Digital donations rise in 2021 as regular giving plateaus

After a period of dramatic change, the last year finally brought some good news for charities. According to a new report by data and insight company Wood for Trees, overall income in 2021 was 9% higher than in 2020, rising above the levels of the previous three years. 

Click to download the State of the Sector report

The report, which brings together raw CRM data from a range of charities across the sector, also found there was an increase of 24% in the number of donors actively giving, a rise driven primarily through one-off donations and Community Fundraising. 

Though one-off donations in 2021 themselves fell slightly below the levels seen in 2020, they remained almost 50% higher than the previous three years.  Community Fundraising, on the other hand, improved on 2020 but remained below pre-pandemic levels. 

Though regular giving was stable (and down on previous years), the dependency on repeated donations was deemed to have fallen anyway. While these regular donations once represented nearly two thirds of a charities income (64%), Wood for Trees found that it accounted for 54% in 2021. Still enough to give charities pause, but still, there is hope in other revenue streams.  

Digital donations have continued to rise in 2021, its income now two-thirds higher than in 2017, but more surprising, perhaps, is the reemergence of Direct Mail as a donation channel.

Direct Mail donations were at their highest level in 2021 compared to the last five years. Their success reflects the rise in donor recruitment which the report suggests has also been driven by digital and Direct Mail.  

The report also noted a “small but discernible shift towards a younger and less affluent demographic” – though on the whole, charitable givers remain more likely to be older and wealthier.  

It is hoped that by pulling together this report, which is available to read below, charities will be able to see how their own results compare through 2022 with the overall health and success of the sector. Better benchmarking will happy charities contextualise and understand their own fundraising performance and lead to better informed decision-making in the future.

The six-month update to the report is also available, covering the state of the sector between January and June 2022.