Giving Down 2.4% in 2018’s First Quarter, Study Says

Title: “First Quarter 2018 Report”

Organization: Fundraising Effectiveness Project

Summary: Gifts of more than $250 declined during the first three months of 2018 compared with the same period last year, signaling a sluggish start to this year’s giving, according to the report.

The total number of donors was down 6.3 percent from the first quarter of 2017, while the number of new donors fell 12 percent from the same period the previous year.

High levels of giving at the end of 2017 may have resulted in donor fatigue as the new year dawned, Elizabeth Boris, founding director of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, suggested in a statement. The reduced incentives for charitable giving in the new federal tax code may also play a role, Boris said.

Giving was down in the first three quarters of 2017 from the same periods in 2016, according to previous editions of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s report, with the robust fundraising of 2017’s final quarter lifting the entire year’s revenue.

“So far, giving is off to an even worse start in 2018. So we’re concerned about what charities may experience in their fundraising throughout the year,” said Jon Biedermann, vice president of DonorPerfect, a fundraising software company, in a statement.

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project is a collaboration of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Urban Institute. The analysis — relies on data from the Growth-in-Giving database, which compiles information from several fundraising -software companies, and some national charities.

Among the findings:

• Overall revenue was down 2.4 percent compared with the first quarter of 2017.
• The donor retention rate was down 4.6 percent.
• Revenue from major donors, defined as gifts of $1,000 and up, dropped 5.2 percent from same period in 2017. Revenue from midlevel donations, those of $250 to $1,000, declined by 2.1 percent.
• Giving by people who made contributions of less than $250, was up 3.7 percent.