The year 2021 had its challenges. Obviously, a continued pandemic isn’t ideal for anyone, let alone many nonprofits that do so much in person. But despite challenges, many Giveffect nonprofit clients found success, according to a client survey.
Overall, the numbers show some impressive growth! The average increase in monetary donations, average increase of funds raised by volunteers, the average increase in donor retention rates, and the average increase in first-time donors were all six percent or higher.
Donations, Donors, and More
Donations and donors are the lifeblood of most nonprofits. Growth can mean expanded services to help even more clients, while declines usually mean you may have to reduce services.
In 2021, Giveffect clients said that they experienced an average 11-20% increase in donations. And while all 2021 numbers aren’t in yet, that’s already considerably higher than the 5.1% increase that all nonprofits saw in 2020, according to the most recent Giving USA report.
This kind of growth means that these organizations can continue to expand and build on that success this year, maintain recent constituents and use the growth as a springboard to even more growth.
In addition, the average increase in donations raised by volunteers was also up 11-20% for Giveffect clients, showing that this was a strong part of the overall donation increase.
Much of the growth was volunteer driven, which is fantastic news for volunteer-centric organizations. Volunteers can develop stronger relationships with donors in their community and create more loyal donors over the long term.
Also, the average increase in donor retention rate for Giveffect clients was 6-10%. Compared to the overall decline nonprofits witnessed in 2020, this is considerably higher. In 2020, the retention rate was 43.6%, a 4.1% drop, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Giveffect clients overcame the previous year’s dip and then some.
Retention is obviously key as you often have to spend much less time and energy to keep a donor, than develop a new donor. And at a time when nonprofits have been losing donors, having a positive retention rate can make a huge difference.
First-time donors were also up, with Giveffect clients seeing an average increase of 6-10% in 2021. This tracks as the second year of high first-time donor growth as 2020 had an 18.5% increase in new donors, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project.
Overall, Giveffect’s donor management and communications systems allow clients to easily segment and parse groups of donors, to allow for a more personalized outreach. But at the same time, you can use templates to easily create and tweak communications (including emails, text messages, and more) for each group. Clients can more easily sort and find trends in donations; then use the same system that can professionally and easily modify personalized outreach. The system also allows you to see a holistic profile of each donor, so you can see events and fundraising activities as well, and also personalize outreach on those categories.
Volunteering
Volunteers are a massive driving force for most nonprofits. Happy volunteers create more volunteers. And happy volunteers create more donations. An engaged volunteer is often a happy volunteer.
The average increase in volunteer engagement for Giveffect clients was 11-20% for 2021. This is a welcome sign after some nonprofits have had difficulty during the pandemic. Giveffect’s volunteer system allows volunteers to be a partner in the management system. They can access and set their own schedule, which greatly simplifies the process for both the volunteers themselves and the management team.
Hours Saved a Month
Work hours are always an issue for nonprofits, particularly in a tight hiring market. When you can save on rote administrative tasks, it can make a huge difference in both employee satisfaction and overall staff productivity.
In 2021, Clients using Giveffect reported that they save 20-30 hours a month in daily administrative tasks. Giveffect’s automation and all-in-one structure means that everything from complex reports to communication campaigns can be automated quickly. No more importing and exporting files from one program to another, leaving yourself open to human error.
To focus more granularly on hours saved, creating fundraising event pages with Giveffect streamlines the entire process. Without it, these pages can often need multiple departments and owners. Even minor edits can take days to finalize.
For a fundraising event page, it took Giveffect clients an average of 10-15 minutes to complete building a page. That average includes more complex pages like auction pages. Giveffect’s all-in-one system that uses modern templates allows anyone to create modern, stylish event pages quickly. And that is from start to finish, no other processes or IT involvement needed.
This process can save hours of involvement from multiple teams, creating a simple workflow that can be accessed by any one person in the organization who has proper permissions.
Take a Closer Look
You can take a closer look at how Giveffect has helped nonprofits by viewing case studies that break down how different nonprofit organizations use Giveffect to increase donations, donor relations, volunteer relations, and more.
Or to learn how Giveffect could help your nonprofit directly, schedule a demo today:
