The Blackbaud Institute Unveils New Insights on 2024 Trends in Giving
CHARLESTON, S.C., March 20, 2025 -- The Blackbaud Institute, a research lab at Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the leading provider of software for powering social impact, today released new insights in its 2024 Trends in Giving Spotlight. This report draws from Blackbaud's robust philanthropic dataset to provide social impact professionals with insights into industry trends, benchmarks for success, and strategies to elevate fundraising efforts.
The Blackbaud Institute gives social impact professionals data to understand broader industry trends, benchmark success and take fundraising to new levels. The current spotlight provides a round-up of the charitable giving trends that defined 2024, and a look at how the 2024 numbers compare to previous years.
"2024 was a remarkable year for the fundraising sector, showcasing the resilience and adaptability of fundraisers," said Carrie Cobb, chief data and AI officer, Blackbaud. "Despite uncertainty with the election year driving significant political giving, nonprofits not only maintained but grew charitable giving, bringing totals back to near pandemic-era highs with a new record for mean gift amounts for individual gifts. This year's trends highlight the innovative strategies and unwavering commitment of fundraisers to engage donors and drive impactful change for the causes that matter most to our society."
Key Findings:
- Total Overall Giving Levels Returned Near Pandemic-Era Highs.
- While 2023 was a year of the sector regaining stability, with giving remaining relatively flat, 2024 saw a 1.9% year-over-year increase in overall giving that brought the sector's total accumulated growth over the last six years close to the record peak set during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Online Giving Topped Its Pandemic-Era Peak.
- Similarly, online giving growth was accelerated during the pandemic, followed by relative decreases in 2022 and stability in 2023, but 2024's year-over-year growth of 2.2 % brought the accumulated growth to a new record level.
- Healthcare Organizations Led the Way.
- The majority of subsectors saw growth in 2024, in both overall and online giving. When looking at top overall performers by subsector, Healthcare led the way with an 11.3% increase in overall giving year-over-year, followed by Animal Welfare with a 7.1% increase, and Environmental with a 5.6% increase.
- The U.S. Presidential Election Did Not Deter End of Year Giving to Nonprofits.
- 34% of all giving in 2024 occurred in the last three months of the year, keeping with the trends of the past decade and the past two election cycles. The Animal Welfare, K–12 Education, and Healthcare subsectors received the largest percentage of their giving in the last three months of the year.
- Individual Givers Set a Record.
- The mean individual gift across the sector set a new record of $937. In addition, the mean online gift was $197, remaining within a stable range that exceeds pre-pandemic giving.
More insights can be accessed in the full Blackbaud Institute Spotlight on 2024 Trends in Giving. The Blackbaud Philanthropic Dataset estimates the experience of an average nonprofit organization by using giving data from a subset of Blackbaud customers (8,500+ nonprofit organizations, totaling over $55 billion in fundraising revenue). Nonprofit data available from the IRS and Giving USA are used to weight and normalize this subset of data. The findings of this report reflect the average nonprofit experience—not specific to Blackbaud customers—in order to give a representative snapshot of the sector.
All Blackbaud Institute resources are offered for free, as part of Blackbaud's commitment to accelerating social impact.
About Blackbaud Institute
The Blackbaud Institute develops leading-edge research and convenes expert voices to equip the social impact community with knowledge, insight, and confidence. The Blackbaud Institute draws from Blackbaud's data set, the most comprehensive in the social impact community. In addition, the Institute facilitates public research studies to drive original qualitative and quantitative insight. Our research agenda is grounded in a commitment to topics that social impact organizations can apply immediately to better understand, benchmark, and improve their essential business operations. We are guided by our commitment to the social impact sector to provide timely, transparent, and well-rounded research that is free to access. From how organizations run to how donors give, we're 100% focused on research and resources for this sector.
About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social impact. Serving the nonprofit and education sectors, companies committed to social responsibility and individual change makers, Blackbaud's essential software is built to accelerate impact in fundraising, nonprofit financial management, digital giving, grantmaking, corporate social responsibility and education management. With millions of users and over $100 billion raised, granted or managed through Blackbaud platforms every year, Blackbaud's solutions are unleashing the potential of the people and organizations who change the world. Blackbaud has been named to Newsweek's list of America's Most Responsible Companies, Quartz's list of Best Companies for Remote Workers, and Forbes' list of America's Best Employers. A digital-first company, Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries. Learn more at www.blackbaud.com or follow us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
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Forward-looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding expected benefits of products and product features. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles, particularly in larger organization; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud's investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.
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