Quarterly Fundraising Report™

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

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Donors: The number of people who have made a donation so far this year
Dollars: The amount of money raised by people making a donation so far this year
Retention: The percentage of people who have been retained from previous years so far this year

Key Insights

Q3 2024 saw a 0.9% increase in dollars raised, marking a deceleration in the growth of fundraising dollars observed in previous quarters of 2024. For metrics related to participation, declines in the numbers of donors (-5.3%) and in donor retention (-4.6%) were observed, indicating a need for the sector to focus on increasing engagement and retention ahead of year-end.
The decline in donor numbers is largely driven by low participation from the smallest donor size group (under $100), which saw an -12.4% year-over-year (YOY) decrease, and a lack of activation of new donors, who experienced an -11.5% YOY decrease. This underscores the need to incorporate small donor acquisition and retention into wider fundraising strategies.
2024 marks the fourth consecutive year that retention rate has declined YOY in Q3, with only 13.8% of new donors retained year to date. The drop was most pronounced among smaller donor segments ($1-$100, $101-$500 and $501-$5000), underscoring the need for more effective retention strategies.


DONORS -5.3% (+/- 3.5%) YOY change	DOLLARS +0.9% (+/- 3.0%) YOY change	RETENTION -4.6% (+/- 0.5%) YOY change

In this report, we compare data compiled from previous years to 2024. All metrics are computed up to Q3 (from January of a given year to the end of September of the same year).

Current Dataset

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Limitations

Data in our panel is limited to organizations with >=3 years of data, with $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database.
Data is weighted across size of organization as determined by amount fundraised, including organizations raising between $5K - $25M.
Data is also weighted by NTEE (National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities) codes utilized by the IRS to determine organization type and/or cause.
A significant amount of data arrives late, so we estimate the difference for top-line metrics by reviewing historical patterns of delayed data. Throughout this report, ranges for each metric express uncertainty in the estimates. However, the subsequent splits (such as donors by donor size) are not adjusted and therefore may not reflect the macro trends seen in the topline figures reported on page 1.


DONORS 4.4M in 2024	DOLLARS $6.4B in 2024	ORGANIZATIONS 12,394 in 2024

Revenue and retention metrics report on year-to-date (YTD) performance compared against the prior year total, based on a panel* of organizations selected from the Growth in Giving Database of 400 million transactions from more than 38,000 organizations since 2005.

Donors: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Definitions ✖ Overall rate of growth in donors: net of gains minus losses in number of donors from last year to this year divided by total number of donors up to this time last year.
Key Insights

After accounting for late data, we estimate that donor count has decreased by -5.3% (±3.5%) in Q3 2024. This quarter marks the fourth consecutive year of declining donor numbers in Q3, underscoring the ongoing challenge of engaging donors ahead of year-end.

		Following the trend observed earlier in the year in 2024, the decline in donor numbers intensified in Q3, mirroring what was observed in 2023 in the run up to year-end.

NOTE: The panel for each year differs based on our panel rules (stable organizations over the past 3 years w/ $5K - $25M received in the prior year, via the Growth in Giving database). This ensures consistent historical data & avoids biasing past results by filtering on future data.

Donors by Life Cycle

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Definitions

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Donor Life Cycle: the grouping of donors based on when they were last seen in the dataset

Key Insights

The number of donors has decreased across every segment of the donor life cycle. Similar to Q3 2023, new and new-retained donors saw the largest declines in donor numbers, with decreases of -11.5% and -13.2%, respectively. However, the magnitude of these drops was smaller in 2024 compared to the previous year, suggesting that the decline is potentially stabilizing.
Repeat retained donors, the most consistently engaged group, experienced the smallest year-over-year decrease at -7.8% in Q3 2024. Despite this, as they account for 40.1% of the donor base, they contributed to roughly a third of the overall decline in donor numbers.


NEW DONORS -11.5% YOY Change	NEW RETAINED DONORS -13.2% YOY Change	REPEAT RETAINED DONORS -7.8% YOY Change	RECAPTURED DONORS -8.6% YOY Change
37.5% % of total donors	8.8% % of total donors	40.1% % of total donors	13.5% % of total donors

NEW DONORS - never gave to this organization before.
NEW RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but never before.
REPEAT RETAINED DONORS - gave last year to the organization, but not for the first time.
RECAPTURED DONORS - did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past.

Dollars: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Definitions ✖ Overall rate of growth in dollars: net of gains minus losses in money from fundraising from last year to this year divided by total dollars raised up to this time last year
Key Insights

After adjusting for late data, we estimate that dollars have increased by 0.9% (±3.0%) compared to Q3 2023. This increase in dollars fundraised for Q3 2024 reverses the decline observed in Q3 2023, as shown on the graph to the right.

		On a monthly basis, the YOY decline in dollars for Q3 2024 follows a trend similar to that of Q3 2023.

Dollars by Donor Size

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Definitions

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Dollars by donor size: the segmentation of dollars based on the size of an individuals total contributions, year-to-date

Key Insights

Micro donors, who comprise over half of all donors, contribute just 1.8% of the total dollars raised.
This segment experienced the largest year-over-year decline in donor count at -12.4%. Similarly,
the total amount they donated decreased by -12.6%.
Donations made by supersize donors, who provide more than 50% of total dollars raised, declined by
-5.5%.


MICRO ($1 - $100) -12.6% YOY Change	SMALL ($101 - $500) -7.9% YOY Change	MIDSIZE ($501 - $5K) -6.0% YOY Change	MAJOR ($5K - $50K) -4.4% YOY Change	SUPERSIZE ($50K+) -5.5% YOY Change
1.8% % of total dollars	5.2% % of total dollars	16.0% % of total dollars	24.7% % of total dollars	52.3% % of total dollars

Donor size is computed on a donor’s total year-to-date dollars given.

Retention Rate: Time Series

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Insights

Retention rate is down -4.6% (±0.5%) YOY after adjusting for late-arriving data. Q3 2024 marks the fourth consecutive year where overall donor retention rate has decreased YOY. Although the decline in retention has been decreasing in magnitude over the past three years, Q3 2024 marks a reversal of this trend, underscoring continued difficulty in re-engaging past donors in this quarter.

		Retention has continued its downward trend through Q3, hitting a new low in September 2024 with a decline of -5.6%.

RETENTION - Retention is computed year-to-date. It represents – out of the people who donated last year – the ratio of people who donated again this year year-to-date.

Retention Rate: Donor Type

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Insights

New donor retention declined significantly by -9.0% year-over-year, with only 13.8% of new donors retained year-to-date. This underscores the persistent challenge of engaging and retaining first-time donors.
Repeat donor retention decreased by 4.6%, but at 50.3% year-to-date, it remains significantly higher than retention rates for new and recaptured donors. This suggests that repeat donors are still more likely to give again compared to other groups.
We are removing the recapture rate from this iteration of the report as we undergo a methodological review of this metric.


NEW DONOR RETENTION RATE -9.0% YOY Change	REPEAT DONOR RETENTION RATE -4.6% YOY Change	RECAPTURE RATE -- YOY Change
13.8% retained YTD	50.3% retained YTD	-- retained YTD

NEW DONORS - Never gave to this organization before.
REPEAT DONORS - Donors who gave last year to the organization, and were not new last year.
RECAPTURED DONORS - Donors who did not give last year to the organization, but had given in the past.

Organization Size Impact: Splits

Year-to-Date Nonprofit Sector Trends
Q3 2024 (JAN 1, 2024 - SEP 30, 2024)

Key Insights

Both the smallest organizations (<= $100k) and medium-sized organizations ($250k-$1M) saw their fundraising performance improve compared to Q3 2023.
In Q3 2024, dollars declined by 10.3% for the largest organizations ($5M–$25M) and 5.2% for small-sized organizations ($100K–$250K). This marks an increased decline compared to Q3 2023, when the decrease was 9.9% and 1.5% for the largest and small-sized organizations, respectively.
Although the smallest organizations experienced a notable increase in total dollars raised, this trend appears to be driven by a few positive outliers. In contrast, the median organization within this segment experienced a -2.8% decline in fundraising. This is likely due to the segment's small size (2.1% of total dollars) making this group particularly susceptible to the influence of outliers.

% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEAN) - Year-over-year dollar growth for organizations, grouped by an organization's budget size. Trends in the mean are more informative of the sector as a whole.

% DOLLAR GROWTH (MEDIAN) - The median year-over-year dollar growth for organizations, grouped by an organization's budget size. Trends in the median are more indicative of a typical organization's fundraising experience.

FUNDRAISING EFFECTIVENESS PROJECT

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) delivers trusted data insights that help fundraisers improve their outcomes, driving growth and increasing generosity across the nonprofit sector. We envision a sector where actionable data guides every fundraiser’s decisions, helping nonprofits become more effective and adaptive. Since its founding in 2006, FEP has become a leading resource for data-driven insights. FEP is a collaborative project of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday.

METHODOLOGY

We removed organizations that did not have a minimum of 25 donations and $5,000 in revenue in each of the previous three years. We removed organizations at either tail of the revenue growth curve. If revenue growth was more than 300% or less than -66% in any of the past three years, organizations were removed. We also excluded individual contributions above $10M. We weighted our data by organization size and NTEE major group to make it reflective of 2018 IRS filers in the $5K - $25M range of contributions. In 2018, there were 222K IRS filers in this contributions range and passing our growth and size filters, making this report representative of 3.9% of the total relevant filers. Details regarding estimation methodology for late reported data can be found here.

ORGANIZING SPONSORS


DATA PROVIDERS The FEP wouldn't be possible without data. These software providers make the collection of data in support of the project possible.




DATA REPORTING The FEP wouldn't be possible without data analysis and additional support provided by Bonterra.