Most Charities Met Fundraising Goals in 2010

“Two-Thirds of Surveyed Charities Report Fundraising Results Held Steady or Improved in 2010”, according to a recent Foundation Center Press Release.

A majority of charities surveyed saw their fundraising revenue remain stable or increase last year, with those investing in fundraising staff and infrastructure more likely to have seen improvement, a new survey from the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC) finds.

Based on responses received from more than 1,800 organizations, the 2010 Nonprofit Fundraising Survey: Funds Raised in 2010 Compared with 2009 (47 pages, PDF) asked about the percentage of organizations that reached their campaign goals and the percentage that saw their fundraising revenues increase year over year. According to the survey, 52 percent of respondents met their fundraising goals in 2010, a decline of 1 percent compared to the results of a 2009 survey conducted by AFP; 43 percent said they raised more money in 2010, which was unchanged from the earlier AFP survey; and 24 percent said they raised about the same amount of money, up signficantly from 11 percent in 2009.

In another sign of an improving fundraising climate, the percentage of organizations that said they raised less dropped from 46 percent (at the end of 2009) to 33 percent (at the end of 2010). NRC is a group of intermediary organizations that includes the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Blackbaud, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, the Foundation Center, GuideStar, and the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics.

The survey also found that no single fundraising approach was more important than any other in determining an organization's overall fundraising success. On average, survey respondents used six of the ten listed fundraising approaches, an indication that nonprofits typically employ a mixture of tools to communicate their mission and generate revenue in support of that mission. As in previous years, survey participants also saw growth in online donations, although the amount raised through that channel remained relatively modest.

"While many organizations stopped the bleeding, giving simply didn't rebound like we thought it might, especially given the economic growth we saw in the last quarter of the year," said AFP president and CEO Paulette V. Maehara. "Despite the unexpectedly flat fundraising results that charities reported, the survey showed that success was more likely when organizations invested resources in fundraising staff and infrastructure, including volunteer management."