Quarterly Fundraising Report™

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Donors: The number of people who have made a donation so far this year
  • Dollars: The amount of money raised by people making a donation so far this year
  • Retention: The percentage of people who have been retained from previous years so far this year

Key Insights


  • Dollars are estimated to be up after late data* gets reported. The reduction in larger donations is less severe as compared to smaller donations
  • Donors counts down severely, with counts driven down by small (sub $500) donor segments, as well as lower new donors and retention
  • Organization dropout stays at the same level as last year which is at an unprecedented level

DONORS

-7.0%
(+/- 2.0%)
YOY change
DOLLARS

6.2%
(+/- 2.0%)
YOY change
RETENTION

-4.2%
(+/- 1.0%)
YOY change
 
  • Visit https://data.givingtuesday.org/fep-report/ for the most detailed version of this report, which includes additional data splits and organization-focused insights.
  • We measure year-over-year change of year-to-date data. I.e. we take data through the current quarter for this year, and divide by data through the same quarter last year.
  • *Note: A significant amount of data arrives late, so we estimate the difference for top-line metrics by reviewing historical patterns of delayed data ('data drift'). Ranges for each metric express uncertainty in the estimates.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
1

 

Our Dataset

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Limitations


  • Data is limited to organizations with >= 3 years of data, with limited growth/loss constraints.
  • Data is weighted across size and NTEE code for organizations raising between $5K-$25M.
  • Some data is recorded late (e.g., ~7% of Q1 is recorded Q2-Q4).

DONORS

7.6M
in 2022
DOLLARS

$4.0B
in 2022
ORGANIZATIONS

8,787
in 2022
 
Revenue and retention metrics report on year-to-date (YTD) performance compared against the prior year total, based on a panel* of organizations selected from the Growth in Giving Database of 241 million transactions from more than 20,000 organizations since 2005.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
2

 

Donors: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Overall rate of growth in donors: net of gains minus losses in number of donors from last year to this year divided by total number of donors up to this time last year

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Donors continue to decline, even after a depressed 2021

  • Donors are estimated at -7% after late data
 

 

 

  • Decrease in donors comes from a collapse in the sub $500 donor buckets and one-time donors

  • As the largest segments of donors, the sub $500 and one-time donors segments typically drive overall donor metrics
 

 

 

NOTE: The panel for each year differs based on our panel rules (stable organizations over the past 3 years w/ $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database). This ensures consistent historical data & avoids biasing past results by filtering on future data.

UPPER: Percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. Shows what’s typical across years.

LOWER: Percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) by month, this vs last year. Shows the evolution of changes over months, and how they compare this year to last.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
3

 

Donors by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Donor size: the grouping of donors by giving levels (dollar ranges) using donors’ year-to-date giving amounts

Key Insights


  • Almost all of the decrease in donor numbers come from the sub-$500 segment of donors
  • The sub-$500 dollar segment also accounts for almost 98% of donors
  • It is expected that proportionally more Major and Supersize donors will increase after late data

MICRO
($1 - $100)

-17.4%
YOY Change
SMALL
($101 - $500)

-8.0%
YOY Change
MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-3.4%
YOY Change
MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-0.4%
YOY Change
SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

+0.0%
YOY Change

57.1%
% of total donors

28.8%
% of total donors

12.1%
% of total donors

1.9%
% of total donors

0.3%
% of total donors
 
All year-over-year (YOY) changes are computed on year-to-date (YTD) totals. Donor size segments were chosen to span both dollars and donors, with each segment representing 1-50% of the total. Estimates for late data only apply to top-line donors, dollars, and retention. Thus, these more granular breakdowns underestimate year-over-year growth.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
4

 

Donors by Life Cycle

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Donor Life Cycle: the grouping of donors based on when they were last seen in the dataset

Key Insights


  • The decrease in new donors is the primary driver of overall decreasing donor
    counts. This is due to the large size of the segment and the large percentage decrease
  • The largest year-over-year drop is in the new retained segment, in part due to the
    extra-ordinarily strong second quarter last year (+22.9% in 2021 vs -27.2% in 2022)
  • Repeat retained and recaptured donors show comparatively smaller decreases
    to other donor segments

NEW
DONORS
 

-22.7%
YTD Change
NEW RETAINED
DONORS
 

-27.2%
YTD Change
REPEAT
RETAINED
DONORS

-2.9%
YTD Change
RECAPTURED
DONORS
 

-2.0%
YTD Change

33.3%
% of total donors

9.7%
% of total donors

43.6%
% of total donors

13.4%
% of total donors
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before (in this dataset).
NEW RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but never before.
REPEAT RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but not for the first time.
RECAPTURED DONORS - did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
5

 

Donor by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Donor Donation Counts: the grouping of donors based on how many times they've made a donation

Key Insights


  • By far the largest segment of donors are one-time donors, and this segment
    shows the greatest decrease
  • All segments of donors by donation count align with the overal trend of decreased donors

1 DONATION

-14.6%
YOY Change
2 DONATIONS

-13.9%
YOY Change
3-6 DONATIONS

-5.0%
YOY Change
7+ DONATIONS

-9.2%
YOY Change

70.3%
% of total donors

11.1%
% of total donors

16.0%
% of total donors

2.7%
% of total donors
 
Donation count is computed on a donor’s total year-to-date donations given. Donation count segments were chosen based on distribution of total donors and dollars across segments.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
6

 

Dollars: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Overall rate of growth in dollars: net of gains minus losses in money from fundraising from last year to this year divided by total dollars raised up to this time last year

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Fundraising is estimated to have increased by +6.2% year-over-year

  • This estimate accounts for the roughly 9% of Q2 fundraising data that arrives up to a year late
 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: The panel for each year differs, based on our panel rules (stable organizations over the past 3 years w/ $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database). This ensures consistent historical data & avoids biasing past results by filtering on future data.

UPPER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. This graph highlights what’s typical across years.

LOWER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) by month, this vs. last year. This graph highlights the evolution of changes over month, and how they compare this year to last.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
7

 

Dollars by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Dollars by donor size: the segmentation of dollars based on the size of an individuals total contributions, year-to-date

Key Insights


  • Dollars driven by large donors, with donors less than $500 seeing much larger declines
    comparatively
  • Overal funds are estimated to be net positive, however, given the small portion of funds
    raised by <$500 donors
  • The midsize donor segment ($500-$5000) showed the smallest decline of all segments

MICRO
($1 - $100)

-14.2%
YOY Change
SMALL
($101 - $500)

-7.5%
YOY Change
MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-1.1%
YOY Change
MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-1.6%
YOY Change
SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

-2.3%
YOY Change

3.4%
% of total dollars

6.9%
% of total dollars

16.6%
% of total dollars

25.8%
% of total dollars

47.3%
% of total dollars
 
Donor size is computed on a donor’s total year-to-date dollars given. Donor size segments were chosen to span both dollars and donors, with each segment representing 1-50% of the total. Estimates for late data only apply to top-line donors, dollars, and retention. Thus, these more granular breakdowns underestimate year-over-year growth.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
8

 

Dollars by Life Cycle

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Dollars by donor size: the segmentation of dollars based on when the associated donor was last seen in the dataset, year-to-date

Key Insights


  • The largest driver of fundraising change by donor-type is the large decrease in
    new-retained donors year-over-year
  • The large percentage decrease in dollars from newly-retained donors is partially due
    to a uniquely strong second quarter in 2021, where there was an increase of +18.4%
    in funding from new-retained donors
  • Dollars from recaptured donors showed substantial growth at 6.3% year-over-year

NEW
DONORS

-5.4%
YOY Change
NEW RETAINED
DONORS

-21.0%
YOY Change
REPEAT
RETAINED
DONORS

-0.5%
YOY Change
RECAPTURED
DONORS

6.3%
YOY Change

18.9%
% of total dollars

8.4%
% of total dollars

59.2%
% of total dollars

13.5%
% of total dollars
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before (in this dataset).
NEW RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but never before.
REPEAT RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but not for the first time.
RECAPTURED DONORS - did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
9

 

Dollars by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

  • Dollars by donation count: the grouping of dollars based on how many times the associated donor made a donation

Key Insights


  • By far the largest segment of funds comes from one-time donors, for which there is no year-over-year change
  • Other segments show a uniform decrease in fundraising by donation counts
  • These statistics do not account for late data, unlike topline metrics

1 DONATION

0.0%
YOY Change
2 DONATIONS

-7.5%
YOY Change
3-6 DONATIONS

-7.2%
YOY Change
7+ DONATIONS

-6.4%
YOY Change

63.3%
% of total dollars

14.9%
% of total dollars

15.4%
% of total dollars

6.4%
% of total dollars
 
Donation count is computed on a donor’s total year-to-date donations given. Donation count segments were chosen based on distribution of total donors and dollars across segments. Estimates for late data only apply to top-line donors, dollars, and retention. Thus, these more granular breakdowns underestimate year-over-year growth.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
10

 

Retention Rate: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Retention is expected to decrease by -4.2% year-over-year, following last year’s -7.4% decrease

  • Year-to-date retention of donors from last year stands at 15.8% in Q2
 

 

 

  • The large drop in retention in Q1 2022 has slightly rebounded, but remains signifcantly below 2020 levels
 

 

 

NOTE: The panel for each year differs, based on our panel rules (stable organizations over the past 3 years w/ $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database). This ensures consistent historical data & avoids biasing past results by filtering on future data.

UPPER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. Shows what’s typical across years.

LOWER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) by month, this vs last year. Shows the evolution of changes over months, and how they compare this year to last.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
11

 

Retention Rate: Donor Type

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • Retention rates have decreased across all types of donors
  • Repeat donors retention has dropped less than other donor types

NEW DONOR
RETENTION RATE

-17.5%
YOY Change
REPEAT DONOR
RETENTION RATE

-6.1%
YOY Change
RECAPTURE
RATE

-13.8%
YOY Change

10.9%
retained YTD

2.0%
retained YTD

34.5%
retained YTD
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before (in this dataset).
REPEAT DONORS - donors who gave last year to the organization, and were not new last year.
RECAPTURED DONORS - donors who did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
12

 

Retention Rate by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • Retention by donor-size is down across all donor sizes
  • Overal retention is driven primarily by Micro (under $100) donors
  • Micro donors are the largest segment of donors

MICRO
$1-$100

-7.4%
YOY Change
SMALL
($101 - $500)

-3.1%
YOY Change
MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-4.5%
YOY Change
MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-4.6%
YOY Change
SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

-6.4%
YOY Change

16.8%
retained YTD

31.8%
retained YTD

41.2%
retained YTD

41.5%
retained YTD

45.7%
retained YTD
 
All year-over-year (YOY) changes are computed on year-to-date (YTD) totals. Donor size segments were chosen to span both dollars and donors, with each segment representing 1-50% of the total.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
13

 

Retention Rate by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • Retention has decreased across all donation count segments
  • 'One time donors' are both the largest segment and had the largest decrease in
    retention rates
  • 'Two-time donor' retention has decreased significantly as well

1 DONATION

-6.0%
YOY Change
2 DONATIONS

-4.1%
YOY Change
3-6 DONATIONS

-1.9%
YOY Change
7+ DONATIONS

-1.6%
YOY Change

13.6%
retained YTD

30.2%
retained YTD

56.4%
retained YTD

87.5%
retained YTD
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before (in this dataset).
NEW RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but never before.
REPEAT RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but not for the first time.
RECAPTURED DONORS - did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
14

 

Organizations

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • Organization size factored much more significantly into fundraising than last year
  • Organization cause mattered much less in determining fundraising amounts
  • Organization dropout stays at the same level as last year, which is abnormally high

Organization
Size Impact

147%
YOY Change

Size matters more
than in 2021
Organization
Cause Impact

-53.8%
YOY Change

Cause matters less
than in 2021
Organizations
Not Reporting

8.9%
Not Reported

More orgs did not
report in 2022
 
Our 'impact' metrics measure the importance of size and cause on organization results. These are meant to be more directional than quantitative, but numbers help track these trends year-over-year.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
15

 

Organization Size Impact: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Variability of fundraising increased significantly as a function of organization size compared to last year

  • Organization size variability is up 147% year-over-year
 

 

 

  • This can be interpreted as the importance of an organization's size in its fundraising performance

  • Organization size is a much larger factor in fundraising then its been in previous years
 

 

 

UPPER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. Shows what’s typical across years.

LOWER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) by month, this vs last year. Shows the evolution of changes over months, and how they compare this year to last.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
16

 

Organization Size Impact: Splits

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • All organization sizes, except organizations raising $5M+, grew in the mean
    but shrank in the median amount of fundraising
  • This hints at an increasingly heavy-tailed distribution, where a handful of organizations skew the average up
  • Large orgs raising $5M-$25M behaved more uniformly, with the mean and typical fundraising amounts both decreasing 9-10%

 
% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEAN) - Year-over-year dollar growth for all organizations of this organization size. More informative of the sector as a whole.

% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEDIAN) - The median year-over-year dollar growth across each organization of this organization size. More indicative of a typical organization's fundraising experience.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
17

 

Organization Cause: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Organization cause matters less in 2022 than in 2021

  • Most causes areas fundraised similarily to previous years
 

 

 

  • The notable exceptions are religious organizations which fundraised more than last year
    and international-causes raised less
 

 

 

UPPER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. Shows what’s typical across years.

LOWER: percent year-over-year change (on YTD totals) by month, this vs last year. Shows the evolution of changes over months, and how they compare this year to last.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
18

 

Organization Cause: Split

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


  • Religious organizations fundraised 10% more than last year
  • International and foreign affair based causes showed an abnormal -17.1% decrease
    in fundraising on average
  • Health (-7.7%) and human services (-6.3%) also raised less funds than last year

 
% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEAN) - Year-over-year dollar growth for all organizations of this NTEE major group. More informative about the sector as a whole.

% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEDIAN) - The median year-over-year dollar growth across each organization of this NTEE major group. More indicative of a typical organization's fundraising experience.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
19

 

Organizations Not Reporting: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q2 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022)

Key Insights


 

 

 

  • Organization dropout has stayed at its unprecedented rates

  • 8.9% of the organizations we expected to report data have not yet done so
 

 

 

  • Organization dropout largely follows the high rates first seen in 2021
 

 

 

NOTE: We only look at organizations within the panel of a given year based on our panel rules: stable organizations over the past 3 years w/ $5K - $25M received in the prior year. This ensures consistent historical data & shields the results from outliers.

UPPER: percent year-over-year change (on month totals) through this quarter, over the last 5 years. Shows what’s typical across years.

LOWER: percent of organization drop-out in each month. Organizations may drop out one month, and then return in a subsequent month.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
20

FUNDRAISING EFFECTIVENESS PROJECT


The Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) - first established in 2006 - and the Growth in Giving database - created in 2012 - are both administered jointly by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and GivingTuesday. The Growth in Giving database is the world’s largest public record of donation activity, with more than 241 million donation transactions, and is continuously updated by top fundraising software partners (in alphabetical order) Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Keela, and NeonCRM. Additional partners include the 7th Day Adventists, The Biedermann Group, DataLake Nonprofit Research, and DonorTrends (a division of EveryAction). For more information and how you or your fundraising software provider can participate, please visit www.afpfep.org


METHODOLOGY


We removed organizations that did not have a minimum of 25 donors and $5,000 in revenue in each of the previous three years. We removed organizations at either tail of the revenue growth curve. If revenue growth was more than 300% or less than -66% in any of the past three years, organizations were removed. We also excluded individual contributions above $10M. We weighted our data by organization size and NTEE major group to make it reflective of 2018 IRS filers in the $5K - $25M range of contributions. In 2018, there were 222K IRS filers in this contributions range and passing our growth and size filters, making this report representative of 3.9% of the total relevant filers. Details regarding estimation methodology for data drift (late reported data) can be found here.



 

 
DATA PROVIDERS
The FEP wouldn’t be possible without data. These software providers make the collection of data for this analysis possible.
 
DATA REPORTING
The Quarterly Report wouldn’t be possible without the data processing and analytics provided by these firms.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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