Average online donation up by a third to £69.70, says Blackbaud
Howard Lake | 29 July 2014 | News
The average online donation to a UK charity has risen by 31.8% over the past four years, according to analysis of its customers’ online fundraising pages by Blackbaud, the software and services firm for charities and not-for-profits. In 2010 the average was £52.87: in 2013 the average was £69.70.
Last year’s figure itself was an increase of 8.8% on 2012’s figure.
Average online donations for Blackbaud’s UK clients
2010: 52.87
2011: £55.61
2012: £64.07
2013: £69.70
Elliot Gowans, Blackbaud Europe’s General Manager, Core Markets, commented on the results. He said:
“People are donating in bigger numbers and as our analysis shows, are donating a higher amount when they do [give online]. So any not-for-profit that can’t facilitate online giving needs to address this urgently.
“Not only are they missing out on donations to help them achieve their mission, but they are also missing out on the valuable supporter data that online giving can provide. This is arguably more important than the donation, as it gives a not-for-profit the information to help build long-term relationships with donors and increase the lifetime value of their supporters.”
The analysis was conducted on a sample of UK based not-for-profit organisations including charities, arts & culture and educational organisations, of varying sizes. This year Blackbaud has used data from a larger pool of organisations that in pervious years. It acknowledges that inclusion of higher education organisations’ data will have contributed substantially to the average amount because “people donate significantly more within that sector”.
End of year online giving
Blackbaud’s analysis also suggested that many charities were receiving a larger proportion of online donations in November and December, In 2010, these two months represented on average 32% of an organisations total annual online donations. By 2013 this had risen to 39% of the annual total for the year.
The good news for Christmas giving continues. The average online gift in December 2013 was £64.10, an increase of 14% from £56.27 in December 2010.
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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.