Online Giving Peaks Next Week
I hope you’re not giving your online fundraising team time off next week.*
As Stephanie Strom reported recently in the NYT, citing data from Convio, a phenomenal spike in online giving occurs at year-end … literally December 31st.
Here’s what she says …
"New data from Convio, a software company, shows that charitable donors that use Convio’s online giving systems made 13.2 times more gifts last Dec. 31 than the daily average for the rest of 2008, and that the charities raised 22.5 times more money than they did on an average day.
Convio … also found that in the last week of 2008, the average gift size was 57 percent larger than the weekly average for the rest of the year."
In a similar vein, I’ll remind you of our post on what Blackbaud’s data indicated a year ago about online giving in December 2008 …
"Nonprofit online giving in the last month of 2008 quadrupled in size compared to prior months. This is a trend Blackbaud has consistently observed for the past three years. December accounted for about 21% of the year’s transaction volume, but 48% of the total dollars raised. The average online gift for the month of December increased to $248.82 for the nonprofits in the analysis."
Some data to look forward to …
- Will 2009 gains in holiday online giving outpace gains in retail e-commerce spending (which comScore says is up only 4% over the same days in 2008)?
- With online fundraising maturing in strategy and technique, will the December spike in online giving be as pronounced in 2009 as it has been in the past?
- Overall, how will December 2009 online fundraising compare to 2008?
- To what extent might an increase in December 2009 online giving over 2008 simply offset a decrease in direct mail response?
If you are taking a few days off for Christmas (including from your computer), I hope you’ll return to find your stocking full!
Tom
*Just kidding. I know those smart folks on your online fundraising team pre-programmed those last e-appeals of the year before they went skiing.
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