How to Take the Uncertainty Out of Fundraising

Have you read the new Giving Tuesday report predicting the outcome of 2021? The biggest takeaway: it’s complicated.

Depending on the size and type of nonprofit, you could do better or worse than 2020. While small-donor, recurring giving, and giving prompted by news and social causes increased, overall fundraising decreased by 5-10% for most organizations.

As The NonProfit Times noted, “The winners and losers bucked previous fundraising trends.”The Giving Tuesday report reinforces many of the topics we regularly cover here at the Julep blog -- sustainer giving, small donors, donor retention, and stewardship. Key points from the study found:

• Donor mobility is increasing.
While more people gave in 2020, donor retention rates are down. This indicates that donors are still contributing, but they shifted the focus of their gifts.

• Donor retention is still a problem. 
The pandemic caused many donors to be less sticky to their favorite causes and change up their giving. Donors who gave the year before decreased by 15%, and donors who had previously given more than one year decreased by 5.1%. Since the one-time donors increased considerably, nonprofits need to shift resources into cementing stronger relationships with these donors. The main question with donor retention is if the donor mobility shifted because of the pandemic or if this becomes a pattern.

• Lapsed donors were recaptured.
While nonprofits struggled to retain new and returning donors, they saw success in reaching out to lapsed donors, which are referred to as "recaptured" in the report. Compared to 2019, recaptured donors saw an 8% increase and made up 14.5% of all donors.

• More nonprofits failed to fundraise.
For the first time, up to 4% of nonprofits failed to conduct any fundraising. This indicates that many organizations weren't able to adjust to non-event fundraising or lacked the technology to enable digital fundraising or remote work.

With so much uncertainty continuing, nonprofits need every tool available. This includes a CRM, like Julep, that can help you analyze your data, track and grow multiple levels of donor programs, and maintain a central data hub that your entire team can access from the office or remotely at home. Programs like Julep are what charitable organizations needed to successfully manage simultaneous fundraising programs targeting everyone from small dollar gifts to major donors.