International affairs and arts and culture organizations saw the largest increases by far in giving while small nonprofits continued to see double-digit growth in online giving, according to the latest Blackbaud Index.
Overall, giving to nonprofits was up 4.1 percent for the three months ending in October, compared to the same time period in 2017. Online giving was up 5.2 percent for the same time period.
The Charleston, S.C.-based fundraising and financial technology firm, tracks some $32 billion in U.S.-based charitable giving both overall and online, as well as by subsector and size of organization. The Blackbaud Index is updated on the first of each month and based on a three-month rolling average of year-over-year percentage changes.
Small organizations continued to experience the biggest jump in online giving, just as in the last index update, growing 12.6 percent compared to last year. Medium organizations saw a more modest increase of 2 percent in online giving while large organizations were up just 0.5 percent.
Large organizations ($10 million or more in revenue) saw the largest bump in giving, 6 percent, followed by small organizations (less than $1 million) at 2.6 percent, and medium organizations ($1 million to $10 million) at 1.5 percent.
Eight of the 11 types of subsectors tracked by the Blackbaud Index experienced increases in overall giving for the three months ending in October compared with the same time period in 2017:
- +13.5 percent, international affairs;
- +13.4 percent, arts and culture;
- +3.5 percent, higher education;
- +2.3 percent, faith-based;
- +2.0 percent, medical research;
- +1.6 percent, human services;
- +1.3 percent, K-12 education;
- +0.4 percent, public and society benefit;
- -0.4 percent, healthcare;
- -4.8 percent, environment and animal welfare; and,
- -6.7 percent, foundations; and,
In terms of online giving, three of the 10 subsectors tracked saw an increase:
- +10.8 percent, arts and culture;
- +7.7 percent, faith-based;
- +5.2 percent, public and society benefit;
- +9.7 percent, healthcare;
- +3.8 percent, higher education;
- +3.4 percent, human services;
- +4.5 percent, K-12 education;
- -0.7 percent, medical research;
- -1.7 percent, environment and animal welfare; and,
- -6.1 percent, international affairs.
The Blackbaud Index does not currently track online giving for foundations.