Giving levels increase year over year in 2024

Total overall giving levels for 2024 are projected to have increased 1.9% year-over-year, bringing the sector’s total accumulated growth during the past six years close to the record peak set during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The majority of subsectors had growth during 2024, in both overall and online giving. When looking at top overall performers by subsector, healthcare led the way with an 11.3% increase in overall giving year-over-year, followed by animal welfare with a 7.1% increase, and environmental increasing jumping 5.6%. Two sectors took it on the chin overall. International affairs was down 8.5% and public and society benefit dropped 0.6%. 

Online giving growth was accelerated during the pandemic, followed by relative decreases in 2022 and stability in 2023. The year-over-year growth of 2.2% during 2024 brought the accumulated growth to a new record level. However, four silos, healthcare, medical research, public and society and K-12 education all had declines. 

The data is from the Blackbaud Institute and based on the Blackbaud Philanthropic Dataset. It is designed to allow experts to estimate the experience of an average nonprofit organization by using giving data from a subset of Blackbaud customers (more than 8,500 nonprofits totaling greater than $55 billion in fundraising revenue). 

According to Carrie Cobb, Blackbaud’s chief data and AI officer, nonprofit data available from the Internal Revenue Service and Giving USA are used to weight and normalize this subset of data. The findings reflect the average nonprofit experience, not specific to Blackbaud customers, to give a representative snapshot of the sector. 

The data shows the mean annual gift at $937 with the mean online gift at $197. There has been a reliance on larger donors and some nonprofits are abandoning trying to attract smaller donor, which Cobb believes is a mistake. 

“We think it’s critical to continue engaging low-dollar donors to continue to build your donor base for the future. Our recent research on Gen Z shows that while younger generations do not have as much giving capacity yet, they are highly engaged,” said Cobb in a statement. “More than 80% of Gen Zers report that they support nonprofit organizations, charities, or causes in some way, and one-third said they expect to increase their giving in the coming year.” 

A separate study on spontaneous giving (first-time, unplanned gifts) showed that more than 60% of spontaneous donors said they have already given again or are “very likely” to give again to the group that received their most recent spontaneous gift,” according to Cobb. And 30% said they have already or are very likely to become regular donors, either on an annual or monthly basis. 

“While $25 might not be a lot today, it’s a pipeline of generosity for the future, and as we see a generational shift over the next few years, engaging these very same donors will become more and more important,” said Cobb. It might also be the case that some $25 donors are giving at that level because they have not been asked for more, she said. 

GivingTuesday 2024 showed record-breaking results with $3.6 billion donated in the U.S. alone, said Cobb. “There was a lot of uncertainty around fundraising in 2024, particularly in the last three months as it coincided with the U.S. presidential election. But what we saw is that donors showed up for the causes that mattered them,” said Cobb. “Giving was undeterred, bringing 2024 to a strong close and bringing total giving levels back close to the all-time high we saw in 2021 with pandemic-related giving.”