Hail the 'Global Fundraising Benchmark' – taking a world view that's close to my heart!

Howard Lake | 31 October 2006 | Blogs

I was pleased to see the announcement that nfpSynergy are launching the Global Fundraising Benchmark – a comparative look at the fundraising activity of ngos operating in different countries. More details can be found here: http://www.nfpsynergy.net/gfb. It’s good to see charities being encouraged to take a world view of their fundraising activity and results – and the published results could be very useful indeed to all kinds of organisations. I am not sure whether the questions are directed specifically towards different channels of fundraising, including online (kind of obvious when it comes to global media), but I would think that this could prove fascinating reading and the start of much more needed analysis to come.
I’m definitely becoming more and more of a fan of nfpSynergy’s research programme! There are several jewels among it. Virtual Promise for one, as I have already lauded, and the Jeweller’s Crown charity branding piece to name another. This could become my third favourite, pending a look at what it yields. At least it is being started. Of course, it takes enough charities to participate in it, and share real data (much as in my CAF research plea) for the results to be worth a look. So please participate in this one too, those of you that can.
Of course, global comparisons are extremely hard to make but it is very exciting taking a look at them. They are not only useful for benchmarks, but providing you take the different comparative factors into account (maturity of different country markets, local customs, donor behaviours) they help with forecasting and planning strategy too. This subject first became close to my heart after years working at CAF making our own internal comparisons across its international network. In 1998 we had launched the CharityCard online donation website, the first portal which made it possible for UK donors to donate to multiple causes not only in the UK but overseas too – all in a single sitting. We developed functionality to let donors pick charities by country, and track through account management facilities, the charities they supported the most, least, most frequently, most recently etc. It was ebanking for donors. We started to discover that through this transparency, international giving through CAF was beginning to grow organically online…
Then, in 2005 when I left CAF to start Charity21, I put forward a proposal to look at cross-border giving and new technology to see if any of the emerging and more innovative models for global philanthropy were enjoying real success and to establish a business case for a global philanthropy network. It was a major project for which I engaged a consultant colleague from the US (a Kintera, Network for Good, eContributor and lot’s more veteran), the whole of the CAF network and international contacts, and my own e-media / strategy colleagues from various countries.
The study I lead consulted widely with Foundations, intermediaries, validation organisations, and service providers, but it didn’t include in its initial remit companies and ngos themselves. It was felt that this would be too much to take on at a first pass. So this piece from nfp will intrigue me. It could well be complementary, or it could highlight how difficult it is to get at these kinds of insights and benchmarks when relying on the goodwill and wherewithal of participants.
Meanwhile here are a few public domain highlights from my study for CAF:

• Americans report giving to organisations outside their country 18% of the time, Canadians 20% and English 14% (Zogby 2001).
• The total worldwide charitable giving market stands at £343 billion, growing at 7.8% per annum. Of that total, £4.86 billion is cross-border and the US and UK together account for 46% of cross-border giving.
• Around 1.2% of charitable donations are made via credit card, or 0.23% of all card transactions.
• The major flows of funds cross-border are, unfortunately, via conduits (intermediaries such as international ngos, grantmakers, donor advised funds and so on) and not direct to indigenous ngos. It would be a delight to see more initiatives, donor-lead, such as www.globalgiving.org and a few others, whose aim is to change the imbalance.

Meanwhile Europe has 2.6 million millionaires, North America 2.5 million and Asia 2 million…

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.