Non-Profit Industry Trends

October 17, 2011
Industry Intelligence from First Research, a division of Hoover's (a D&B company)

Corporate Giving Mimics Economy - US corporations that donate are motivated partly by income tax deductions. In good times, corporate giving grows about 3 percent a year, while it typically falls almost 2 percent during a recession. (Corporate giving differs slightly from overall giving, which rises about 4 percent annually in good times and falls about 1 percent in recessionary times.) Corporate giving accounts for about 5 percent of all giving.

Public Confidence and Transparency - News of unethical behavior can undermine public support of nonprofit organizations. More nonprofits are emphasizing ethics as their way of rebuilding public trust by drawing up stiff codes of conduct and appointing ethics officers. Others are drawing up donors' bills of rights that assure contributors access to information about their finances. Nonprofits are being encouraged to conduct annual ethics audits, and are beginning to require CEOs to certify their organizations' annual financial statements.

Purchased Fundraising Lists - Letter, email, and telephone fundraising campaigns increasingly rely on donor lists bought from other organizations. Large national nonprofits often sell access to their donor lists to smaller nonprofits. Additionally, many nonprofit organizations exchange donor lists with other nonprofits. Brokers and list managers have become sophisticated at building lists that target potential donors according to desirable demographic characteristics.