“Giving USA,” the annual study of private donations, is out this week with a tally of how much was raised last year. As has long been the case, individuals are responsible for a far bigger share of charitable contributions than foundations or corporations. Individuals provided three-quarters of all giving last year, counting charitable bequests.
To better understand what’s happening now, the Chronicle talked to more than two dozen fundraisers and philanthropy experts.
Here are some key trends in what individuals are doing and what they want from nonprofits:
The number of donors is declining, but the average gift size is rising in many cases. That’s the case at Joybound, a pet shelter in Northern California, says Lisa Moore, chief advancement officer.
Even though the slump in the number who give isn’t dramatic, the pattern is one the nonprofit wants to stem.
“That’s why we are working so diligently to expand our community engagement, our volunteer work, to get new audiences and new friends of the organization committed who, in turn, translate into future funders,” Moore says.
Some donors are shifting to causes that have suffered from federal policy shifts and spending cuts. “You might be a donor who’s passionate about animals,” says Susan Lee Vick, Joybound’s CEO. “But when our local food bank was defunded and you have to choose between children being fed or children having the benefits of the human-animal bond, you may redirect funding to make sure those kids go to bed with full tummies at night.”
Efforts to engage individuals are paying off. Compassion International had its best fundraising year ever in 2024, says Mark Hanlon, chief development officer. He noted that the group received some outlier gifts, but even taking those out, the organization had strong growth, which he attributed to the group’s ongoing engagement with donors.
Hanlon says that many of the group’s donors start off sponsoring children and then decide they want to do more. The organization works hard to steward those donors, reaching out regularly to chat and check in.
“Even somebody who gives $1,500 a year beyond their sponsorship giving, they’re getting some emails and they’re getting some phone calls from a midlevel relationship manager, just letting them know that we’re praying for them, letting them know what’s going on in the ministry,” Hanlon says. “It has been very, very effective as far as people feeling moved to give.”
To encourage more donor engagement, organizations should consider asking annual donors to move to a recurring gift, even in an economically uncertain period, says Kerry Watterson, CEO of the consulting firm Fundraising Well.
“Get them locked into a monthly gift. You can even ask them for a little bit more annually, broken down month-by-month,” Watterson says. ‘Say, ‘Hey, we’re being impacted by all the craziness in the world. We know that you are, too. We’d love for you to continue supporting us, and we’d like to make it easy. Can you shift from your annual contribution to a recurring monthly gift?’ They might fall into that ‘set it and forget it’ mentality around their philanthropy with you.”
Jitters about the economy are causing some donors to pause. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility, especially on financial markets,” says Una Osili, the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy scholar who oversees “Giving USA” and other research. “When you’re not sure exactly what’s happening and the news is changing, that sometimes leads to donors just being uncertain and not acting. Uncertainty can dampen giving.”
Year-end appeals will be crucial. Whether giving rises or falls in 2025 will depend on year-end fundraising. Osili notes that consumer confidence was high in 2024, and the markets performed well in the last quarter of the year. For 2025, that’s still unknown.
“We still have quite a lot of room because what happens at the end of the year is what really does end up affecting a lot of giving,” she says. “Whether it’s how financial markets perform towards the end of the year, the overall growth, what happens in the labor market and the housing market, all of those factors will come together.”
Many nonprofits are already thinking about how important their year-end campaigns will be, says Laura Fredricks, a fundraising consultant and author. She says her clients are nervous about what things will look like come fall.
“That’s why I’m saying, tell people where you’re at. And remind them, ‘We need you through the end of the year,’” Fredricks says. “Donors want to know where things stand. When they don’t know, they guess. And if they guess, that’s not where you want them to be.”
