For the last few years, every single European newspaper has been pestering us about the crisis affecting our economy, our purchasing power and eventually our morale. In light of this, has our generosity and the propensity to give been affected too?
In order to answer this question, we examined a set of European benchmarks and we have compared it to our own.
Let’s start with the United Kingdom.
According to the Charities Aid Foundation, in 2010/11 there has been a relative increase in the number of donors but the total amount collected has remained fixed at £11 billions. There are more English donors than before but their average gifts are lower.
Another noticeable trend is the breakthrough of online fundraising: between 2008/09 and 2010/11, the proportion of online donors has nearly doubled from 4 to 7%.
And what about the adfinitas benchmarks in the UK?
Well, in general our clients do not really follow the market trend. Although we have also noticed a decrease in the average gift, the good performances in terms of response rate and our investments in direct debit strategies have allowed us to make the gross fundraising progress more than 40% and, most of all, to increase the general ROI of the different programmes we are managing.
Looking at France, the last Cerphi survey on the state of generosity in France between 2006 and 2010 tells us that the total amount of funds collected increased by 12.9% only in 4 years, reaching €1.885 billion in 2010 (total of gifts declared by households). This relatively slow growth, when analysed annually, is not due to an increase in the numbers of donors but to an increase in the yearly mean contribution of French donors: from €323 in 2006 to €354 in 2009. However, it is important to note that this increase can be attributed to a unique category of donors, those whose annual income exceeds €60,000, when donors with the lowest income (<€15,000/year) have been reducing their average yearly gift by 18%...
Interestingly, French donors have, more than ever before, been eager to fiscally report their gifts. In 2011, 73% of the donors reported each of their gifts according to Cerphi. (Note, in France, declaring your gift allows donors to benefit from a reduction on the income taxes of 66 to 75% of the amount given).
According to the previous survey, the gross revenues of French charities have only increased by 3.2% per year, when, overall, the net revenues raised by adfinitas’ clients in France have undergone a 7 to 15% increase. Opposite to the market trend, these good results are not to be attributed to an increase of the annual contribution of donors but to a combination of a range of different factors: an increase in donors, favoured by profitable acquisition (for 2/3 of our clients), a rigorous segmentation and efficient creative contents. Another point worthy of mention is the growth of online giving among our online clients: over 55% more than last year, and a traffic increase of up to 300% for some of our clients!
Let’s now have a look to Germany. According to the “Deutscher Spenden Monitor” and "Bilanz des Helfens" 2011 survey, overall German fundraising, beside legacy, have been making steady progress, evolving from €2.162 billion in 2008 to €2.3 billion in 2010 (the numbers for Q4 2011 are yet to be released) an increase of more than 5%. As with France, this rise is mainly due to the increase of the yearly mean contribution, from €102 in 2008 to €128 in 2011. The number of donors has actually been decreasing: 35% of people in Germany today, versus 42% in 2008, and their distribution is highly disparate between East Germany, very little used to giving and benefitting from lower incomes, and West Germany.
Once again, adfinitas’ clients in Germany are not following the market trends…The gross revenue of our clients as a whole has increased by 5 to 10% and some of our clients have undergone some record-breaker ROI rates in prospection: 1:1 – which means a prospection at no cost – when the mean ROI German rate for prospect mailing is 0.4!
Finally, in the Netherlands, according to the Central Bureau Fundraising (CBF), the total of the amount collected – beside legacy – has been constantly increasing since 2006: €1.120 billion raised in 2006 versus €1.378 billion in 2010, that is an increase of almost 6% per year. The big difference in the Netherlands is about the source of charitable revenues: opposite to other European countries, donations from direct mail have been constantly falling since 2005, diminishing from €83 million in 2006 to €54 million in 2010, while revenues from lotteries have increased.
Once more, the trend we see among adfinitas clients in the Netherlands is diverse. Although we do advise our clients to diversify their fundraising channels as much as possible, direct mail is one of the essential fundraising channels that we use as a source of donors that can be converted to direct debit. Thus, adfinitas fundraising programmes, by efficiently combining mailing, telemarketing, press ads have ensured stable gross revenues and in some cases, up to a 25% growth among our clients. In the Netherlands, it is the quality of the recruitment plan, adapted to precise behavioural segmentation, that really makes the difference.
Briefly, in every single market where adfinitas is active, our clients are undergoing a much more important growth than the one experienced by the sector.
So, if you want to buck the trend, just get in touch with adfinitas.
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