A new study from Target Analytics, Index of National Fundraising Performance - Fourth quarter of 2008 (PDF), has the bad news:
- Fundraising revenue (among study participants) is down 3.3%.
- The number of new donors down 6.9% (and that's more worrisome because that's future revenue not to be had).
- 63% of organizations in study had lower revenue.
- The fundraising sector that's down the most is health charities, with revenue down 7.2%, number of new donors down 11.3%, and 78% of the health organizations in the survey experiencing a drop.
- Two sectors are up: animal welfare (up 5.1%) and international relief (up 1.1%).
But to me, the big surprise to me is that the human services sector is down 3.4%. In a down economy, when the very situations these organizations are built to help change are everywhere and top of mind, why are they raising less money?
Several of our Merkle clients in that sector are seeing their best fundraising in recent memory, and none in that sector are down.
Now it could be the quality of their fundraising counsel (ahem), but it's also because their message resonates more than ever during hard times. We're just working to bring fundraising and reality together -- and it works.
Fundraisers in the human services sector should not be down! (Even if they don't work with Merkle!)
My only explanation (which I can't prove): Too many of them lack relevance. They're doing the same old fundraising they always do. They aren't responding to the recession, so they aren't calling on donors to respond. Maybe they're following the old "Don't Admit There's a Problem" myth.
Whatever the case, the path to success is to be real. Whatever sector you're in.
Technorati Tag: fundraising
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