Nonprofit Fundraising Trends: Six Years of IRS Data

The fundraising trend that IRS data shows most clearly is a split by size: small charities kept growing their contributions after the pandemic boom, while the largest ones went backwards. Comparing the same 210,302 charities’ Form 990s, the median charity’s contributions rose 0.8% in fiscal 2023, but charities with more than $25 million in revenue saw a median fall of 8.4%, and almost half of them lost more than a tenth. Over four years, 2019 to 2023, the median charity’s contributions rose 23.7%, only a little ahead of the 19.2% rise in consumer prices, and 47.4% of charities fell behind inflation.

Most articles on fundraising trends are predictions: AI, hybrid events, monthly giving. Some of those will matter, but none of them is measured. This page is measured. It uses six years of the IRS’s own Form 990 data and compares each charity with itself a year earlier, so the result is what happened to real organizations’ fundraising, not who chose to answer a survey.

Year by year: the same charities, compared with themselves

For each fiscal year, we took every 501(c)(3) that filed a full Form 990 in both that year and the year before, and that reported some contributions in the earlier year. Then we measured the change in its contributions and grants, Part VIII line 1h of the return.

Our analysis of the IRS Statistics of Income annual extracts, processing years 2019 to 2024. “Change in the total” adds up the contributions of the same charities in both years; the median is the charity in the middle. The 2024 fiscal year is not shown: only about 24,000 charities’ 2024 returns had been processed, too few to rely on, though their median change was +1.4%.

Three things stand out. First, 2021 was the exception, not the pattern: half of all charities raised at least 10% more than in 2020, and the median rise was 10.4%. Second, the totals and the medians tell different stories. The total rose 17.6% in 2020 while the median charity rose only 3.1%, because the money went disproportionately to the largest organizations, and in 2022 and 2023 the total fell while the median still rose a little. Third, the share of charities losing more than a tenth of their contributions in a single year never dropped below 30%, even in the best year. A big fall in one year is normal, not a sign that something is unusually wrong.

Why 2020 and 2021 look so strong

Contributions and grants on Form 990 include government grants as well as gifts from individuals, foundations and companies. The IRS’s Schedule A instructions say forgiven Paycheck Protection Program loans “may be reported on line 1 as contributions from a governmental unit”, so for many charities the pandemic relief they received appears in the same figure as their donations. The extract does not split government grants out, so we cannot say how much of the 2020 and 2021 rise was relief rather than giving. It is safe to assume a meaningful part was, which makes the falls in 2022 and 2023 at larger organizations partly the end of one-off money rather than donors walking away.

That matters for how you read your own numbers. If your 2021 included a forgiven PPP loan or a relief grant, comparing 2023 with 2021 overstates any decline in giving. Compare with 2019 instead, or take the relief out of the earlier year before you compare.

The split by size

Size is each charity’s total revenue in the earlier year of the comparison. “Fell behind inflation” means the charity’s contributions grew by less than the 19.2% rise in the consumer price index (CPI-U annual average) between 2019 and 2023, including those whose contributions fell.

Read the columns as two different stories. Across the full four years, larger charities did better: the median charity over $25 million grew its contributions 34.7%, against 20.0% for charities under $250,000, and fewer of them fell behind inflation. But in the most recent year, the order reversed completely. Charities under $250,000 still had a median rise of 5.0% in 2023, while every band above $1 million had a median fall, and the biggest band fell furthest.

Two explanations fit the data, and both probably apply. Large organizations received more of the pandemic relief and large one-off gifts, so they had more to lose when those ended. And small charities depend more on local, repeat donors whose giving moves slowly in both directions. What the data does not support is the idea that small charities are being squeezed out of giving: in this data, the median small charity kept growing every year except 2020.

Half of charities lost ground to inflation

Over the four years from 2019 to 2023, 64.6% of charities raised more in contributions and 35.3% raised less. But prices rose 19.2% over the same period, so growth below that was a real-terms cut. On that measure, 47.4% of charities fell behind: almost half had less purchasing power from their fundraising in 2023 than in 2019, even though most of them could report a bigger number. And 14.5% lost more than half of their 2019 contributions.

This is the figure to put in front of a board that is pleased with a nominal increase. Salaries, rent and program costs rose with prices; a charity whose contributions grew 10% over those four years can do less than it could before. When you set a fundraising target, start from last year’s total plus inflation, not last year’s total.

Fundraising events: fewer charities, bigger events

Event receipts are gross receipts from fundraising events, Part VIII line 8a, before direct costs. The “same charities” column compares charities that reported event receipts in both years. A charity paying a professional fundraiser is one reporting fees on Part IX line 11e.

Events collapsed in 2020: the median charity that held events in both 2019 and 2020 took in a third less, and two-thirds of them took in at least 10% less. The recovery came late, in 2022, with a median rise of 30.0%, and by 2023 the median event raised more than before the pandemic, $45,751 against $42,431 in 2019. But fewer charities hold them: 24.1% reported event receipts in 2023, against 28.4% in 2019. Some organizations that stopped during the pandemic never went back.

Among charities that filed every year from 2019 to 2023, total event receipts went from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion. That is a 38.8% rise, double the rate of inflation, so the charities still running events are running bigger ones. If you are deciding whether to restart a gala or an auction, the evidence says events still work for those who run them well; the planning is in how to run a charity auction and the legal side of games of chance in nonprofit raffle rules. Paying a professional fundraiser, by contrast, has hardly changed: about 3.5% of charities report it in every year.

The same charities, every year from 2019 to 2023

The year-on-year comparisons change membership each year. To see the whole period on one footing, here are the totals for the 193,423 charities that filed a full Form 990 for every fiscal year from 2019 to 2023:

Our analysis of the IRS SOI extracts. Consumer prices are the BLS CPI-U annual averages (2019: 255.657; 2023: 304.702), rebased to 2019. Contributions include government grants and, for many charities in 2020 and 2021, forgiven PPP loans.

For this fixed group, contributions peaked in 2022 and fell slightly in 2023, but finished the period 41.9% above 2019, about 19% ahead in real terms. Program service revenue, the fees and contracts that make up most of the sector’s income, grew more slowly, 25.8%, only a little ahead of inflation. The sector’s overall growth in these years came disproportionately from contributions, and with that, from the relief money the contributions line contains.

What the IRS data cannot tell you

Form 990 reports amounts, not people. It shows how much a charity raised, not how many donors gave, how many came back or how big the average gift was. The trends most commonly reported elsewhere, fewer donors giving larger amounts, are about donor counts, which no public return records. Your own database is the only place to measure that for your organization; the donor retention calculator works it out from two years of donor counts, and donor retention explains what to do about a falling rate.

Three other limits. The data runs to fiscal 2023, because the IRS processes returns a year or more after the year ends: 2024 is still incomplete and 2025 and 2026 are not in it at all. The contributions line mixes private gifts with government grants. And small organizations filing Form 990-EZ or the 990-N postcard are not included, so “under $250,000” here means small charities that chose or were required to file the full return.

What to do with these trends

• Plan for a bad year. In every year measured, at least 30% of charities lost more than a tenth of their contributions. A reserve is the cushion; nonprofit cash reserves shows what charities your size actually hold, and nonprofit deficits how common a loss year is.
• Set targets in real terms. Add inflation to last year’s result before you call a target ambitious. A fundraising plan template has a place for it.
• Do not build on one-off money. The 2022 and 2023 falls at larger charities are what happens when relief ends. Check how much of your income comes from a few sources with donor concentration, and see the wider mix in how nonprofits make money.
• Keep the donors you have. Repeat giving is what kept small charities growing. Lapsed donors and the mid-level donor program guide cover the two cheapest places to find more money.
• Measure the right things. The totals here hide the people. Track donor counts, retention and average gift alongside income; fundraising metrics lists the ones worth tracking.
• Treat the predictions as hypotheses. AI, text-to-give and monthly giving may well help, but test them against your own numbers. Our nonprofit AI adoption statistics show how far charities have actually got with AI, as opposed to how far vendors say.

Where the figures come from

All charity figures are our analysis of the IRS Statistics of Income annual extracts of exempt organization financial data, processing years 2019 to 2024, restricted to 501(c)(3) organizations filing the full Form 990. Each return was assigned to the calendar year its tax period ends in. A return that appears in two extracts was counted once. Year-on-year comparisons use only charities with a return in both years and some contributions in the earlier year, so the result is not distorted by organizations starting or stopping filing. The fields are Part VIII lines 1h, 2g, 8a and 12 and Part IX line 11e, as defined in the Form 990 instructions. Inflation is the CPI-U annual average from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. How we work with IRS data generally is on our methodology page. For the size of the sector as a whole see nonprofit sector statistics, and for how to read a single charity’s return, the Form 990 guide.