The number of donors hit a new high in the first quarter of 2021, according to a new analysis from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, a research effort of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday. Researchers estimated a 10 percent increase in donors during the first three months of 2021 compared with the same time last year. The share of first-time givers increased 3 percent from the same period last year.
Coupled with the increased number of new 2020 donors who made repeat gifts in 2021, all donors continued to give more — surpassing 2020’s first-quarter giving by an estimated 6 percent.
However, the picture is not all rosy, noted Jon Biedermann, chair of the research project. “The overall growth is real, but this doesn’t reflect the typical organization’s experience during this turbulent time,” he said. That’s likely due to huge gifts for certain causes — particularly human services — that outweighed revenue losses at other kinds of groups.
“Depending on how long the pandemic lasts, this imbalance in funding could continue and have a significant, long-lasting impact on the sector,” Biedermann said.
The report analyzed how 2.5 million donors contributed $1.9 billion to 9,561 nonprofits from January 1 to March 31. The researchers studied organizations that raise $5,000 to $25 million from individual contributors.
Many of these gifts were from new supporters. The analysis shows a jump in donors who gave their first gift to a nonprofit in 2020 and another gift in the first three months of 2021. That share rose 13.6 percent compared with 2019 first-time donors who gave again 2020.
The report identified uneven giving by cause — similar to what “Giving USA” noted in its recent report. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project found that dollars raised by human-service groups grew by an average of just over 11 percent from January 1 to March 31. Gifts to environmental and animal charities increased by an average of nearly 4 percent during that period. All other causes — arts, education, health, international aid, and religion — saw their median dollars raised fall in the first quarter of 2021. International aid groups felt the tightest squeeze, with donations shrinking by just over 20 percent.
The researchers note a considerable year-over-year spike — more than 221 percent — in organizations that have not yet shared their fundraising data for the first three months of the year. There is often a lag in data reporting, and researchers say the year-over-year differences in first-quarter 2021 data reporting is driven by the fact that by now most organizations have submitted their first-quarter 2020 data. Thus far, the data show a nearly 5 percent decrease in funds raised during the first three months of 2021 compared with that period of 2020. Modeling from historical data, however, researchers estimate that the complete data set will actually show a 6 percent increase in funds raised during that time.
In addition to changes in overall giving, the report examines fluctuations in gifts of various sizes. Donors made more smaller contributions in the first quarter, while bigger gifts decreased compared with the same period in 2020. But those smaller contributions of $500 or less represent just over 12 percent of all giving during the first three months of the year.
Major gifts of $5,001 to $50,000, meanwhile, represent more than a quarter of all funds given during that time. These contributions fell nearly 8 percent compared with the same period of 2020. Donations of at least $50,000 dropped 3.5 percent from 2020 levels. Those contributions amount to slightly more than 46 percent of all dollars given.
