News/Stats/Studies

Overhead is a touchy subject for many nonprofits. Donors who want most or all of their contributions to support an organization's cause may be overly critical of administrative costs and other overhead. Nonprofits, in turn, often feel pressured to keep overhead down and so may misrepresent those costs, reinforcing donors' unrealistic expectations.

Tom Tierney, chairman and co-founder of Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consultant to nonprofits, wrote "The Donor-Grantee Trap" with Richard Steele. Tierney spoke about how a "starvation cycle" is dangerous to charities and the people they serve.

The student-run nonprofit Elmseed Enterprise Fund clinched $25,000 last week after contacting panlists and engaging students outside of dining halls in pursuit of votes in a contest conducted by banking firm JPMorgan Chase.

Elmseed, which is run by Yale students and provides microcredit and consulting services to low-income entrepreneurs in the New Haven community, attained 1,757 votes from Facebook users over eight days to attain 28th place in the fourth Chase Community Giving contest, which awarded a total of $3 million to 100 U.S. nonprofits.

The nonprofit sector is big, getting bigger, and dominated by big organizations and the health and education fields, and it has been whipsawed by big swings in charitable giving over the past decade, a new report says.

The U.S. was home to more than 1.4 million nonprofits in 2010, up 19 percent from 1999, a total that included more than 1 million public charities, says the Nonprofit Sector in Brief, a highlight of trends from The Nonprofit Almanac 2011, which was prepared by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute.

Sage North America announced the results of its recently conducted Sage Nonprofit Insights, Q3 2011, survey of U.S. and Canadian nonprofit organizations, which focused on questions related to their year-end fundraising efforts.

According to the survey, organizations are generally optimistic about the final quarter of 2011, with a third (33%) saying they expect to raise more funds than they did in last year's final quarter.

The field of religious advocacy has mushroomed on Capitol Hill in recent decades, a new survey shows, with the number of groups growing fivefold since 1970 and hundreds of millions spent each year to influence issues from school vouchers and immigration to the right of women overseas to have abortions.

The report, released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, appears to be the most extensive research ever done on D.C.-based lobbyists and advocates on faith matters.

The survey identifies the work of 212 faith-oriented groups, which spend about $390 million per year.

Even as the nation weathers an economic downturn for a third straight holiday season, the majority of Americans are more committed than ever to charitable giving, according to a new American Red Cross poll.

A telephone survey of 1,020 adults conducted earlier this fall found that even though 67 percent of Americans didn’t think the economic downturn would last this long, they still want to give to charities, with more than seven out of 10 saying they expect to donate more or about the same this holiday season as they did last year.

The U.S. Postal Service ended its 2011 fiscal year with a net loss of $5.1 billion. The year-end loss would have been approximately $10.6 billion had it not been for passage of legislation that postponed a congressionally mandated payment of $5.5 billion to pre-fund retiree health benefits.

Total 2011 mail volume declined by 3 billion pieces, or 1.7 percent, from 2010. The Postal Service’s largest and most profitable product, First-Class Mail, continued its year-over-year decline, from $34.2 billion in 2010 to $32.2 billion in 2011 (5.8 percent).

Charity Dynamics announced the addition of nonprofit special event fundraising expert Cassidy Richards as a senior member of the company’s growing consulting practice. Richards joins the company from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, where she served for nearly five years, most recently in the position of national event director. With Crohn’s & Colitis, Richards led the launch of the Foundation’s highly-successful multi-affiliate fundraising walk campaign, Take Steps for Crohn’s & Colitis, which has raised more than $32 million since it launched four years ago.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) announced that cash charitable giving to ECFA members continues to be very strong, totaling $9.38 billion last year, a 5.8 percent increase from the 2009 level of $8.87 billion.

ECFA's second Annual State of Giving Report showed charitable contributions held up especially well among larger charities. Donations to ECFA-member organizations with more than $10 million in annual revenue increased 6.7 percent in 2010, compared with 2009, while organizations with less than $10 million in annual revenue increased 1.6 percent during the same span.

The White House and a coalition of nonprofits plan to start a new effort to improve the quality and diversity of nonprofit leaders following a daylong program in Washington, D.C.

The Initiative for Nonprofit Talent and Leadership will be led by Independent Sector in collaboration with the White House. Also among the sponsors are American Express, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Aspen Institute Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation, the Center for Creative Leadership, Commongood Careers, and Public Allies.