The height of the coronavirus pandemic era saw a jump in charitable giving, followed by a slip in donations. In 2023, a five-year trend of ups and downs stabilized, according to research from the Blackbaud Institute. Blackbaud Institute is the research and education arm of Blackbaud, the business software and solutions provider for nonprofits.
The Institute’s analysis examined receipts from more than 5,000 organizations within Blackbaud’s client roster. These entities experienced a 0.2% decline in receipts during 2023, the lowest year-over-year change in receipts in five years. In 2019, clients experienced a 1% increase, followed by a 2% increase in 2020, an 8.9% jump in 2021 (the first full year of pandemic-era giving, when consumer travel and entertainment options were limited, social justice concerns received a lot of media attention and general nonprofit struggles came to the forefront) and a 2.4% correction from the highs of 2021.
During the five-year period, overall giving grew by a compound annual growth rate of 1.79%.
“Giving in 2020 and 2021 was well-recognized by industry experts at the time as exceptional, driven by historic cultural changes,” report authors wrote. “What was unknown was whether these increased levels would stay. The intervening years have shown that this generosity is durable, and today’s giving levels remain well above their pre-pandemic norms.”
The spread of largesse in 2023 was not evenly distributed. Environmental organizations saw the biggest gains, with 3.8% growth in receipts, followed by animal welfare organizations (up 1.4%) and medical research organizations (up 1.3%). Referencing the gains by environmental organizations, report authors wrote “Contributing factors may include response to extreme weather events and environmental disasters such as the Maui wildfires in August of 2023.”
Online giving, which focuses on a greater range of smaller gifts as opposed to the curating that major donations requires, experienced a year-over-year boost between 2022 and 2023. Donations through this channel jumped from 8% of all giving during 2022 to 12% in 2023. That said, the total amount given through online channels remained stable. Report authors speculated that the growth in small online donations may partly be the result of lower-wealth Generation Z funders coming online.
If smaller donors were giving, smaller nonprofits were receiving. Organizations with total revenue less than $1 million reported 17% of their donations coming from online channels, with an overall uptick in receipts of 1.5%. In comparison, online giving made up 10% of receipts among medium-sized organizations and 12.5% within large nonprofits.
Among organizations experiencing increases in online receipts, higher education nonprofits saw the biggest jump, with 5.4% gains between 2022 and 2023, followed by arts and cultural organizations (5.2%) and healthcare organizations (2.8%).
The full report is available here: https://institute.blackbaud.com/asset/2023-trends-in-giving-spotlight
