Strengthening Resource Mobilization
Strengthen fundraising practices and supporter engagement by measuring, describing, and facilitating the application of successful practices through studies of fundraising data, donor trends, and other relevant datasets, as well as what we can learn from experimentation with new technologies that are impacting the sector.
Fundraising and resource mobilization are critical to how nonprofit actors fulfill their missions. Social good movements and organizations routinely face challenges in donor acquisition, retention, and relationship building while endeavoring to evaluate and demonstrate impact. Successful strategies need to be informed by a data-driven understanding of relationships and differences between institutional funding and individual giving, as well as the role that affected communities often play in mobilizing resources to solve the problems they face. Through our datasets and collaborative research, the GivingTuesday Data Commons identifies best practices, innovative approaches, and emerging trends in fundraising as well as potential generosity-enabling technology and interventions. We do so by studying effective fundraising, macroeconomic impacts on giving, capital flows, and other sources of information on monetary aspects of giving. We also conduct research to better understand donor behavior and motivations through data-driven knowledge and field testing.
GOAL: To measure, describe, and share actionable research findings about successful fundraising practices through studies of fundraising data, campaign data, donor trends, and other relevant data sources.
Our Initiatives from this Research Area
Research Topics
The tactics, strategies, and techniques employed by social good organizations to raise funds for their causes and initiatives involves a systemic approach to attracting, engaging, and retaining donors to maximize contributions and achieve fundraising goals. We curate up-to-date datasets—such as those captured in the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP)—to help identify the most successful strategies, analyze the diverse nonprofit landscape to recognize trends in donor behavior, and help build data-driven strategies to better understand and deliver organizational impact. Our collaborative research helps derive industry benchmarks, gather actionable insights, and study the potential of rapidly evolving technologies in the philanthropic sector.
Economic headwinds play an important role in the health of the social sector. In theory, recessions and downturns limit the availability of institutional and individual resources for giving and can cause stress on nonprofit organizations at times when they are most needed. Wrestling with this reality and developing strategies to mitigate and circumvent these realities is therefore crucial. GivingTuesday’s collaborations explore how nonprofit organizations can become more resilient in the face of these economic realities, either through anticipating and managing headwinds or developing strategies to unlock generosity during economic crises.
Understanding the movement of financial resources in the philanthropic sector is crucial for promoting accountability, effectiveness, strategic resource allocation, and policy advocacy to contribute to positive social change. Through curation of datasets on philanthropic vehicles and data submitted to domestic revenue agencies, we both directly study and enable others to understand the movement of capital flows to provide insights into the motivations and preferences of donors, as well as the impact of large-scale donations on the philanthropic sector. Our collaborative research seeks to examine the movement of financial resources between organizations to help identify opportunities for partnerships, resource sharing, and knowledge exchange.
For nonprofit organizations, understanding donor behaviors and motivations is key to retention and relationship building. Gaining insights into the factors that influence donors can help organizations effectively allocate resources, personalize fundraising strategies, and effectively communicate with donors while building trust and commitment. Through tools such as GivingPulse—a weekly survey of US residents exploring a wide range of giving behaviors—we are generating insights into the psychological and sociological aspects of giving time, money, or resources to philanthropic causes.
The tactics, strategies, and techniques employed by social good organizations to raise funds for their causes and initiatives involves a systemic approach to attracting, engaging, and retaining donors to maximize contributions and achieve fundraising goals. We curate up-to-date datasets—such as those captured in the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP)—to help identify the most successful strategies, analyze the diverse nonprofit landscape to recognize trends in donor behavior, and help build data-driven strategies to better understand and deliver organizational impact. Our collaborative research helps derive industry benchmarks, gather actionable insights, and study the potential of rapidly evolving technologies in the philanthropic sector.
Economic headwinds play an important role in the health of the social sector. In theory, recessions and downturns limit the availability of institutional and individual resources for giving and can cause stress on nonprofit organizations at times when they are most needed. Wrestling with this reality and developing strategies to mitigate and circumvent these realities is therefore crucial. GivingTuesday’s collaborations explore how nonprofit organizations can become more resilient in the face of these economic realities, either through anticipating and managing headwinds or developing strategies to unlock generosity during economic crises.
Understanding the movement of financial resources in the philanthropic sector is crucial for promoting accountability, effectiveness, strategic resource allocation, and policy advocacy to contribute to positive social change. Through curation of datasets on philanthropic vehicles and data submitted to domestic revenue agencies, we both directly study and enable others to understand the movement of capital flows to provide insights into the motivations and preferences of donors, as well as the impact of large-scale donations on the philanthropic sector. Our collaborative research seeks to examine the movement of financial resources between organizations to help identify opportunities for partnerships, resource sharing, and knowledge exchange.
For nonprofit organizations, understanding donor behaviors and motivations is key to retention and relationship building. Gaining insights into the factors that influence donors can help organizations effectively allocate resources, personalize fundraising strategies, and effectively communicate with donors while building trust and commitment. Through tools such as GivingPulse—a weekly survey of US residents exploring a wide range of giving behaviors—we are generating insights into the psychological and sociological aspects of giving time, money, or resources to philanthropic causes.
