Good news for fundraisers

08.06  Unknown   Label: , , ,
Did I say "good news"? In this economy? Yes, I certainly did. This last January Cygnus Applied Research polled 17,365 people with a history of charitable donations to ask them about their philanthropic plans for 2009. The results (as reported in The Chronicle of Philanthropy) may surprise you:
  • 52% of donors said their gifts would be on par with 2008
  • Only 17.5% planned to give less than last year
  • Of those who were committed to a multi-year gift, 87% said they would pay on time
  • 42.5% said they would give to a charity they had not supported in the past if someone they knew was seeking the gift
  • 40.3% said they would give for the first time if the charity was working directly to help people hurt by the recession
  • Only 16% said they would not consider supporting a new organization
Survey respondents were not being unrealistic about the economy when answering these questions: 39% said they thought it would be at least three years before the economy recovered. 23.4% felt the economy would rebound in less than two years.

A final bit of caution before thinking this news is an open invitation to all sorts of fundraising plans:
Forty-one percent said they had stopped donating to at least one nonprofit group in the past five years because they felt overwhelmed by appeal letters, while more than a third said they were concerned organizations spent too much on fund raising.
As a result, online donations are expected to become more popular, while telemarketing, door-to-door canvassing, and direct-mail appeals may be less successful.
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Good news for fundraisers
Good news for fundraisers
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