How The Chronicle’s Survey on Online Fund Raising Was Conducted

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s seventh annual survey of online fund raising is based on data provided by 214

of the biggest nonprofit organizations in the United States.

The Chronicle requested online-giving data from the 400 charities included in the 2005 edition of the newspaper’s Philanthropy 400, which ranks the American nonprofit groups that raise the most money from private sources. In addition, several other groups were sent the questionnaire, to allow The Chronicle to provide a sampling of trends at charities that specialize in fields not heavily represented on the 400 list, such as the arts and social services.

Of the 214 groups that responded to this survey, 191 raised money online during the 2005 fiscal year. Ten of those groups were unable to say how much they collected online in 2005.

Nineteen organizations said they do not raise money online. Five said they did not raise money online in 2005, but plan to offer that option in the 2006 fiscal year. Four are discussing whether to raise money online.

Eight groups that responded to the survey have no plans to start collecting money online, while one organization, Senior Gleaners, in Sacramento, stopped collecting online donations in 2003. That group told The Chronicle that online fund raising was not cost-effective.

Four organizations started raising money online in 2005, and their totals may not represent a full 12 months of operation. Those groups — Kids in Distressed Situations, in New York; Mississippi State University; Nemours Foundation, in Jacksonville, Fla.; and Smithsonian Institution, in Washington — raised a total of $63,190 online in 2005.

Affiliates’ Data

Readers should take care when examining information on organizations’ online fund raising. Some organizations provided online-giving data for their headquarters, but not for affiliates.

YMCA, for example, reported online fund-raising totals for its headquarters, but for the total of all donations, online and otherwise, it provided the sum given to its entire organization, which comprises the Chicago headquarters and 931 affiliates.

United Way of America provided figures for its headquarters and all of its 1,326 local branches. So as not to count branches twice, several United Way affiliates that responded to the survey separately (those in Atlanta; Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New York; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; and Rochester, N.Y.) are not listed separately on the main table showing fund-raising figures.

In a similar fashion, United Jewish Communities reported figures for 89 of 156 affiliates, including several that responded individually to the survey. Those were Jewish federations in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and Whippany, N.J. The umbrella organization appears on the main chart, and some of the affiliates appear individually on other charts, where data were relevant and available.

Many of the organizations that participated in the survey have affiliates outside the United States, but the survey asked groups to provide information solely for the affiliates located in the United States.

Excluding affiliates counted by a national office, the 167 organizations that reported the amount of money they raised online in 2005 took in $912.3-million electronically last year. Those reporting amounts raised online in 2004 and 2005 (162 groups), saw, in total, a 148.2-percent increase in online donations.

The Chronicle sought information on how much charities collected online to provide relief to victims of the 2004 tsunamis in South Asia and to last year’s Hurricane Katrina.

The survey asked for such data, and, to gain a more current picture of the online fund-raising landscape related to disaster fund raising, The Chronicle followed up with phone interviews to determine the amounts raised to date, and what portion was collected electronically.

A handful of groups that played a high-profile role in disaster relief following those two events, but that were not included in the rest of the survey, were also asked about donations they raised online in response to the tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina.

Twenty-five groups reported online donations of $50,000 or more raised to date for tsunami relief, and 24 groups reported online donations of $100,000 or more raised to aid survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Twenty-one of those groups raised money online to aid victims of both the tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina relief. Three groups raised money online for Hurricane Katrina relief only, and four raised money online for tsunami relief only.

The bulk of the fund raising for tsunami relief fell in the 2005 fiscal year, but some groups’ 2004 fund raising was affected because the event took place on December 26, 2004.

Similarly, Hurricane Katrina affected 2005 fund raising for about half of the groups that supplied Katrina fund-raising figures, while the remaining groups raised their Katrina donations solely in their 2006 fiscal year.

The 2007 edition of this survey will give a more complete picture of how Hurricane Katrina affected online giving since it will include totals raised online in the 2006 fiscal year.

One hundred twenty-seven groups that responded to the survey did not list online donations in response to the tsunamis in South Asia in late 2004, or for Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The median increase in online donations for such groups was 50.5 percent from 2004 to 2005, a significantly lower number than the median increase of 60.4 percent when groups that raised money after the disasters are added to the mix.

The survey was conducted by Noelle Barton and Candie Jones, with assistance from Maria Di Mento.