4 Nonprofit Donor Demographics Trends for 2015

To get a handle on what’s in store for 2015, NonProfit PRO rounded up some of the nonprofit industry’s finest, who were kind enough to share their nonprofit trends for 2015. Here are four trends on donor demographics.

DONOR DEMOGRAPHICS
Carl Bloom, chairman, Carl Bloom Associates
1. We have seen an improvement in fundraising performance as we have come out of the great recession. Since we deal with cultural organizations, health care, advocacy and other fields, we are looking for larger than average size gifts. This November we have seen a dramatic increase in size of contributions — a good many in places that have had large increases in wealth.

For example, it was interesting to learn that because of the U.S. becoming a big supplier of old and natural gas through fracking, a lot of people who were of modest financial means became wealthy overnight. Farms and cattle ranches are being leased annually by the big oil companies, who are exploring for more energy resources. Some of these newly rich are handing over huge checks (like they don’t know what to do with their money) to certain nonprofits they couldn’t afford to support before. Other places where successful high-tech development is making new millionaires of employees are showing better response and revenues.

So going into 2015, fundraisers should look the country over and try to go where the rich are getting richer, and some in the middle class and below are becoming rich. At the same time as we observe that, the middle has been reduced with the resultant large disparity between them and the 1 percenters.

As a class of people, don’t rely on the boomers to rescue or play a large role in the support of small, medium and large nonprofits; they’ll be busy keeping themselves afloat. The greater number of these people have not saved enough to take care of themselves in retirement and are continuing their work or looking for part-time work to supplement their incomes.