Charitable Giving Trends 2021 - 2022 | Nonprofit Fundraising - YouTube

Charitable giving and donor behavior has changed  significantly over the past one to two years,  

with some pretty big implications for non-profit  fundraising. So if you are starting a non-profit,  

or leading a non-profit, or fundraising for a  non-profit, it's really important for you to be  

on top of these charitable giving trends so  that you can adjust your non-profit fundraising  

strategy as needed in order to succeed. So in this  video, I'm going to talk through five of those  

charitable giving trends from recent reports to  help you think through your nonprofit fundraising  

strategy for the next couple of years. Welcome!  If we haven't met yet, my name is Amber Melanie  

Smith and I am a non-profit founder and executive  director. I've been doing fundraising for many  

years and growing my organization from zero so I  have really tried to stay on top of these trends  

and pay attention to things that might impact my  fundraising efforts and the fundraising efforts of  

other nonprofits that I care about. I hope that  you find this video helpful - don't forget to  

give it a like and subscribe to my channel for  more content all about starting a non-profit,  

fundraising, creating a social impact through  social entrepreneurship and other types of  

projects and just making a difference in the  world! And as always if you're looking for more  

support or want to learn more about me check out  my website, FounderToFullTime.com. So charitable  

giving and how when and why donors might choose  to give their money to a particular cause  

naturally evolves over time but just like the  COVID-19 pandemic has affected everything else,  

the pandemic has accelerated some of the  charitable giving trends and caused some  

interesting changes in other donor behavior. So  we're going to talk about that. So these five  

trends I'm going to talk about have really emerged  and accelerated just over the past one or two  

years during the COVID-19 pandemic and I'm going  to talk for each of them about what that trend is,  

and also its implications and its impacts on  your fundraising. All right let's jump in.  

Trend number one probably won't surprise you that  much but it is that a non-profit's online presence  

is even more important than it was before. I mean  it's 2021, so having the basics like a website a  

social media presence etc. are must-haves for  all organizations at this point in order to get  

discovered and for donors and supporters to engage  with you. It's just you just have to have it at  

this point but because in 2020 and 2021 people  started doing things more virtually and remotely  

including looking up non-profit information this  online presence for a non-profit just increased  

in value according to Fidelity Charitable's 2021  Future of Philanthropy report 57 of people made  

their donations through the organization's website  in the past couple of years so i found myself not  

actually too surprised by that that number that  57 of people donating through a nonprofit's  

website but what the part that actually  surprised me was the stat that came after that  

which was that 18 of the donors that were  surveyed as part of this report so that that was  

more often than they ever had before the pandemic  so people's behavior is increasingly moving  

online and through non-profits website  is where those donations are being made  

couple of other notable statistics from this  research 33 percent of donors used online  

resources to research a non-profit before deciding  to make a donation and 19 of those surveyed also  

shared a non-profit's posts on social media so  here are the implications for your non-profit  

fundraising efforts number one hopefully pretty  obviously you need to make sure that your website  

is not just attractively designed but also  really easy to navigate especially the pages  

that facilitate donations you can frustrate  a donor to the point where they will just not  

make a donation even if they had already landed  on your donation page if your donation page is  

too complicated to understand or use or does not  function properly the second thing you want to do  

to make sure that you are staying ahead of  this trend is there are websites out there  

that review non-profits like charity navigator  or guide star that provide information about  

non-profit organizations to the public you want  to make sure that your nonprofit's profiles  

on those websites are up to date and accurate and  have the latest compelling inspiring and wonderful  

information about your cause possible because  people are looking up your organization on those  

sites so you want to make sure it represents who  you are and what you do to the in the best way  

possible and the third part is also probably  pretty obvious but you want to make sure that  

you're keeping your social media pages up to date  and posting to at least some degree of frequency  

make sure that your posts are engaging and  interesting with decent quality photos and  

things that are personal tell a lot of stories  and share your impacts and offer opportunities  

for people to comment and engage with your posts  all right so trend number two is that the issues  

that donors care most about supporting are  evolving according to this same report fidelity's  

report on the future philanthropy the specific  issue areas and global issues and community issues  

that donors are prioritizing to give their money  to has shifted over the past couple of years one  

interesting point that this report makes is that  one of the issues that has consistently remained  

high in priorities for donors is this issue  area of basic needs that is housing food hunger  

shelter clothing etc so your basic needs as a  human being this has always been ranked highly  

and is pretty consistently so and the report makes  the point that many of the issues that donors  

face or are asked to support are very very  complicated basic needs is pretty simple pretty  

cut and dry so what we can possibly glean  from that is that the easier to understand  

that your issue is is the more likely your issue  might get support what's really interesting and  

i'll show you the the graph the chart that  they had in the report here in a second  

was that they tracked the trends on how donors  priorities shifted over like five or six different  

key areas over the past couple of years so the  issues that donors said were less of a priority  

since the pandemic started and those that became  more of a priority to them so let's take a look at  

that according to their findings between 2020 and  2021 donors dramatically shifted their interest  

in five major areas that's they prioritized  hunger economic development and racial  

discrimination these became higher priorities for  donors and treatment of cures and diseases and  

clean water and sanitation actually decreased in  prioritization by donors all right so what does  

this information mean for non-profit fundraisers  okay so if your nonprofit is already working  

on one of the issues i mentioned that donors are  increasingly prioritizing then keep at it keep  

sharing your stories showcasing the impacts  of your organization and also see if there  

are opportunities to invest in your organization's  capacity and infrastructure so that you can grow  

and also become stronger as an organization  if in the future donors de-prioritize  

these issues if your non-profit is working on  one of the issues that donors prioritization  

has remained steady in or has even decreased  don't get discouraged the issues that are more  

prevalent and frequently discussed in the media  tend to be the ones that people gravitate towards  

supporting in a given year so here's my advice to  you if you're in this situation whenever possible  

engage your public and talk to the media about how  the issue that you are tackling as a non-profit  

actually impacts one or more of those other issues  that is getting more attention right now we know  

that no social issue exists in asylum things  are highly highly interconnected for example  

if your non-profit is tackling that issue of  clean water and sanitation one of the ones that  

donors deprioritized for support over the past  couple of years then talk about how that issue  

is also intertwined with and affected by and  affects the issues that they prioritize such as  

economic development and food insecurity  these things are all connected to each other  

and another piece of advice that you'll probably  hear me repeating several times because it's just  

so true and helpful and that is to become really  good storytellers of showcasing your impacts and  

the stories of the peoples whose lives you're  transforming as an organization in the work  

that you're doing trend number three surprised  me a little bit and that is that despite the  

digital age that we live in word of mouth is  still a really really important marketing tool  

while obviously a strong online presence and  social media is really important word of mouth  

or hearing about a cause from someone you know or  a friend is still one of the biggest ways people  

find out about your organization and might  choose to support it according to classes  

why america gives 2021 report 67 percent of donors  are likely to find new causes to support based on  

the recommendations of friends and family and  this has always made some amount of sense to me  

people trust other people with whom they have  relationships so even when you're thinking of  

you know what plumber to use or um what item  to buy you might trust the recommendation of  

a friend more than you might even trust your own  research online so social capital you know people  

talking to each other and those relationships  have a strong impact on who gets some support  

from um from donors and so you really want to  kind of be aware of that and see what you can do  

about it to encourage people to spread the word  to their friends so here is what you do here is  

the implication for nonprofit fundraising  you have to make sure that interactions  

with your organization and experiences  that people have with your organization  

are positive you're giving them a so to speak good  customer service experience people will remember  

how an interchange with your organization made  them feel and if it made them feel good they're  

going to tell their friends about it so what that  means is and i hope that you would do this anyway  

but you know um you want to just show extreme  kindness to everyone you interact with make  

sure that they feel welcomed included safe have  a great experience have fun if if that's possible  

and also you want to make sure that the messaging  that you share with them is easy to remember it's  

not too complicated because even if someone really  loves your organization and had a great experience  

with you if they can't remember how to explain  it to others that's going to be a barrier that  

might prevent them from telling someone about you  all right trend number four donors are interested  

in tracking results especially millennials  so according to fidelity's report donors are  

increasingly interested in seeing the specific  measurable results and impacts of the causes  

that they support and this is especially true of  millennials 66 of the people who identified as  

millennials infidelities survey said that tracking  results going back and looking at the results and  

the shared and published stories and impacts of a  non-profit that they supported is something that  

these donors did and we know that this is  increasing because 40 percent of gen x and  

32 of baby boomers said that they did this so it  seems to be something that the younger generations  

are interested in will be interested to see  you know what gen z is all about and if they  

you know follow the same pattern one comment the  report made that i found really interesting and  

i know rang true for me personally was that  donors especially younger donors today are  

viewing donations as investments in solving  a problem that they see in the world and  

i've always felt this way personally and i i feel  like that's how donations should be viewed i mean  

non-profits are charged with addressing a need and  tackling a problem and donations should help the  

organization be able to do that effectively and so  yeah i view donations as something that's like an  

investment and you the organization should be held  accountable for its impacts so what does this mean  

for non-profit fundraising efforts well hopefully  as an organization you're already tracking your  

results throughout the year you've put systems  and processes in place to understand how you are  

helping others and how many people or animals you  are helping so assuming you have all that in order  

your next step is to make sure that people know  about it make sure that you are showcasing those  

results up front on your website you're talking  about that them on social media you are making um  

you know you're you're creating stories and  content all about those impact so make those  

pieces of information easy to find and bonus  points if you can display that information in  

a visually appealing way like an infographic or a  cool video or some really high quality photography  

the fifth trend is that donations are more often  made through mobile devices classy says that of  

those donors who made online donations over half  58 of them did so through their mobile device  

this is pretty big and has some pretty practical  implications for non-profits and fundraising  

it means that you have to make sure that your  nonprofits website but especially the donation  

page is mobile friendly it's responsive and looks  good on a smartphone and if you're not sure if it  

is all you have to do is pick up your phone and  go to your organization's website and take a look  

at it is it attractive is it easy to use and  navigate is it responsive on the donation page  

are the fields where you would enter in the amount  you want to donate and your name and your credit  

card information all that are those easy to  use fields are they popping up in the correct  

spaces all of that good stuff so if it is not you  know that you have some work to do on that area  

another thing you can do is lean into this  trend and think of some creative ways that you  

could further engage donors through their mobile  device for example maybe you want to experiment  

with requesting donations via text so there are  lots of great platforms out there that can help  

facilitate this sometimes low cost or even free  so i'd love to hear what you think have you seen  

these trends in action have they been affecting  your non-profit and your fundraising efforts  

leave your thoughts in the comments below  especially if you have more ideas on how folks  

doing non-profit fundraising could capitalize on  these trends to have greater success we'd love  

to hear your ideas too share them in the comments  for the benefit of everyone watching a couple of  

resources i've got for you i mentioned my website  FounderToFullTime.com before be sure to check that  

if you are looking for some training or some help  i also have a newsletter for non-profit leaders  

and change makers of all kinds that i send out  around monthly the link to subscribe to that is  

in the comments uh comments and the description  in the video so check that out you can opt in and  

then opt out if you ever would like to do that um  finally i have a Facebook group, change the world  

or bust. We have over 2,000 people in there now  from all over the world literally who are working  

on their own social impact project many of them  starting a non-profit and we're just chatting  

in there and sharing tips and encouragement and  all that so come check that out it's change the  

world or bust that's all i have for today. i hope  to see you next time and have a great week, bye!