The Fundraising Effectiveness Project

Helping nonprofits increase giving at a faster pace by providing critical tools for tracking and evaluating their annual growth in giving.

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Donor Retention and Acquisition Key Challenges for Social Sector in Q3 2023

(Posted by AFP Global | December 22, 2023)

Approaching year-end and a busy giving season, charitable giving trends demonstrated a persistent decline throughout 2023. According to FEP’s latest quarterly data, declining donors across all sizes and types presents a major hurdle for nonprofits. Through Q3 2023, donors decreased moderately and donor retention continued to slide, driving a slight decrease in fundraising dollars. While long-term repeat donors were the most stable group, a significant drop in new donor participation had a negative impact on overall trends. Read more.

Early 2023 Fundraising Results Reinforce Diverse Strategy Urgency

(Posted by AFP Global | August 9, 2023)

While large donors drove marginal growth in giving dollars throughout 2021 and much of 2022, their stability has begun to erode. According to FEP’s latest quarterly data, a decrease in donors and dollars given was evident across all donor types in Q1 2023, with major donors causing an outsized decline in dollars and donor retention. Paired with a sharp drop in dollars given by new donors, these outcomes set the stage for compounded challenges for the sector throughout 2023. Read more.

2022 Fundraising Showed Substantial Weakness Through Q4

(Posted by AFP Global | April 16, 2023) 

Despite donor counts falling in five out of the last six quarters, giving dollars had stubbornly hung on to marginal growth in Q2 and Q3 2022, largely driven by large donors. However, according to FEP’s latest quarterly data, the continuing decrease in donors of all types in Q4 was accompanied by a notable weakness in total dollars, suggesting the possibility of continued challenges in 2023, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) Fourth Quarter Fundraising Report. Read more.


Continued Consolidation in Q3 2022: Donors Down (-7.1%) But Dollars Up (4.7%) Yet Again

(Posted by AFP Global | January 12, 2023)

Charitable giving increased moderately in Q3 2022, but for the 4th time in the last 5 quarters total donors dropped significantly in Q3 2022. This suggests that while the decrease in donor numbers may undermine long-term resilience, large established donors offer some continuing stability and opportunity, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) Third Quarter Fundraising Report. Read more.


Donors Drop by 7% but Dollars Up 6.2%, Buoyed by Major Donors

(Posted by AFP Global | October 13, 2022)

U.S. charitable giving increased significantly in Q2 2022, but gains were accompanied by a continuing steep decline in donor acquisition and retention, particularly among new and newly retained donors, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) Second Quarter Fundraising Report. Read more.


COVID Era Fundraising Stalls as Donations Soften and Donors, Retention Rates Fall in First Quarter 2022

(Posted by AFP Global | July 12, 2022)

While fundraising in the United States increased by 2.2%, the donor pool continued to shrink, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) 2022 First Quarter Fundraising Report. Read more.


 

Want to learn more?  Please download the latest real time philanthropy reports from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project and GivingTuesday at https://afpglobal.org/fepreports.

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Who We Are

The lead sponsors of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project are the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy, and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute.

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What We Do

The goal of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) is to help nonprofit organizations increase giving at a faster pace. FEP pursues this goal by providing nonprofits with tools for tracking and evaluating their annual growth in giving.

Growth in giving is the net of gains in giving minus losses in giving. Nonprofits raise more money by investing more money in growth-oriented fundraising strategies that both increase gains and reduce losses. The FEP is focused on “effectiveness” (maximizing growth in giving) rather than “efficiency” (minimizing costs).

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How We Do It

FEP conducts an annual survey, provides useful growth in giving performance measurement tools and publishes gain(loss) statistics in quarterly and yearly reports through a partnership between AFP, #GivingTuesday, and participating donor software firms.

The FEP resources support growth-oriented fundraising programs. The goal of the Growth in Giving Initiative (GiG) is to help grow philanthropy’s share of the GDP. The GiG Initiative has emerged as a larger umbrella organization in conjunction with the creation of the new Growth in Giving Database and its enormous potential for research. We currently have more than 25,000 nonprofit organizations participating in this important effort, representing more than 125 million donation transactions.

Our partnership with GivingTuesday gives us additional data resources and broadens our audience to help grow giving.  Together, we co-produce the Quarterly Fundraising Report™, a deep dive into a wide variety of YTD fundraising metrics.

Questions? Please contact The Fundraising Effectiveness Project at fep@afpglobal.org

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