logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

About #GivingTuesday: Will Larger Trends Show Up as Reduced Community Revenue?

Ruth McCambridge
November 27, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
Are you putting all your eggs in one strange basket this #GivingTuesday?
“Putting all our eggs in one basket,” Jessie Pearl

As we head into #GivingTuesday, where modest donations in high volume are king, we are reflecting on a larger-donor dynamic that suggests a wait-and-see attitude toward predictions for more than 20-percent growth in overall fundraising for the day, at least as the event will be experienced in local communities. We would note that the daylong fundraising event will be spread across 50 countries this year, so readers should see our analysis as focused on our domestic scene.

There is good and bad news in the latest quarterly report from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP). While giving overall increased significantly over the third quarter of 2018, the number of households giving continues to trend downward; this is the result of increases in the dollar amounts of large gifts.

As readers may recall, NPQ noted this confluence of trends in an article by Dr. Patrick Rooney at the beginning of this year, and both components of the phenomenon appear to be becoming more extreme. This may place an event like #GivingTuesday, which depends upon smaller dollar donations for the most part, firmly in the crosshairs of these inequitable times.

Granted, FEP’s definition of a major gift is any donation of $1,000 or above, but that category increased over 2017, while revenue from general donors ($249 and under) and mid-level donors ($250–$999) still lags behind last year. The mean donation on Giving Tuesday in 2017 was $120.

“At this point, there’s one major reason giving is increasing, and that’s money raised from donors giving larger gifts,” said Elizabeth Boris, chair of the Growth in Giving Initiative. “We are concerned that we are seeing increases essentially from only one group of donors, and that the total number of donors continues to lag.”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

In line with the combined trend lines, the total number of donors has decreased by 4.3 percent in 2018 compared to the same period in 2017.

“What we’re trying to do with our Quarterly Reports is track the flow of giving and see if there are trends we can determine that will give us a sense of how giving will do overall,” said Boris. “However, there are a lot of factors that can influence giving, such as changes in the tax law, natural disasters, or even an important political election. While the number of people giving is lower in 2018 so far than it was in 2017, a strong fourth quarter can change everything. Even if we have a great #GivingTuesday and fourth quarter, though, the FEP wants to remind charities of the continuing long-term challenges we face, such as the slowly shrinking pool of donors.”

But how likely are nonprofits to see a comeback in a year where the tax incentive that sparks end-of-year giving has been removed for most donors, replaced by a higher standard deduction per the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017? According to the Detroit Free Press, about 46.5 million taxpayer households itemized deductions for 2017, “but that number is expected to drop to 18 million for 2018 returns—or about a bit more than 10 percent of individual returns, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.”

In recent years, charities have organized their fundraising campaigns to take place between Thanksgiving and Christmas, pushing for end-of-year gifts so donors can take advantage of charitable deductions. When that deadline no longer factors into when most people give, will the last month of the year be as lucrative as it has been in the recent past? Even at NPQ, which does not generally believe that donors are overwhelmingly influenced by tax breaks, we could imagine that the removal of the deadline will have some effect.

Higher-dollar donors will still be able to itemize charitable deductions, of course, and this may only worsen the existing dynamic of more large-dollar donations and fewer small-dollar ones. Predictions for 2018’s #GivingTuesday call for a 21-percent increase in overall revenue raised and an estimated total of $363 million. This would be a $63 million increase over 2017. Stranger things have definitely happened, and for those who have placed eggs in this fundraising basket, we wish you a very strange day indeed.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

More about: Featured ContentGiving Tuesdaymega-donorsPhilanthropyTrends

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Arab American Philanthropy
Tamara El-Khoury
The Nonprofit Sector and Social Change: A Conversation between Cyndi Suarez and Claire Dunning
Claire Dunning and Cyndi Suarez
Nonprofits as Battlegrounds for Democracy
Cyndi Suarez
Sankofa Philanthropy: Hip Hop’s Sixth Element
Jason Terrell
Why Social Change Films Matter
Cyndi Suarez and Saphia Suarez
Philanthropy Must Move from Charity to Solidarity
Son Chau

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Brown-skinned Arabic woman wearing a bowler hat and looking into the camera. She is standing in front of a bougainvillea plant.
Arab American Philanthropy
Tamara El-Khoury
The book "Nonprofit Neighborhoods" leaning against a wall
The Nonprofit Sector and Social Change: A Conversation...
Claire Dunning and Cyndi Suarez
Nonprofits as Battlegrounds for Democracy
Cyndi Suarez

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.