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April 14, 2009

Direct-Response Appeals Suffer in the Recession

Gifts to 75 of the nation’s largest charities dropped last year, a result of the recession and a three-year decline in the number of people who give in response to direct-mail solicitations, online appeals, and telemarketing, according to a new survey.

Total contributions fell by a median of 3.3 percent in 2008, after increasing by approximately the same amount in 2007, for organizations in the survey, which was conducted by Target Analytics, the research division of the software company Blackbaud.

And by every other fund-raising measure in the survey, charities did worse last year than in 2007. The number of new donors they were able to recruit, for example, fell by a median 6.9 percent, on top of a 4.4 percent decline in 2007.

Target officials attributed the decline in new donors as a key reason behind a slump in the number of donors reported by organizations in the survey. Over the past five years, since 2003, the ability of charities in the survey to recruit new donors has declined by a median 16.7 percent, while the total number of donors reported by the organizations dropped by a median 5.2 percent.

Is your organization having a harder time recruiting donors these days? Use the comment box below to share your experiences.

— Holly Hall

Tuesday April 14, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

1. You should also check out the Convio Benchmark study that looked at close to 600 nonprofit organizations’ online marketing results and compiled benchmarks for evaluating fundraising, email, advocacy, and marketing success online.

   — Allyson Kapin    Apr 15, 02:17 PM    #

Commenting is closed for this article.

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