Last year's earthquake in Haiti, and the relief efforts that followed, have had a major impact on online charitable giving and philanthropic efforts and will likely continue to impact the area in the future. Since the disaster, dozens of charities have begun soliciting online donations, seeing an increase of 35 percent last year via this channel, according to a recent report conducted by Blackbaud.
The research also found that 8 percent of last year's total fundraising efforts came from online sources. Additionally, international affairs organizations found their online giving increase by 130.8 percent from 2009, Biz Journals noted.
"2010 saw the continued growth in the importance of online fundraising for nonprofit organizations," said Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud’s director of internet solutions.
"A recovering global economy, online response for disaster relief, peer-to-peer fundraising and the role of social media in the nonprofit sector all shaped 2010," he added.
In light of the Haitian disaster, mobile giving also increased, with the American Red Cross raising an estimated $32 million by soliciting $10 donations via an SMS campaign that was launched within the first few hours that followed the earthquake, according to Mobile Commerce Daily.
Blackbaud found that January 2010, the month in which the disaster occurred, saw the largest percentage of online fundraising, raking in 18.4 percent of charitable donations, in comparison to December of the same year, which saw 18.3 percent.
Additionally, 88 percent of nonprofit organizations saw larger donations, receiving at least $1,000 or more in charitable contributions. Blackbaud reported that median online giving more than $1,000 was $1,250, and the largest amount was $100,000. Forty-one percent of these large gifts were $1,000 and 6 percent were $5,000.