Online Giving Grew 4.5% Last Year, Study Finds

The 100 Million Stoves project won an award for its use of wireless technology. The 100 Million Stoves project won an award for its use of wireless technology.

May 2, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute

While online giving grew overall in 2009, not all charities shared in those gains, according to a new study that analyzes online fund raising and advocacy at 31 nonprofit groups.

Together the large national charities in the report, such as Oxfam America and the Wilderness Society, raised 4.5 percent more money through the Internet in 2009 than in 2008.

But for half those groups, online donations either held steady or decreased. The decline was driven by a drop in the size of the average gift, which was $81.33 for the groups surveyed.

The report, published by M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network, breaks down the different type of gifts that make up the charities’ online fund raising. One-time gifts made up 78 percent of all online donations, while monthly contributions accounted for 9 percent, gifts made in honor or in memory of a loved one, 4 percent, and other donations, such as contributions to walkathons and other events, 8 percent.

To read the report: Go to http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com.

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.