Please join us for our annual meeting and special workshop featuring Jim Greenfield. There are 2 one-hour sessions.
“How to Use AFP’s Growth in Giving Data to Improve Your Fundraising“
This session was presented at AFP ICON in San Antonio earlier this year and reports on 2018 national giving results following the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. These fundraising results are provided by the AFP Growth in Giving Initiative (GIG) and Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP), both AFP Research Council sponsored initiatives now in their 13th year. Giving data from more than 10,000 small- to mid-size nonprofits and more than 100 million gift transactions worth $68 billion have been collected and studied since 2006. This rich database enables FEP to produce performance analysis reports that fundraising staff can use as national benchmarks and guidelines to improve their own results.
Session topics will illustrate donor retention and revenue details along with Fundraising Fitness Test reports nonprofits can use to measure their own fundraising performance, including:
- How multi-year results analysis illustrates overall growth or decline in both donors and dollars.
- How tracking five separate donor giving levels for acquisition and retention can serve as a guide on where to focus staff time and limited budget for improved gift revenues.
- How gain/loss analysis along with donor upgrading and downgrading results will aid in understanding how these metrics can increase fundraising returns.
“2018 & 2019 Giving vs. 2017 Giving: Is this a Forecast of the Future?”
Giving USA’s Annual Report for 2019 announced a record high for American philanthropy at $427 billion in 2018 following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in December 2017. Forecasts of this new legislation included an estimate of a 4 percent drop in giving to America’s nonprofits worth between $12 to $20 billion. Did it happen?
The AFP Research Council’s Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) has released year-end 2018 results compared to 2017 along with the first three quarters of 2019 that show a continued decline in giving and donor participation. Do these results portend a major change in national giving? Examples of a few Fundraising Fitness Test results by local nonprofits will illustrate how a nonprofit can collect and compare its own performance to these FEP benchmarks.
What’s coming next? A brief introduction to FASB ASU 2016-14. New accounting guidelines will require nonprofits to track each of their programs and services, including each fundraising activity, with time and budget spent. Meet your new best friend -- your CFO!
Jim Greenfield has served as a fundraising executive for 40 years at three universities and five hospitals on the East and West Coasts and in between. He retired from Hoag Memorial Presbyterian Hospital in Newport Beach, CA in February 2001 after 14 years as Senior Vice President, Resource Development and Executive Director, Hoag Hospital Foundation. The author of four books and editor of six others, Jim remains active with consulting, teaching, volunteering and writing including current membership on AFP’s Growth in Giving Initiate Steering Committee and Fundraising Effectiveness Project Working Teams.