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Top 5 Takeaways From the Colorado Gives Day Report

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation

The annual Colorado Gives Day Report shines a spotlight on data gathered from the website ColoradoGives.org about Colorado Gives Day. It also includes feedback from nonprofits who participated in this giving day.

It’s ten pages chock full of maps and charts that illustrate donation results in each Colorado county, how various organizational types fared, what we learned about donors, and much more. We highly recommend using this data to influence your online fundraising plans.

But if you don’t have time to read the full report for 2013, here are the top 5 takeaways that we found meaningful at Community First Foundation beyond the day’s record-breaking increase in dollars and donations:

  1. The majority of nonprofits acquired brand-new donors because of Colorado Gives Day. We surveyed nonprofits who participated in the giving day and 92 percent of respondents reported a donation from at least one new donor. 22 percent acquired 20 or more new donors, and 48 percent reported the return of at least one lapsed donor. That’s great news—and an opportunity for nonprofits to nurture these donors and bring them into their fold. Check out our donor retention blog and webinar for tips.
  2. Most every nonprofit got something. If you’re a nonprofit using ColoradoGives.org for Colorado Gives Day, it’s highly likely you’ll get donations on that day. In fact, 99.5 percent of participating nonprofits received at least one donation. A total of 88,571 donations came through the site with a typical size of $100. Every donation was boosted by an Incentive Fund and 18 lucky nonprofits received cash prizes from $1,000 to $5,000 from FirstBank. We also hear that there is a “halo” effect on Colorado Gives Day—meaning that people are more likely to give on this day even if it isn’t online. Nonprofits reported $2.1 million in offline donations.
  3. Most donors gave to more than one nonprofit. People shop on ColoradoGives.org. Does your profile do a good job drawing people in and exciting them about your work? The average number of donations per donor is 2.3. The greatest number of donations from a single donor was 96 donations for a total of $38,070!
  4. Returning donors account for more than half of all donations and dollars. 53 percent of donations came from a returning donor. This is a great sign that people are embracing the Colorado Gives Day movement and staying involved from year to year. Keep up that donor retention!
  5. Collaboration and expansion is spreading like wildfire. We think that Colorado will surely move up in the ranks of most generous states at this rate. The Foundation of Northern Colorado and Eagle County Gives are what we call Regional Champions who are leading the way for online giving in their communities. Collaborations such as those in Weld County, Douglas County and Boulder County are growing markedly. Dollars raised in Douglas County were up 106% over 2012, 50% in Boulder County and 50% in Weld.
What data is meaningful to you? Let us know!

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