Fundraising Talks – October 2024

News and updates from the USM Office of Advancement Research

Letter from the Director

Welcome to the October edition of Fundraising Talks! We hope you’re enjoying the cooler days and the beautiful fall season. For the first time, DAF Day took place on October 10, encouraging participation from over 500 nonprofits. DAF Day was created to increase awareness and usage of donor advised funds among both donors and nonprofits, providing an opportunity for organizations to run DAF-specific campaigns. Development professionals planning for the year-end giving season may want to incorporate DAF-specific strategies to enhance awareness of their institutions among donors and prospective donors.

According to GiveChariot.com, more than 1,200 nonprofits participated in DAF Day. Preliminary results from this first national giving day dedicated to DAFs indicate a “record number of organizations receiving DAF gifts through DAFpay in a single day.” DAFpay is a tool that allows donors to contribute using their DAFs. A 2024 study on DAFs by Give Chariot presents key findings on DAF fundraising, including:

1. Total DAF revenue across participants increased from $116 million in 2019 to over $192 million in 2023. More than half of the participants experienced a 200 percent increase in DAF revenue during this period, while over a quarter saw a decrease in non-DAF revenue.
2. The number of DAF donors grew by 79 percent, while non-DAF donors declined by 6 percent.
3. 26 percent of current DAF donors were already supporting their cause when they made their first DAF gift.
4. DAF donor retention is, on average, 15 percent higher than that of non-DAF donors during the study period.
5. The size of DAF gifts is 19 times larger than non-DAF gifts, even when excluding major gifts (over $25,000) to mitigate the impact of outliers.
6. 30 percent of DAF donors make two or more gifts per year, compared to only 25 percent of non-DAF donors.

The DAF fundraising report highlights the growing popularity of DAFs among both donors and nonprofits. Institutions can enhance their fundraising communications and donation forms by including information on how to contribute via DAFs. It’s important for fundraising organizations to improve their methods for collecting and managing data on DAF donors in their databases to maximize retention. The report also identifies challenges in tracking DAF data, such as limited information on gifts, inadequate processes for managing DAF gifts, errors in manual data entry, limitations of CRMs to accommodate DAF donor data, and the absence of well-documented procedures for handling DAFs.

We hope the information shared about DAFs will help you identify, obtain, and track them at your institutions in the coming months.

As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or requests for assistance with fundraising research!

Best Regards,
Sapna and USM Advancement Research Team
Read more in this issue of Fundraising Talks>>