Well, 2012 wasn’t too terrible a year. That’s according to the Blackbaud Charitable Giving Report for 2012 (PDF, registration required).
Giving last year was up 1.7% over 2011. That small growth was not evenly distributed:
- Large organizations grew by 0.3%
- Medium organizations grew 2.7%
- Small organizations grew 7.3%
Giving was also uneven by charity sector:
- Religious organizations were up 6.1%
- Healthcare down 3.4%
- International affairs down 4.7% (no large disasters)
On the other hand, online giving continued to significantly outpace overall giving. It grew 11% in 2012, and accounted for 7% of all donations in 2012, an increase over 2011.
The sectors making the most of online giving were healthcare and international: 14.2% of healthcare giving was online and 11.8% of international giving was online. This is a bright spot for the two sectors that more most down in overall giving. It shows they are well positioned for future growth as more and more giving migrates online.
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on May 1st, 2013. Comment. 
If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the sins fundraisers are prone to commit. I have corrected Dante’s oversight. This is part nine of a nine-part tour of the levels of Fundraising Hell.
We’ve finally reached the deepest pit of Fundraising Hell. A place so vile, degraded, and horrific that all the levels above seem pleasant by comparison. This is the final home of the Fraudulent: fundraisers who betrayed their donors.
Their fundraising was a con job, meant to enrich themselves, not make the world better.
Those fundraisers in the levels above committed all kinds of sins. They neglected donors, they communicated poorly, they twisted their messaging, they killed relationships. But they were all fundraisers. Their sins were terrible and extreme, but they were trying to raise funds.
These guys in Level 9 — they weren’t about raising funds. They broke the very idea of fundraising.
In fact, some of them were very good fundraisers. They didn’t commit any of the sins of the higher levels. They knew exactly how to motivate donors to give. Except for the most important part of all: the money didn’t do what they told donors it would do.
It’s the ultimate evil any fundraiser can do.
The Fraudulent Fundraisers are eternally frozen in ice. Some up to their necks. Others entirely encased in it.
Think that seems a bit anti-climactic after all the various torments involving fire in the higher levels? Hold an ice cube in your hand for five minutes.
You don’t end up in Level 9 by accident or through incompetence. (Those fundraisers are in various parts of Fundraising Purgatory.) This is the level for the worst of the worst.
Please don’t go there!
Next week: Wrap up. What Fundraising Hell means.
Previous levels:
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Apr 29th, 2013. Comment.
If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the sins fundraisers are prone to commit. I have corrected Dante’s oversight. This is part nine of a nine-part tour of the levels of Fundraising Hell.
We’ve finally reached the deepest pit of Fundraising Hell. A place so vile, degraded, and horrific that all the levels above seem pleasant by comparison. This is the final home of the Fraudulent: fundraisers who betrayed their donors.
Their fundraising was a con job, meant to enrich themselves, not make the world better.
Those fundraisers in the levels above committed all kinds of sins. They neglected donors, they communicated poorly, they twisted their messaging, they killed relationships. But they were all fundraisers. Their sins were terrible and extreme, but they were trying to raise funds.
These guys in Level 9 — they weren’t about raising funds. They broke the very idea of fundraising.
In fact, some of them were very good fundraisers. They didn’t commit any of the sins of the higher levels. They knew exactly how to motivate donors to give. Except for the most important part of all: the money didn’t do what they told donors it would do.
It’s the ultimate evil any fundraiser can do.
The Fraudulent Fundraisers are eternally frozen in ice. Some up to their necks. Others entirely encased in it.
Think that seems a bit anti-climactic after all the various torments involving fire in the higher levels? Hold an ice cube in your hand for five minutes.
You don’t end up in Level 9 by accident or through incompetence. (Those fundraisers are in various parts of Fundraising Purgatory.) This is the level for the worst of the worst.
Please don’t go there!
Next week: Wrap up. What Fundraising Hell means.
Previous levels:
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Apr 29th, 2013. Comment.
Here’s a scary post from Copyblogger: 7 Ways to Write Damn Bad Copy. I’ve seen all of these. Done quite a few myself:
- Lyrical (excessively poetic)
- Sentimental (falsely emotional — but real emotion works)
- Outlandish (packed with poorly supported superlative claims)
- Humorous (you aren’t as funny as you think, and unfunny humor is the deadest kind of dead any copy can be)
- Short (short copy doesn’t usually persuade)
- Clever (nobody cares how smart you are)
- Advertorial (ad dressed up to look like a piece of news)
The problem with most of these things is they call attention to the writer. I have very sad news for you: Nobody cares how clever, funny, passionate, or deep you are. Even your mother doesn’t care. She’s just acting like she does because she loves you.
In fundraising, more than most disciplines, good copy is about the reader and about what they can do. That’s all. Save the look-at-me copy for … well, there really isn’t any good place for it. You can get away with it in poorly edited literary magazines.
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Apr 26th, 2013. Comment.
If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the sins fundraisers are prone to commit. I have corrected Dante’s oversight. This is part eight of a nine-part tour of the levels of Fundraising Hell.
You thought Fundraising Hell couldn’t get any worse after seeing what’s happening to the Brand Cops?
Think again. (Evil laughter.) It gets worse as we drop down a massive cliff to the level of the Fraudulent — fundraisers who lied to donors.
These fundraisers were loose with the truth. They knew what kinds of stories moved donors to compassion, so they told those stories. Even when the stories weren’t true.
They fudged a statistic here, exaggerated a truth there. They failed to tell the truth.
You might wonder why these little white lies — told in service of good causes — land people so deep in Fundraising Hell. After all they are deeper in than fundraisers who did committed much more dramatic evils. After all, fundraisers who preferred to brag about themselves over connecting with donors are way up in the 4th level. And Greedy fundraisers who only took and never gave are up in the 3rd level. Heck, even Brand Cops are higher than these guys.
Well, those little lies might look insignificant to us, but the harm they do is immense: Many donors live in fear that we aren’t telling them the truth. In fact, one of the reasons people who never donate give is they don’t think charities are trustworthy. When we let untruths go out to donors, we confirm their fears. We make fundraising that much harder not only for ourselves but for all fundraisers — including the scrupulously honest ones. Worse yet, we put up a wall between donors and the causes they should be supporting.
For that, some of the Fraudulent are driven like cattle by demons with whips. Others are trapped head-first in tight holes, their feet on fire. Others just writhe forever, enveloped in flames that never go out.
Don’t lie! Not even a tiny bit! You don’t want to land in the 8th Level of Fundraising Hell!
Next Monday — Level 9: The Treacherous
Previous levels:
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Apr 22nd, 2013. Comment.