One fundraising bright spot

A slew of philanthropy studies have come out in recent weeks. Only one of them offers cause for optimism.

Let’s save the hopeful one for last.

A report called Dollars and Change, by Network for Good, Giving Tuesday, and Candid, offers a stark look at how unbalanced philanthropy has become in favor of the megawealthy. The steady decline in giving by everyday donors is known, but this report’s eye-popping data shows just how bad it’s gotten.

Consider this: 0.3% of donors (that’s three out of a thousand) gave 45% of all money donated by individuals between 2015 and 2022. Everyday donors, who give less than $100 each year, gave 3% of the dollars.

Then there’s final report of the Generosity Commission, helmed by a vast array of philanthropy glitterati. The Commission concludes that the decline in everyday giving is driven by multiple systemic factors, mainly severe wealth inequality, but also “declining trust in institutions, the advent of the internet and related technological transformations, demographic shifts, changes in the workplace, and the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

How, one might ask, do we come back from that?

The report lays out a nine-point plan for reversing the trend. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether the report’s recommendations are commensurate with the breadth of the crisis.

Finally, in more hopeful news, there’s Blackbaud Institute’s First Impressions: Spontaneous Giving Insights report on a nationwide survey of 1,003 first-time everyday donors. Spontaneous donors are defined as those who made an unplanned first gift in the last year. These donors, the report finds, are significantly more likely to be young, Black or Hispanic than American donors as a whole. Moreover, these new donors may be here to stay: 62% of the donors in the study say either have already made a second gift to the organization they supported or plan to do so in the future.

Spontaneous donors are the headwaters of what could someday represent the new mainstream of giving. The study recommends that nonprofits invest now in developing and deepening relationships with new donors.

That said, developing younger, more diverse donors into lifelong givers could pay off by changing the landscape of philanthropy. But the investment needs to come now. And there’s the rub: In the current frantic crisis-driven fundraising environment, we know of few nonprofits who have mustered the discipline and foresight to forgo immediate gains in favor of bigger rewards decades from now.

What about your nonprofit? Tell us if you work for an organization that has made long-term investments in a transformed and more diverse fundraising future. And tell us how you did it. It’s a recipe well worth sharing.