What We Can Learn From Our Global Fundraising Neighbors
One example of a current challenge that is universal (or at least global) is the increased trends of donors wanting greater visibility of where their money is going. In fact, 60 percent of organizations in Germany responded that they had seen an increase in this area.
I noted earlier about the optimistic nature of nonprofits globally. This was also an area we polled in the SONI, asking organizations how they expected total income to change from 2009 to 2010. Almost all participants across Europe stated that they expected fundraising revenue to increase, with France being the most optimistic about 2010. Investments were also up, with 61 percent of U.K. organizations seeing an increase in 2010.
One of the most obvious differences between Europe and the U.S., for example, is the different focus between recurring giving and major giving. Almost all survey participants in Europe stressed the importance of sustainer or monthly giving programs, while the results for North America remained flat. In fact, the U.S. has never truly adopted recurring-giving programs on mass, which, as a British person living in the U.S., I find interesting and a significant opportunity. A recent report by Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, measured the results of monthly giving programs for more than 15 large U.S.-based organizations and found some telling trends:
- monthly donors tend to be younger than those that give single gifts;
- recurring donors have much higher retention rates; and
- monthly donations are less likely to be affected by economic downturns.
Not only are these recurring-gift programs an excellent source of mostly unrestricted, recurring revenue, but they also provide a huge pool of committed and loyal supporters who might make for excellent major- or planned-gift prospects.
The way European organizations acquire these monthly donors is also an interesting difference between our two continents. Face-to-face fundraising is still a huge method in Europe, where a fundraiser or canvasser stands on the street soliciting monthly donations from passers-by. The U.K.-based Third Sector publication estimates that approximately 700,000 donors signed up by this method in 2009. Clearly this form of acquisition is not common in the U.S., and many organizations would, I’m sure, claim that it would not work in the U.S.
