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Accounting

Charitable Donations Increase by Most Since Great Recession

A new analysis of how Americans and Canadians donate to nonprofit organizations shows the greatest overall increase since 2008.

Oct. 01, 2014

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A new analysis of how Americans and Canadians donate to nonprofit organizations shows the greatest overall increase since 2008. The Blackbaud Index reported that overall charitable giving to nonprofits increased 4.0% and online giving increased 12.7% for the three months ending August 2014 as compared to the same period in 2013.

As reported in the Charitable Giving Report, overall charitable giving grew 4.9% and online giving grew 13.5% for the full year 2013 compared to the full year 2012.

  • Overall charitable giving grew 4.9% in 2013, while online giving grew 13.5%.
  • Online giving accounted for 6.4% of all charitable giving in 2013.
  • Large organizations had the greatest increase in overall charitable giving, while small nonprofits grew their online giving the most.
  • International affairs organizations grew the most in overall charitable giving, while faith-based nonprofits had the biggest increase in online giving.
  • More than one-third of overall charitable giving happens in the last three months of the year, with the highest percentage coming in December.

The Blackbaud Index provides the most up-to-date information on charitable giving today. Tracking more than $14 billion in US-based charitable giving, the Index is updated on the first of each month (or the next business day) and is based on a three-month moving average of year-over-year percent change. Featuring overall and online giving, the Index can be viewed by size and subsets of the nonprofit industry via an interactive online chart. The Index now features a fundraising benchmark calculator that allows users to easily chart their own results against the Index and historical data to provide a fuller view of charitable giving.

In addition, The Blackbaud Index Canada, which tracks charitable giving to the Canadian nonprofit sector, today reported overall charitable giving increased 1.1% and online giving increased 13.7% for the three months ending August 2014. The Canadian Index draws its data from 329 organizations that raise more than $800 million a year and can be accessed at www.blackbaud.ca/blackbaudindex.

The full Blackbaud findings can be viewed online.