Post-Pandemic Fundraising: Eight Recommendations to Jumpstart Your Restart Linda Wise McNay, Ph.D., and David M. Paule
Coming out of the pandemic is a little bit like coming out of coma: you are confused, groggy, and not sure what has changed. Even though we tried to keep busy during the pandemic, once vaccinations were flowing, we set about trying to determine what changed while we were quarantined and how our clients and colleagues could leverage that. In this article, we will give you some insights into what we’ve learned about the current state of philanthropy and some recommendations we think will help your organization jump ahead of others.
The View From Here We stayed in touch with as many of our clients, colleagues, and funders as we could during quarantine. As soon as were vaccinated we started surveying them in earnest. We’re pleased to say that the vast number of our constituent organizations survived the pandemic, although no one escaped it unscathed. The shifts in the philanthropic landscape were sizeable. Let’s start with what we learned from Giving USA’s annual report
for 2020. In 2020, giving was up by 5% over 2019. Once again, individual donors provided the highest amount of philanthropic revenue for nonprofits, accounting for more than 68% of the $471 billion given to nonprofits in that year. Not all sectors benefitted equally in 2020. Arts, Culture and Humanities declined by 7.5%. For museums that had to lock their doors during that period, the loss of corporate sponsorships, members and admissions accounted for a double-negative revenue impact. At Our Fundraising Search, we conducted a survey of all of our client organizations across the country. Museums and other arts and cultural organizations account for a significant portion of our client base, and we were pleased with the response rate to the survey. A third of our respondents came from the sector. In the survey, we really wanted to focus on how funding changed both for nonprofits as a whole, and for the 60
