News/Stats/Studies

Oasis Center and Stars Nashville both work with troubled youths, so on one level the two Nashville charities are natural competitors. But they are also collaborators. The two organizations jointly raised $8-million for the facility that they share, and they have deepened their bonds since moving into the building in February 2009.

The partnership between the charities exemplifies a trend that the Bridge­span Group, a nonprofit consulting organization, noticed in its latest survey of how charity leaders have coped with the economic downturn and the tepid recovery.

Connected Texas released its first assessment of the broadband market in Texas, revealing that nearly all households in Bexar County have terrestrial broadband service availability. The nonprofit organization is working with various entities, including the Texas Department of Agriculture, to increase the availability of terrestrial broadband in Texas. Bexar County ranked among the more connected counties with 99.94 percent of households able to get broadband service with speeds faster than 768 Kbps and 99.93 percent having access to service with speeds at least 3 Mbps.

Bill Gates, the college dropout who started the world's richest charitable fund, said needy people depend on self-made millionaires and billionaires to donate money before passing their wealth on to less-generous heirs.

"Our experience worldwide is that first-generation wealth is actually more generous than dynastic wealth," Gates, the richest American, said Thursday in a news conference in New Delhi. "Both here in India and U.S. and other countries, the biggest givers are those who are receivers of first-generation wealth."

A majority of charities surveyed saw their fundraising revenue remain stable or increase last year, according to the 2010 Year-End Survey of the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC), a coalition of six fundraising and philanthropic organizations. The survey also showed that strong fundraising results were more likely when organizations invested resources in fundraising staff and infrastructure, including volunteer management.

Fewer charities reported declines in fundraising last year compared with 2009. But a larger percentage of organizations reported bringing in about the same amount of revenue both years, says the report by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative, a coalition of six organizations that focus on philanthropy.

Just over half (52%) said they met fundraising goals, about the same (53%) as in a similar 2009 survey conducted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, a member of the collaborative.

Twenty of the top 30 fundraising races, walks and other endurance events increased donations last year, a big change from 2009 when 20 such events lost money, according to the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council’s fifth annual study.

Overall, the 30 fundraising events produced $1.65-billion in revenue in 2010. That was an increase of 1.6 percent, or $25.9-million, from the year before.

America's nonprofits are expecting 2011 to be another tough year for their organizations, and for the people they serve, according to a survey released today by Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. The survey of more than 1,900 nonprofit leaders in markets nationwide found that while there are some signs of hope, many nonprofits are straining under year-after-year increases in the demand for services.

On Monday, fundraising technology provider Convio released its 2011 Online Nonprofit Benchmark Study. FundRaising Success spoke with Dennis McCarthy, vice president of strategy and business practice at Convio, and consultant Andy Prince about the key findings from the study and what they mean for fundraisers.

Convio today released the results of its annual Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study. The results of the study indicate that online is the fastest growing fundraising channel for nonprofits. In 2010, Convio’s clients raised more than $1.3 billion online, up 40 percent from 2009. The study shows that online engagement continues to play a crucial role for nonprofits: online legislative advocates grew 20 percent, email files continued to grow at a median 22 percent across all sectors and gift sizes increased in 2010.

In an effort to increase private funding to address social problems, a fledgling philanthropic concept that involves investing in programs that produce results is being studied in the U.S.

With a $400,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Nonprofit Finance Fund will study the feasibility of bringing "social-impact bonds" to the United States.

With social-impact bonds, first used in Britain, goals for desires social outcomes are set for proposed programs, which are funded by private investors who bear the risk for the effort's success or failure.