"Economic conditions, natural disasters, and market fluctuations have made it extremely difficult for nonprofits to make fundraising decisions informed by the latest donor behavior," said Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud's chief scientist. "That is why we created the Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving - to provide fundraisers with up-to-date data on fundraising trends and to couple that information with valuable analysis by leaders in the sector."

The Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving released today reported that overall revenue increased by 12.1 percent for the 3 months ending April 2010 as compared to the same period in 2009. A significant portion of this increase was related to the very generous outpouring of support to organizations helping with relief efforts in Haiti.

"This new index offers the nonprofit sector valuable and timely information," said Patrick M. Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. "While not a random sample or census of the entire nonprofit sector, the responses from Blackbaud's clients are likely to be very helpful in informing our understanding of the latest trends in giving."

The Index was released today as an information element of The NonProfit Times' economic dashboard, a tool that is featured on the news outlet's homepage and provides an at-a-glance view of key indicators for the nonprofit sector. The dashboard will also include a specialty index from Blackbaud that provides further analysis and insight into key trends.

Along with the launch of the Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving today, Blackbaud released additional data and analysis that reports on organizations by size. The Index found that three-month revenue for small organizations (prior year revenue of < $1 million) increased 12.3 percent in April, while revenue at medium organizations (prior year revenue of $1 - 10 million) decreased 2.5 percent, and revenue at large organizations (prior year revenue > $10 million) increased 19.2 percent.

The data show that donations for the smaller organizations bottomed out in July of 2009, remained roughly flat throughout the second half of 2009, and turned upward starting in January 2010. Donations to large organizations may have reached bottom in December 2009, but it is hard to tell which part of the large upturn in March was due to Haiti versus general improvement in ongoing donations, especially since donations declined in April.

Roger Craver, editor-in-chief of The Agitator and founder of DonorTrends, provided guest analysis of the Index in a report that accompanied the release. "Blackbaud's Index of Charitable Giving carries some fascinating news," he said. "In short, all sizes of nonprofits are now emerging from the recession, but smaller organizations are recovering faster."

Craver believes that since smaller organizations tend to be ‘local' in nature and therefore delivering on meeting community needs like hunger, housing, and other human services, that donors focus more on them in tough times.

Thus, giving to small organization increases and leads this group out of the recession. On the contrary, he continues in the report that as a general rule, large organizations have a far broader and deeper range of income sources, and that explains why giving to this group declined slower and rebound is also happening a bit slower than small organizations, although they lead the rolling 3-month YOY revenue change in April.

Visit www.blackbaud.com/blackbaudindex for further data and analysis and to download the report.

About Blackbaud
Blackbaud is the leading global provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to improve operational efficiency, build strong relationships, and raise more money to support their missions. Approximately 22,000 organizations - including University of Arizona Foundation, American Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, The Taft School, Lincoln Center, In Touch Ministries, Tulsa Community Foundation, Ursinus College, Earthjustice, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the WGBH Educational Foundation - use one or more Blackbaud products and services for fundraising, constituent relationship management, financial management, website management, direct marketing, education administration, ticketing, business intelligence, prospect research, consulting, and analytics. Since 1981, Blackbaud's sole focus and expertise has been partnering with nonprofits and providing them the solutions they need to make a difference in their local communities and worldwide. Headquartered in the United States, Blackbaud also has operations in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.