Digital donations rise in 2021 as regular giving plateaus
Charity Digital explores the trends that charities can judge their success by in 2022, with insight from the State of the Sector report by Wood for Trees. After a period of dramatic change, the last year finally brought some good news for charities. According to a new report by data and insight company Wood for Trees, overall income in 2021 was 9% higher than in 2020, rising above the levels of the previous three years.
The report, which brings together raw CRM data from a range of charities across the sector, also found there was an increase of 24% in the number of donors actively giving, a rise driven primarily through one-off donations and Community Fundraising. Though one-off donations in 2021 themselves fell slightly below the levels seen in 2020, they remained almost 50% higher than the previous three years. Community Fundraising, on the other hand, improved on 2020 but remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Though regular giving was stable (and down on previous years), the dependency on repeated donations was deemed to have fallen anyway. While these regular donations once represented nearly two thirds of a charities income (64%), Wood for Trees found that it accounted for 54% in 2021. Still enough to give charities pause, but still, there is hope in other revenue streams. Digital donations have continued to rise in 2021, its income now two-thirds higher than in 2017, but more surprising, perhaps, is the re-emergence of Direct Mail as a donation channel.
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