January 2, 2014 | Read Time: 1 minute
Online gifts in the last two months of 2013 rose 16 percent higher than in the same months in 2012, according to Network for Good, a nonprofit that processes gifts made electronically.
Donations from November 1 to December 31 last year rose to $77.9-million, up from $67.1-million in 2012. The size of the average gift was one reason for the growth: The average donation increased 10 percent, from $157 in 2012 to $172 last year.
Network for Good says the number of donations it handled increased 6 percent, with December 3, a day dubbed Giving Tuesday because nonprofits aggressively promoted donations, providing a boost in online giving.
While some observers had worried that Giving Tuesday donations might replace last-minute gifts people often make at year’s end, those worries seemed to be unfounded.
“Giving Tuesday and all of those giving activities earlier in the giving season didn’t seem to impact the total dollars or the number of donations in the last three days of the year,” says Caryn Stein, director of content strategy at Network for Good. She said the same proportion of donations, about 10 percent, were made online during the last few days of the year, as had been the case in recent years.
Using data from Network for Good, The Chronicle tracked daily online-fundraising totals for more than 14,000 charities over three years.
