’t waned. It’s provided an opportunity to shine for direct mail, and direct mail has proven it’s still very effective in 2023.
"Consumers remain preoccupied with rising prices in general, followed by war/conflicts and higher interest rates," said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board.
Americans are grumpy about the economy, despite the best job market in decades. The chief reason is a severe bout of inflation that has raised prices 18% in the past three years and eroded the standard of living.
About two-thirds of consumers say a recession is “somewhat” or “very likely” in the next 12 months, the survey found.
Gross domestic product, the official scorecard for the economy, was revised up from an initially reported 4.9% rate of growth. It was the biggest increase in a decade if the pandemic years of 2020-21 are excluded.
The economy seemed to have cooled off in the waning months of the year, however. Businesses are hiring fewer people, and consumer spending has softened, among other things. Households boosted spending at a 3.6% pace, down from an original 4%.
The combination of ebbing income growth, high interest rates and prices, dwindling pandemic savings and the resumption of student loan payments are eroding Americans’ ability to keep boosting their spending as briskly as they did through the summer, economists say.
Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy items, were up 3.5% from a year ago. They rose 2.5% at a six-month annualized rate, down from 4.5% in the six months through April, a dramatic improvement.
Job and wage growth slowed in October, and home sales dropped to a new 13-year low. Retail sales declined, and major chains such as Home Depot and Target reported that their customers had pulled back. Personal income—which includes income from investments and other sources as well as wages—rose 0.2% in October, down from September’s 0.4% gain.
Several factors could constrain Americans’ budgets in the months to come. Households have exhausted most of the excess savings racked up during the pandemic. Credit is more expensive. Student loan payments have resumed after a long moratorium.
Nonetheless, consumers spent $38 billion during the five days from Thanksgiving through Monday, up 7.8% from the same period last year, according to Adobe Analytics.
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