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Target Analytics Report Finds Online Giving Growing,
Integrated Marketing Key to Retention
Explores online giving trends of more than 9.5 million donors

Read the full 2008 donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis

Cambridge, MA (March 18, 2009) -- Target Analytics, a Blackbaud (Nasdaq: BLKB) company, today released the 2008 donorCentrics™ Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis. Key findings from the Analysis indicate that over the past few years, online giving has become an increasingly significant source of new donor acquisition, and integrating online and offline fundraising channels is key to long term success.

“Online giving is growing rapidly, and many online donors have a tendency to also give offline, so fundraisers face increasing complexity in managing an integrated direct marketing program that maximizes donor value,” said Rob Harris, Target Analytics’ vice president of analytics. “With direct mail, the blueprints for success are well-known, but in this new multi-channel world everything is new and many strategies are still unproven.”

The donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis provides participating organizations the information needed to benchmark their own online fundraising program performance against that of peer organizations and provides a forum for sharing best practices about online fundraising and integrated marketing techniques. In addition, the Analysis highlights key trends in online giving in the context of an overall fundraising program.

Key findings from the 2008 donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis include:

• Online giving still represents a relatively small portion of donors and revenue at most organizations, but it is growing rapidly and is becoming an important source for new donor acquisition.
• Online donors are younger and have higher incomes than traditional direct mail donors. These are important constituents that nonprofits very much want to attract and keep, given the older average donor age in many files.
• Online donors give larger gifts and, as a result, have a higher overall long-term value than donors to more traditional giving channels like direct mail, but they are less loyal in terms of repeat giving. Higher average gifts mask the lower retention rates of online donors, which may present an opportunity for improvement at many organizations.
• The online giving channel must be an integrated part of an entire direct marketing program because although offline donors do not generally migrate to online giving, online donors do migrate to offline channels in large numbers. In addition, online donors tend to downgrade when they move offline, further evidence that online donors are not cultivated to their full potential.