- Giving is up! The recession over! Party like it's 2006!
- Giving is still in the doldrums. There's no light at the end of tunnel.
That sums up the reactions to the new Giving USA 2011 report (download the executive summary or buy the full report).
You can take this data either way -- or better yet, you could have a more reasonable interpretation that's somewhere between those two.
What you can't do is use the data to chart your own course.
Total estimated giving in 2010 was up 3.8%, or 2.1% adjusted for inflation. Actually, that was partly driven by big jumps in charitable bequests (up 18.8%) and corporate giving (up 10.6%). So individual giving was only up 2.7% (1.1% adjusted for inflation).
But that doesn't mean your individual giving was up 1.1%.
Whatever happened to you in 2010 was influenced by the economic climate, but was a lot more the result of decisions you made.
If you slashed new donor acquisition during the recession and have not yet started it back up, you likely did worse than grow by one percent. And you have a few more tough years ahead of you.
If you kept the acquisition machine going, if you used smart, relevant fundraising offers -- you probably did meaningfully better than one percent.
The differences among the sectors, which ranged from small declines to a strong increase in international affairs, capture some of that variation.
One good use I can think of for these nationwide top line numbers: Talking to your board. You might say, Our fundraising revenue was up only 3% last year, but that's considerably better than the 1.1% nationwide average!
People appreciate context. Even when it's not terribly relevant.
Whatever you do, don't assume last year's 3.8% increase is something you can bank on for your organization.
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