GivingPulse Field Guide | Q4 2024

Table of Contents

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Welcome to the GivingPulse Field Guide!

RKD Group is teaming up with GivingTuesday to provide this companion to the Q4 2024 GivingPulse Report. 

The goal of the Field Guide is to give nonprofit organizations actionable insights based on the data found in the report. Two of our strategy experts—Jenn Thompson and Stephanie Kirk—have examined the findings and are zooming in on a few areas that stand out. 

With a look back at the full year of 2024, this issue of the Field Guide is geared toward understanding the link between Community and Stewardship. 

Let’s take a closer look at each area, the Giving Pulse data that corresponds to it and the strategic recommendations that nonprofits can take from it. 

1. Community

The Q4 2024 GivingPulse Report shows that the majority of people across the United States do not feel a sense of community belonging. This data relates to what Tim Sarrantonio recently addressed as chair of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP). 

Sarrantonio wrote: “Our job at FEP is to empower fundraisers with the insights to ensure they can focus on what matters most - creating effective ways to build communities of generosity that will stand through good times and bad,”  

In the breakdown by county below, even the strongest communities top out at only a 44% sense of belonging. 

Note the patterns that emerge in the regions: 

  • Southern states, from Louisiana and Arkansas across to the Carolinas, show the strongest community bonds  
  • Large areas of the Midwest and Rust Belt states reflect the lowest community-belonging scores

Yet when we look at solicitation rates across these communities, we see the opposite for those two areas: 

  • The Southern states see the lowest solicitation rates in the country. 
  • The Midwest and Rust Belt states are slightly higher than average. 

Much of the Southwest, West and New England areas have solicitation rates that are fairly consistent with the community-belonging figures.  

The data also notes that urban and suburban areas see higher rates of solicitation than rural areas, which can help us understand this breakdown by region. 

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Field Guide Recommendations:

  • In the Q1 2024 Field Guide, we noted the strong relationship between generosity and giving to local organizations. We encouraged nonprofits to lean into the power of community, and we echo that recommendation again today. 
  • Identify what the idea of community means for your organization. A regional food bank, for example, builds around feeding those in need in the local area. However, a medical research organization can build community around those whose lives have been affected by a particular disease. The best way to find out what your community looks like? Ask your supporters. 
  • Are you building community into your asks? This ties into our second section on stewardship below. Take the opportunity to show how your organization is using donations to make an impact in the community. Also, this is a chance to segment different audiences around community and adapt messaging accordingly.   

A fun campaign that leans into community

 

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Food Bank For New York City created “Five Borough Friday,” a recurring campaign that takes place on any fifth Friday of a month. This happens four to five times a year—January, May, August and October in 2025.  

“Five Borough Friday” gives the organization a great opportunity to lean into community with their solicitation. This makes the connection that Food Bank For New York City serves the five boroughs of New York—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and The Bronx. 

The campaign is promoted through email, and all donations on this day are matched five-fold, incentivizing donors to give and maximize their impact. The campaign has also shown that you can fundraise on a Friday, contrary to popular belief.  

 

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Additional Resources

2. Stewardship

The good—or really, great—news is that people have a high level of trust in nonprofit organizations.  

When we break down trust by region, we find that it’s quite high across the country. The counties with the lowest levels of trust are still at 85%. 

Even negative news about nonprofits did little to suppress the generosity of survey respondents, as we see in the chart below: 

What does this have to do with stewardship? 

In 2023, RKD Group commissioned research around trust in nonprofits called “Solid Gold: The Nonprofit Marketer's Guide to Trust.” The research uncovered that donor trust in nonprofit organizations came down to two primary factors: 

  • Transparency 
  • Competence 

This ties directly to the idea of stewardship—showing donors how you’re being a responsible caretaker of their generosity. 

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Field Guide Recommendations:

  • We’ve noted several times before that solicitation is the key to tapping into people’s generosity. But stewardship is the flip side to that coin if you want to turn a one-time gift into long-term support. Think about new ways to continue the conversation beyond the ask. How are you thanking donors for their gift? And are you reporting back to them how you’re using that gift?  
  • Our Solid Gold research also revealed that people can have a high level of trust in a nonprofit organization without having a strong relationship with the organization. And that trust is what drives generosity to the organization. Many nonprofits have a relationship manager, but do you have a trust manager? Before you begin personal outreach to supporters, take the time to review the ways you’re establishing a strong sense of trust by showing transparency and competence. 
  • Finally, don’t forget the simplest and most effective form of stewardship out there: the words “thank you.” Always thank your supporters for giving, for volunteering, for showing up, for amplifying your mission. Their trust in you starts by feeling appreciated. It then amplifies through transparency and competence. 

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Additional Resources

Overhauling a newsletter to show donor appreciation

Humane Society of Missouri has sent a quarterly newsletter to their constituents for decades. In years past, the content was institutional—focused more on the organization’s work than on their supporters.  

After sending their Fall 2020 newsletter, they worked with their agency to reframe the content with a donor-centric focus, using language to thank the donor and make the donor feel like the hero of the story (see before and after examples).  

The update paid off, resulting in increased generosity. In 2022, newsletter-attributed revenue was up 828% over 2020. Total gifts were also up, with a 573% lift over 2020. Even better, the organization is now able to rely on their newsletter not only as a way to connect with donors, but also as a source of steady revenue to support their cause.   

Before
After
Long Heart Pulse

Conclusion

We hope that you can apply the recommendations provided in this Field Guide to deliver meaningful results to your nonprofit organization. A big part of this collaboration is sharing with the GivingTuesday community how various nonprofits are using the GivingPulse data in their fundraising strategies.   

We would love to hear from you if you’re planning to implement these recommendations in the months ahead or if you’d like to share a success story based on these recommendations. Please contact us at fieldguide@rkdgroup.com to be included in the next Field Guide.  

About RKD Group 

RKD Group is North America's leading fundraising and marketing solutions provider, serving hundreds of growth-focused nonprofit organizations. Leveraging technology, advanced data science, and award-winning strategic and creative leadership, RKD Group accelerates net revenue growth, builds long-term donor relationships, and drives the best return on investment. For more information, visit rkdgroup.com. 

  

About GivingTuesday and the Data Commons

GivingTuesday is a movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world. It was created in 2012 at New York’s 92nd Street Y and incubated in its Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact. What started as a simple idea of a day that encourages people to do good has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity year-round. The movement is brought to life through a distributed network of entrepreneurial leaders who lead national movements in more than 100 countries across the globe. An integral part of the global generosity movement is the GivingTuesday organization, which offers support and resources to GivingTuesday leaders and fosters connection and collaboration across the network. For more information, visit givingtuesday.org. 

The GivingTuesday Data Commons is a global network that enables data collaboration across the social sector. The Data Commons convenes specialist working groups, conducts collaborative research into giving-related behaviors, reveals trends in generosity and donations, and shares findings among its global community. With more than 170 data partners and 1,800 collaborators, the Data Commons is the largest philanthropic data collaboration ever built.