Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving

The latest Blackbaud survey of charitable giving shows that fundraising in the US has returned to pre-recession levels. In fact it has above the level of giving last seen in 2007.

My gut reaction, because we don't keep regular statistics in this way, is that New Zealand's donation levels will be fairly static across the board but increased for emergency causes such as the Canterbury earthquake.

Blackbaud is able to gather such significant statistics because it runs a benchmarking product with regular subscribers. The benchmarking product is available in New Zealand but there are insufficient subscribers to create a regional group.

Otherwise we are reliant on the annual statistics collected by the Charities Commission, which of course, relate to the previous financial year.

The appetite for measurement and evaluation of one' s success is poor. There are few organisations that I talk to that want to invest in benchmarking. Chief executives don't understand enough about fundraising to know that the service is available and fundraisers may not want to put their efforts to the test.

For a number of organisations that I've come across the job descriptions don't specify the actual financial targets, even when a performance bonus is part of the remuneration. So why would these organisations be interested in benchmarking?

I talked recently to a senior fundraiser in a well known organisation who was struggling to satisfy a new CEO who was setting objectives. I had a look at what the CEO had proposed. There was no simple financial target. Instead a list of wishy, washy, unmeasurable challenges. The CEO called an emergency meeting, without consulting the fundraiser and announced that the organisation was in a poor financial position. Feeling very miffed, the fundraiser resigned. Later I did some research on the organisation. Its bequest income was very successful and the organisation would be held up as a model for its active bequest strategy. The results found through the Charities Commission register showed the organisation to be doing well. This is obviously a justification for benchmarking but without any comparison to go on, the fundraiser could not prove that she was doing a good job!