“Fundraisers have long debated whether or not political fundraising affects charitable giving, and for decades, important fundraising decisions in election years have been based largely on the conventional belief of a fixed giving pie,” said Chuck Longfield, co-presenter of the report and Blackbaud’s chief scientist. “The study’s overall assertion is that political giving during the 2012 election did not, in fact, suppress charitable giving. Donors to political campaigns continued their support of charitable causes.”
According to the study, donors who gave to federal political campaigns in 2012 gave 0.9 percent more to charitable organizations in 2012 compared to 2011 and donors who did not give to political campaigns reduced their giving to charities in 2012 by 2.1 percent. These data findings held true across all sub-sectors as well as the demographic segments of age range, household income and head of household gender.
“As fundraisers and nonprofit leaders, we’re taught to be careful at these times —that donors who give to political candidates and causes will naturally turn away from charitable causes to focus on the issue in hand,” said Andrew Watt, author of the report’s forward and president and CEO of Associations of Fundraising Professionals. “What the findings in this report demonstrate is that, just over 180 years after Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America, civic engagement is as highly valued today as it was then.”
Nonprofit Fundraising Insight to use during the 2016 Election Year
To learn more about charitable giving in a political climate download the full report at www.blackbaud.com/election.
About the Giving in an Election Year Study
The study examined the 2011 and 2012 charitable giving of donors identified in the donor records of the Federal Election Commission and the nonprofit cooperative database of 143 nonprofits that Blackbaud maintains. The goal was to explore a notion that political giving in a high-profile, federal campaign year would affect giving to 501(c) (3) organizations. Four hundred thousand donors were identified as appearing in the database of the Federal Elections Commission and the nonprofit database. In the case of charitable giving, Blackbaud examined the political donors’ giving to the same sets of 501(c)(3) organizations in 2011 and 2012 and compared it to giving to the same organizations by non-political donors in 2011 and 2012. Download the report to learn more about the study’s data management methodology.
Download the full report atwww.blackbaud.com/election.
