“Charitable giving has recovered from the recession, but year-over-year growth rates are showing signs of slowing.”

That’s the conclusion of Blackbaud’s just released Charitable Giving Report: How Nonprofit Fundraising Performed in 2015. You’ll want to download your free copy.

The 2015 Report, edited by Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Analytics at Blackbaud covers $18.2 billion in giving data (including analysis of $2.2 billion in online giving) from 5,379 nonprofit organizations, large and small, and ranging across key segments.

A quick summary:

• Overall charitable giving in the U.S. increased 1.6% in the U.S. and 1% in Canada.

• Online giving jumped 9.2% in 2015 compared to 2014; ; 6.1% in Canada.

• Overall large organizations grew by 1.4%, medium-sized declined 0.7%, and small organizations grew 5.5% compared to results in 2014.

• In terms of online giving (part of the overall giving cited above) the share of digital fundraising grew substantially. Large organizations showed growth of 9.6%, medium-sized by 9.1% and small nonprofits by 8.3% on a year over year basis.

The Report notes that mobile giving reached a tipping point in 2015 with nearly 14% of online transactions made using a mobile device, increasing to 17% for #Giving Tuesday.

Importantly, the report notes: “We are now past the mobile tipping point when it comes to digital giving. Consumer behavior and donor behavior are inextricably linked as we move into the future of giving. [Emphasis mine] Nonprofits must continue to invest and perfect how they engage donors using the right channel on the right device at the right time.”

Agitator readers wishing to benchmark their organizations’ performance compared to others in their sector will want to review Pages 4-5 charting both overall and online giving trends.

Steve notes that the increase you see in the chart for giving to International Affairs organizations actually went from a decline in 2014 to the largest growth percentage of any sector in 2015. This spike was “primarily diven by the episodic giving pattern with donors who supported …”the Gorkha earthquake in Nepal and the disasters caused by Tyhoon Komen in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India and flooding in Malawi, Mozambique and India.

Whether you’re interested in online giving or more traditional channels the Report is packed with interesting and informative goodies. Download it today and put it in your weekend reading file.

AND…if you want to benchmark your organization and compare your performance by size and sector visit Blackbaud’s free, online Index Calculator. The comparative data is updated monthly.

I asked Steve, who along with Chuck Longfield and Jim O’Shaughnessy, have labored year after year to bring us these reports, what special insights this one had produced?

His insights are worth noting:

• “Fundraising continues to grow, but we’re leveling out to pre-Recession growth rates.

• “Giving on mobile devices has reached a tipping point and will only increase.

• “Consumer behavior is (or always was) becoming donor behavior:

• “People are always surprised to learn that online giving is less than 10% of all giving and has remained at that level for 20 years.

• “This actually mirrors what we see in online retail sales where 7.4% of retail sales happen online (Department of Commerce) and 7.1% of giving happens online (Blackbaud).”

How are you doing against these benchmarks?

Better yet please share with us how you use benchmarks to improve results?

Roger