Title: “Donation Insights”
Organization: Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
Summary: Donations made with Mastercards grew by more than 4 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year, the slowest rate of growth since 2013, according to the report. The study also showed that gifts from donors who give monthly or at other set times have made up a steadily rising share of total donations: They constituted 7.5 percent of gifts in 2017, compared to 3.5 percent in 2009.
The report was derived from aggregated Mastercard transaction data. Among the findings:
- The average online gift was $94.75, about double the typical credit-card donation made in person. The biggest gap was in giving to education causes, where the average online contribution was $216.75, compared to $67.73 in person.
- The report found no sign that pending changes in the federal tax code led to a big jump in credit-card giving in December, when the tax overhaul was being debated and passed. Donations were up by slightly more than 4 percent compared to December 2016.
- The biggest growth in support was for nonprofits that work on housing, public safety, and the environment, in that order. Natural disasters were a likely cause of the gain: Extreme weather events in 2017 wrought more than $300 billion in damage in the United States, a new high, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Monthly spikes in giving to charities that work in disaster relief correlated strongly to the year’s wildfires, tornados, floods, and hurricanes.
- Giving to disaster-relief causes was highest after Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, growing by nearly 19 percent compared to the same month in 2016. Such giving grew by only about 5 percent the following month, which saw hurricanes Maria and Irma — possibly indicating “donor fatigue” had set in as the three storms made landfall in a short period of time, the report suggests.
- Forty-five percent of donations by credit card went to a category of causes called “other,” which includes religious and public-society benefit organizations, as well as membership groups. The next most popular causes for donors who use credit cards were education (which got 14 percent of gifts) and the arts (12.6 percent).
