Events, Media & Communications

Social Giving Continues to Grow, Digital Giving Index Update

May 16, 2012 5:45 PM ET
Campaign: Digital Giving Index

As the prevalence of social networking expands, peer-to-peer charitable giving continues growing at a steady pace. Network for Good finds a 20% increase in giving via social networks in Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011. In fact, giving has increased across all channels—charity websites, social networks and portal sites—up 16% from the previous year.

The power of social networks

Donations via social platforms, such as Crowdrise and Causes.com, are catalyzed by giving events created by cause marketing campaigns, crowdsourced contests and peer to peer activities like the Causes.com Birthday Wish to benefit the birthday person’s favorite charity in lieu of gifts.

Personal fundraisers are a powerful giving catalyst. For example, Crowdrise partnered with the Honda LA Marathon with the goal to raise millions for charities from participating runners and their social networks. Marathoners were encouraged to either fundraise for pre-vetted charities or choose their own. With Crowdrise’s platform, LA Marathoners encouraged social networks—via email, Pinterest, Twitter, Google +, and Facebook—to contribute to their causes and collectively raised more than $2.4 million for those organizations.

You can find more giving trends and observations in the Q1 2012 update to The Network for Good Digital Giving Index.  This Index builds on data and insights from the Online Giving Study, released in December 2009. This update includes trends and analysis on over $25 million in donations to more than 20,000 charities through the Network for Good platform in Q1 2012. The platform includes donations to Network for Good’s nonprofit customers through their own websites; other nonprofits through 35 corporate partner websites; and Network for Good’s giving portals, NetworkforGood.org and SixDegrees.org. 

Index highlights include:

  • Overall giving, excluding disaster relief donations for Japan in March 2011, was up across all channels in Q1 2012 vs. Q1 2011, increasing by 16%.
  • Charity websites continued to comprise the bulk—over 60%—of digital donations.
  • Following charity websites, social giving (19%) overtook portal giving (10%) for the second most used form of digital giving.
  • Average gift size on social networks increased 90% in Q1 2012 vs. Q1 2011.
  • When comparing customized and generic donation pages, the nonprofits with branded donation pages see a 6x increase in donation dollars.
  • Each channel—charity websites, social, and portal giving—saw average gift size growth in Q1 2012.

You can download this quarterly update at www.onlinegivingstudy.org/quarterlyindex

 

About Network for Good

Network for Good is a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers nonprofits and corporate partners to unleash generosity and advance good causes. Network for Good helps nonprofits raise funds for their missions through simple, affordable and effective online fundraising services and offers free training through our online learning center (www.Fundraising123.org), interactive online community (www.TheNetworkforGood.org) and webinar series (www.Nonprofit911.org).  We also work with companies to help refine a cause strategy perfectly suited to business and philanthropic goals and implement effective cause initiatives powered by our proven donation platform.  Network for Good has processed more than $640 million in donations for more than 83,000 nonprofits since our 2001 founding by AOL, Cisco and Yahoo!. www.networkforgood.org