Has Giving Tuesday Gone … Daffy?
Another Giving Tuesday come and gone. Yay! There’s a lot of celebrating over what was perhaps an unexpectedly successful day at a time when — according to every reliable benchmark — giving across the nonprofit sector remains weak outside of the tiny group of mega-donors.
But the 16% jump in giving reported by GivingTuesday.org has left many annual giving and direct marketing experts scratching their heads.
16%? Really?
Many nonprofits indeed tracked solid growth back to their Giving Tuesday campaigns. There were certainly some which blew past the headline number. But if you’re one of the many fundraisers wondering what more you could have done to vault your growth well into the double digits, keep it up. We all need to parse and assess and look ahead to ways to do even better!
But you should also take a deep breath. And take a look at the GivingTuesday.org website.
GivingTuesday.org provides a tremendous service to our sector. Its report on the day draws on literally dozens of reputable sources. But take note: These include some that are very difficult to track back to specific campaigns, including some of the major DAF administrators such as Fidelity and Vanguard Charitable (in addition to newer payment processing tools like Chariot’s DAFpay).
Considering the explosion in DAF giving over the last couple of years, a surge of DAF giving alone could explain much of the disconnect between the headline numbers and what your organization saw. Add in other sources that feed the topline numbers reported by Giving Tuesday — such as workplace giving and major gifts outside of our direct marketing world — it could be that your organization's overall success, when everything is counted, aligns with the headlines after all.
