August 18, 2015

One of the greatest challenges nonprofits tend to face is raising funds, especially from individual donors. This is hard for a variety of different reasons, one being that small nonprofits often operate in a vacuum, with no way to compare their goals or results to similar organizations. Until now.

The 2014 Individual Donor Benchmark Report, developed by Third Space Studio and BC/DC Ideas, is back with new data and resources tailored to a special kind of organization: small but mighty nonprofits with budgets under $2 million. Growing to a record-setting 87 participating organizations in 2014, the project continues to empower small and medium nonprofit organizations to understand their donor potential and enhance their fundraising strategies.

Click here to access the report.

The report expands on the work started in 2012, and is designed to give you a snapshot of results from organizations like yours. Hopefully it can be used to help you plan your own fundraising strategy, identify your challenges, and maybe even find markers to motivate your team.

Some key “universal truths” identified in the report that could have a huge impact on how small nonprofits expand their fundraising:

• The single most important thing you can do to strengthen your individual donor fundraising is create a plan.
• The average small but mighty nonprofit raises 36% of its revenue from individual donors.
• The average gift for nonprofits of this size is about $400.
• About 16% of individual donor revenue is generated online.
• About half of individual donor revenue is generated from donors giving $1,000 or more.
• Fewer than half of all board members play a significant role in individual donor fundraising.
• Higher-paid development staff = more donations. If you have a fundraising plan, for every $1 more that you pay your primary individual donor fundraiser, you are able to raise another $4.25.
• More donor meetings = more donations. With a plan, each donor meeting yields more than $5,000 in increased donor revenue.
• There’s still a huge opportunity in online giving. Organizations that are just starting online programs have the potential for explosive growth, and those with existing programs (generating $5,000 or more in 2013) saw 25% growth over the past year.

Visit Third Space Studio's website to learn more about this report.