While many fundraisers remain optimistic, nonprofits continue to struggle with declines and slowdowns in individual giving, citing issues such as donors’ worries about the economy, inflation, and staffing issues, the Chronicle of Philanthropy finds.

Based on a survey of 1,000 fundraisers conducted by Clarion Research, three-quarters of respondents indicate their organizations have raised as much (42 percent) or more (34 percent) so far this year than they did in 2022. However, according to Giving USA estimates, 2022 was a particularly rough year for fundraising, as contributions to nonprofits fell 10.5 percent after inflation in 2022, with individual giving—which accounts for the bulk of all contributions to the nonprofit sector—falling 13.4 percent, erasing gains in giving made during the pandemic. While many fundraisers remained confident about the amount of funding their groups will raise, they expressed concern about their supporters’ giving patterns, with seven in 10 fundraisers indicating that some donors are giving less, six in 10 indicating some donors have stopped giving entirely, and half indicating that some donors are delaying their gifts. According to the Chronicle’s database of gifts of $1 million or more, from January 1 to October 15 of this year, wealthy donors made 408 donations of at least $1 million, totaling more than $8.3 billion, compared with 478 gifts totaling $16.5 billion during the same period in 2022, indicating a slowdown in the number of large contributions, as well as a steep decline in the dollars given.

In addition, according to the survey, 53 percent of fundraisers indicated that filling open positions is challenging, with 40 percent reporting that their organizations have open fundraising positions they are trying to fill and 22 percent of respondents indicating that their organization has stopped filling open fundraising positions to cut costs.

While inflation slowed to 3.7 percent in September of this year (down from a high of 9.1 percent in June 2022), prices are still rising. According to the Chronicle, earlier this year in a nationwide survey of 195 nonprofits, 68 percent of organizations reported an increase in demand for their services in 2022. In this most recent survey, 83 percent of fundraisers reported that their organizations have changed fundraising strategies and/or tactics as a result of economic conditions, with 10 percent making major adjustments, 47 percent reporting moderate adjustments, and 26 reporting minor adjustments.

“We know we will have to budget more for food,” said Katherine Fritz, vice president of development and communications at Long Island Cares in Hauppauge, New York. “But we don’t know how much more. In this economy, the way that the prices of food keep growing, it’s hard to anticipate what that growth is going to look like. It hasn’t been a linear growth.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Donald Gruener)