New Report from Classy Uncovers Donor Insights From Platform Data Across 12 Million Donations

The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022 examines trends that help nonprofits form a long term
strategy to attract, convert, and retain donors

SAN DIEGO, May 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Classy, a giving platform that enables nonprofits to connect supporters with the causes they care about, released its fifth-annual The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022 report today, titled "The Path to Lasting Donor Connections." This year's interactive online report breaks down donation trends and insights across the three stages of the supporter funnel. Readers can navigate between data sets specific to the process of acquiring new donors, converting interest into a donation, and retaining donors to build lasting relationships and revenue.

Since 2018, Classy has released The State of Modern Philanthropy to surface insights that will help the industry engage donors more effectively and create meaningful connections with supporters. This year's report is the most comprehensive breakdown of Classy's proprietary giving platform data to date. More than 12 million unique donations totaling over $1 billion across over 54,000 active nonprofit campaigns were analyzed to arrive at findings nonprofits can put into action.

"There is no single approach that accounts for each nonprofit's unique challenges, goals, and ideas," said Soraya Alexander, Chief Operating Officer at Classy. "But by keeping a pulse on the evolving donor landscape through our proprietary data across 5,000 nonprofit customers, our goal is to help nonprofit leaders create a diversified fundraising strategy that can further advance their organization's missions and accelerate social impact."

Key findings from this year's report include:

• Consider Events as Your Next Driver for Revenue: The report found that events reignited as a leading fundraising strategy in 2021, accumulating 49% year over year growth in donation volume. The rise of events coming out of the pandemic also represented the highest conversion rate out of any campaign type on Classy's platform. Specifically, events that include peer-to-peer fundraising had a 47% conversion rate.
• Donors Give More with More Choices: Organizations risk leaving money on the table when they don't offer options donors are familiar with using every day. Having multiple payment options correlates with higher gift amounts. For instance, the report found that, during this past giving season, one-time donations via PayPal were 30% higher than credit card donations for organizations on Classy's payments offering, Classy Pay. The data also showed that the average ACH recurring gift was 29% larger than a recurring gift made through a credit card.
• End-of-Year Giving Remains Critical, But Organizations Must Continue to Nurture Donors, or Risk Churn: Nonprofits using Classy's platform acquired 10x more donors on Giving Tuesday compared to an average day of the year, and 30% of annual donation volume on Classy in 2021 took place between Giving Tuesday and December 31. But, the report also found that monthly recurring donors are 40% more likely to end their donations in January than in any other month showing the importance of nurturing new recurring donors to avoid the risks of churn at the top of the year and beyond.
• Prioritize Social Media Channels Based On Your Goals: Having a multi-channel approach to engage donors on social media is critical for inspiring people to take action. Facebook drives 83.4% of social media traffic to campaign pages (the most of any platform), but social platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram show the highest conversion potential as key social media platforms that attract motivated supporters who are ready to complete donations. For instance, LinkedIn was found to have the highest conversion rate on mobile at 30% compared to all other platforms.

To view The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022 report, click here.

About Classy
Classy, a subsidiary of GoFundMe, is a Public Benefit Corporation and giving platform that enables nonprofits to connect supporters with the causes they care about. Classy's platform provides powerful and intuitive fundraising tools to convert and retain donors. Since 2011, Classy has helped nonprofits mobilize and empower the world for good by helping them raise nearly $4 billion. Classy also hosts the Collaborative conference and the Classy Awards to spotlight the innovative work nonprofits are implementing around the globe. For more information, visit www.classy.org.

CONTACT: Krista Lamp, [email protected]

SOURCE Classy