That’s a Wrap, Folks.

Goodbye 2017, hello 2018! Well, almost. I’m sneaking in one last blog post for the year. Bear with me, I promise it’ll be short and sweet.

2017: We said goodbye to the Obamas and welcomed the Trumps. The Patriots won yet another Super Bowl. (That’s good news for me at least — being a Boston native and all.) Most of us rocked a pair of stylish cardboard glasses to watch a historic #solareclipse, #totality (don’t be shy, you know you did). And Prince Harry is officially off the market (sigh).

And, donor retention continued to decline. Traditional emergency relief fundraising was challenged by celebrity crowd fundraising, and many of us are anxiously waiting to see what impact, if any, these natural disasters will have on year-end giving.

Well, I have some reaffirming news to share. As we have learned from previous years, natural disasters do not have a significant impact on year-end giving. That still holds true!

We polled a number of our nonprofit clients earlier this month to take their temperature on the year-end giving situation. While these results are by no means statistically significant, anecdotally they support what we all believe (and want) to be true.

56 percent of respondents were not anticipating a drop in year-end fundraising. Even more (74 percent) believed they would meet or exceed their year-end fundraising goals.

Regardless of hitting fundraising goals or not, just over half of respondents were unsure if this year’s natural disasters had any impact on year-end or annual fundraising results, and only 37 percent indicated that these events did not have any impact on their fundraising.                  

I know I have a severe lack of data (trust me, it’s bugging me, too, and I wish I could offer you more!), but I wanted to share the results of our poll. We’ll be doing more of these in 2018, and even some with statistically significant results. (This was our first, and we learned a lot!)

I look forward to sharing more Merkle RMG industry insights with you over the next year.

Wishing you and yours a healthy and happy start to your new year!

– Amy