Quarterly Fundraising Report™

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 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

  • Total dollars fundraised are up 4.7%
  • Smaller donors are contributing fewer dollars in 2022 than they did in 2021
  • Donors are down -7.1% from 2022 compared to 2021.
  • Donors being down in the third quarter is a pattern that continues from 2021.
  • There are large decreases in overall donor counts
  • Decreases in overall donor counts are driven by weaker acquisition rates as well as lower retention of new donors.
DONORS

-7.1%
(+/- 2.0%)
YOY change 		DOLLARS

4.7%
(+/- 2.0%)
YOY change 		RETENTION

-3.1%
(+/- 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.
  • In this report, we compare data compiled from the first three quarters of previous years to data from the first three quarters of 2022.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Current Dataset

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Limitations

  • Data in our panel is limited to organizations with >=3 years of data, with $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database.
  • Organizations in our panel are also analyzed to include limited growth/loss constraints.
  • Data is weighted across size of organization as determined by amount fundraised - including organizations raising between $5,000 and $25,000,000.
  • Data is also sorted by NTEE (National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities) codes utilized by the IRS to determine organization type and/or cause.
  • 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"). Throughout this report, ranges for each metric express uncertainty in the estimates.

DONORS

11.2M
in 2022 		DOLLARS

$6.1B
in 2022 		ORGANIZATIONS

8,800
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.
  • *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'). Throughout this report, ranges for each metric express uncertainty in the estimates. The panel for each year differs based on panel criteria, described on Page 2.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Donors: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 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 appear to be down -11.6%, when we take the data at face value. But after adjusting for delays in data reporting ("data drift"), we estimate the actual decrease is -7.1%.
 

 

 
  • Overall donors are significantly lower than last year.

  • 2021 donor rates were also lower than 2020 by comparison.
  • Donor participation rates driven down because of lower donor acquisition rates.
  • Small donor participation rates also contributed to lower donor participation numbers overall.
 

 

 
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.

Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Donors by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

✖

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

Key Insights

  • Donors under $500 make up the majority of all donors and are the largest donor category
  • Almost all of the drop in donors (96%) is attributable to losses of donors of $500 and less
  • Based on late reporting in past years, we expect the proportion of Major and Supersize donors to increase, relative to other categories.
MICRO
($1 - $100)

-15.4%
YOY Change 		SMALL
($101 - $500)

-7.8%
YOY Change 		MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-4.2%
YOY Change 		MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-1.2%
YOY Change 		SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

+0.0%
YOY Change

55.8%
% of total donors

28.9%
% of total donors

13.0%
% of total donors

2.1%
% 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.
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Donors by Life Cycle

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

✖

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

Key Insights

  • New donors are down by -19.2%
  • Newly Retained donors are down by -24.7%
  • These decreases in New and Newly Retained donors account nearly all of the change.
NEW
DONORS
 

-19.2%
YTD Change 		NEW RETAINED
DONORS
 

-24.7%
YTD Change 		REPEAT
RETAINED
DONORS

-2.0%
YTD Change 		RECAPTURED
DONORS
 

-3.3%
YTD Change

37.2%
% of total donors

9.3%
% of total donors

40.0%
% of total donors

13.5%
% of total donors
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before.
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.
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Donor by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

✖

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

Key Insights

  • One time donors are the largest segment of any category - making up 69.9% of all donors
  • All segments of donors by donation count align with the overall trend of decreased donors

1 DONATION

-12.7%
YOY Change 		2 DONATIONS

-11.8%
YOY Change 		3-6 DONATIONS

-12.7%
YOY Change 		7+ DONATIONS

-1.9%
YOY Change

69.9%
% of total donors

11.9%
% of total donors

8.3%
% of total donors

9.8%
% of total donors
 
Donation count segments were selected to best illustrate the distribution of total donors and dollars across the giving spectrum. A donor's donation count covers the period from the start of the year until the end of the current quarter.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Dollars: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 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 dollars appears to have decreased by -1.8%, but after adjusting for delays in data reporting ("data drift"), we estimate dollars increased by +4.7%, compared to 2021.
 

 

 
  • Stability in large donors keeps fundraising figures consistent in the face of unstable donor participation

  • Dollars from recaptured donors is also a contributor to fundraising growth
 

 

 


Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Dollars by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

✖

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

Key Insights

  • Numbers of Micro and Small donors (donating less than $500) have fallen much more than larger donor categories
  • Micro donors have dropped 13.2%
  • Small donors have dropped 7.0%
  • Funds from "Small" and "Micro" donors make up only 9.3% of funds raised

MICRO
($1 - $100)

-13.2%
YOY Change 		SMALL
($101 - $500)

-7.0%
YOY Change 		MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-2.0%
YOY Change 		MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-1.4%
YOY Change 		SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

-0.4%
YOY Change

2.9%
% of total dollars

6.4%
% of total dollars

16.3%
% of total dollars

25.4%
% of total dollars

49.0%
% of total dollars
 
Donor size is computed on a donor’s total year-to-date dollars given.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Dollars by Life Cycle

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 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

  • Dollars are being driven downward by New donors (-3.7%) and New Retained donors (-18.1%)
  • Dollars from Recaptured donors are up 7.1%
NEW
DONORS

-3.7%
YOY Change 		NEW RETAINED
DONORS

-18.1%
YOY Change 		REPEAT
RETAINED
DONORS

-0.2%
YOY Change 		RECAPTURED
DONORS

7.1%
YOY Change

19.2%
% of total dollars

8.1%
% of total dollars

59.8%
% of total dollars

12.9%
% of total dollars
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before.
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.
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Dollars by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

✖

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

Key Insights

  • The largest proportion of dollars come from one-time donors. All other segments show a similar decline to each other.
1 DONATION

1.4%
YOY Change 		2 DONATIONS

-6.3%
YOY Change 		3-6 DONATIONS

-5.9%
YOY Change 		7+ DONATIONS

-5.2%
YOY Change

58.1%
% of total dollars

15.6%
% of total dollars

16.5%
% of total dollars

9.8%
% of total dollars
 
Donation count segments were selected to best illustrate the distribution of total donors and dollars across the giving spectrum. A donor's donation count covers the period from the start of the year until the end of the current quarter.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Retention Rate: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

 

 

 
  • Retention is expected to decrease by -3.1% year-over-year, following last year’s -7.4% decrease

  • Year-to-date retention of donors from last year stands at 29.9% in Q3
 

 

 
  • Year-over-year retention rates have been steadily increasing throughout the year, but they remain negative
  • These year-over-year drops are significant, especially given last year's singificant decrease
 

 

 


Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
11
 

Retention Rate: Donor Type

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

  • Retention rates have decreased across all types of donors
NEW DONOR
RETENTION RATE

-14.8%
YOY Change 		REPEAT DONOR
RETENTION RATE

-5.4%
YOY Change 		RECAPTURE
RATE

-15.0%
YOY Change

13.7%
retained YTD

41.5%
retained YTD

2.7%
retained YTD
 
NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before.
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.
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Retention Rate by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

  • Retention is down across all donor sizes
  • Overall retention is driven primarily by Micro (under $100) donors
  • Micro donors are the largest segment of donors
MICRO
$1-$100

-5.6%
YOY Change 		SMALL
($101 - $500)

-2.5%
YOY Change 		MIDSIZE
($501 - $5K)

-3.9%
YOY Change 		MAJOR
($5K - $50K)

-4.0%
YOY Change 		SUPERSIZE
($50K+)

-5.1%
YOY Change

21.5%
retained YTD

37.7%
retained YTD

48.1%
retained YTD

50.9%
retained YTD

55.2%
retained YTD
 
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.
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Retention Rate by Donation Count

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

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

-4.0%
YOY Change 		2 DONATIONS

-2.1%
YOY Change 		3-6 DONATIONS

-1.1%
YOY Change 		7+ DONATIONS

-1.5%
YOY Change

18.6%
retained YTD

38.6%
retained YTD

63.8%
retained YTD

88.6%
retained YTD
 
Donation count segments were selected to best illustrate the distribution of total donors and dollars across the giving spectrum. A donor's donation count covers the period from the start of the year until the end of the current quarter.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Organizations

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

  • Organization size (based on amount raised) factored much more significantly into fundraising than last year
  • Organization cause explained little of the variance in fundraising amounts.
  • The proportion of organizations not reporting data continues to exceed pre-covid (2019) rates. In 2022, 10.4% of organizations provided no fundraising information.
Organization
Size Impact

152%
YOY Change

Size matters more
than in 2021 		Organization
Cause Impact

-40.0%
YOY Change

Cause matters less
than in 2021 		Organizations
Not Reporting

10.4%
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.
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Organization Size Impact: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

 

 

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

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

  • Organization size variability is up 152% year-over-year
 

 

 
  • In 2022, organization size is a much larger factor in fundraising than its been in previous years
 

 

 


Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Organization Size Impact: Splits

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

  • All organization sizes, except organizations raising $5M+, grew in the mean but shrank in the median amount of fundraising
  • The data suggest that a handful of organizations account for most of the growth
 
% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEAN) - Year-over-year dollar growth for organizations, grouped by an organization's budget size. Trends in the mean are more informative of the sector as a whole.

% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEDIAN) - The median year-over-year dollar growth for organizations, grouped by an organization's budget size. Trends in the median are more indicative of a typical organization's fundraising experience.
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Organization Cause: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

 

 

 
  • Organization cause explained little of the variance in fundraising amounts.

  • Most cause areas fundraised similarly to previous years, with two exceptions.
 

 

 
  • Religious causes in our dataset outperformed in 2022
  • International causes underperformed when compared with 2021
 

 

 
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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Organization Cause: Split

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

  • Religious organizations fundraised 4.9% more than last year
  • International and foreign affairs causes decreased -20.2% on average in our study
  • Public & societal benefits (-7.8%) 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.
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Organizations Not Reporting: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2022 (JAN 1, 2022 - SEP 30, 2022)

Key Insights

 

 

 
  • Organization dropout has stayed at its unprecedented rates

  • 10.4% of the organizations we expected to report data have not yet done so
 

 

 
 

 

 
Year-to-date Fundraising Performance. All right reserved.
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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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