New Blackbaud Institute Data Shows Resilience in 2025 Charitable Giving; Highlights Areas of Opportunities for Nonprofits in 2026

Rhea-AI Summary

Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) released its 2025 Trends in Giving Spotlight showing charitable giving remained resilient but uneven. The typical nonprofit saw ~4.3% revenue growth in 2025, driven by Q4 (36% of annual giving) and December (~18%). Large organizations grew ~11.7%, midsize ~2%, and small organizations fell ~6.4%. Gifts ≥$1,000 rose ~4.7%, while gifts under $1,000 declined ~1.1%. Digital fundraising grew ~11% year-over-year, with November near 15% growth. The dataset reflects ~7,500 nonprofits and $66 billion in fundraising revenue.

Positive

• Typical nonprofit revenue +4.3% year-over-year (2025)
• Large organizations revenue +11.7% year-over-year (2025)
• Gifts of $1,000+ up ~4.7% year-over-year (2025)
• Digital fundraising up ~11% year-over-year; November ~15% growth

Negative

• Small organizations revenue -6.4% year-over-year (2025)
• Gifts under $1,000 declined ~1.1% year-over-year (2025)
• Revenue concentration: large orgs receive 84.5% of annual revenue from major gifts

News Market Reaction – BLKB

+0.32%

1 alert

+0.32% News Effect

On the day this news was published, BLKB gained 0.32%, reflecting a mild positive market reaction.

Data tracked by StockTitan Argus on the day of publication.

Key Figures

Typical nonprofit revenue growth: 4.3% year over year Q4 share of revenue: 36% of annual charitable revenue December giving share: 18% of annual giving +5 more

8 metrics

Typical nonprofit revenue growth 4.3% year over year Average nonprofit in 2025 Trends in Giving data

Q4 share of revenue 36% of annual charitable revenue Portion of giving raised in Q4 2025

December giving share 18% of annual giving Portion of 2025 giving occurring in December

Large org revenue growth 11.7% year over year Large organizations’ 2025 revenue growth

Small org revenue change -6.4% year over year Small organizations’ 2025 revenue change

Major gift growth 4.7% year over year Gifts of $1,000 or more in 2025

Sub-$1,000 gift change -1.1% year over year Gifts under $1,000 in 2025

Average gift size 2025 $1,346 Average charitable gift in 2025 vs $727 in 2016

Market Reality Check

Price: $44.29 Vol: Volume 335,472 is below r...

low vol

$44.29 Last Close

Volume Volume 335,472 is below recent activity, at 0.63x the 20-day average of 530,714. low

Technical Shares at $43.94 are trading below the 200-day MA of $60.53 and sit 41.32% under the 52-week high.

Peers on Argus

BLKB was up 1.01% pre-news while peers were mixed: BL (+4.15%), BRZE (+1.9%), IN...

BLKB was up 1.01% pre-news while peers were mixed: BL (+4.15%), BRZE (+1.9%), INTA (-1.17%), NCNO (-1.3%), VERX (-0.38%). Moves do not show a unified sector direction.

Historical Context

5 past events · Latest: Mar 04 (Positive)

Pattern 5 events

Date	Event	Sentiment	Move	Catalyst
Mar 04	AI customer outcomes	Positive	-1.2%	Showcased AI-powered efficiencies, fundraising lifts, and expanded nonprofit network reach.
Feb 10	Earnings and guidance	Positive	-1.2%	Reported 2025 results, margin expansion, Rule of 40, and 2026 guidance with buyback.
Feb 03	AI awards	Positive	-7.3%	Announced triple award recognition and highlighted broad AI adoption and fundraising lift.
Jan 28	Philanthropic partnership	Positive	+0.3%	Announced multi-year major gift supporting AI-driven workforce development initiatives.
Jan 27	Earnings date set	Neutral	-3.7%	Scheduled release and call for Q4 and full-year 2025 financial results.

Pattern Detected

Recent positive and strategically important announcements have often been followed by negative price reactions, indicating a pattern of divergence between news tone and short-term trading.

Recent Company History

Over the past few months, Blackbaud has highlighted expanding AI capabilities and sector impact, including award recognition for AI innovation and measurable customer fundraising gains on Feb 3, 2026 and detailed AI-driven outcomes on Mar 4, 2026. Financially, the company reported 2025 results and 2026 guidance on Feb 10, 2026, alongside a sizable stock repurchase authorization. It also announced a multi-year major gift to support workforce development on Jan 28, 2026. Today’s giving-trends release adds further context on the nonprofit landscape Blackbaud serves.

Market Pulse Summary

This announcement highlights resilient charitable giving in 2025, with typical nonprofits seeing 4.3...

Analysis

This announcement highlights resilient charitable giving in 2025, with typical nonprofits seeing 4.3% revenue growth and a heavy reliance on Q4, which generated 36% of revenue. It underscores strength in major gifts and online giving, as well as challenges for smaller organizations and sub‑$1,000 donors. For BLKB, this contextualizes demand for its social-impact solutions. Investors may watch how the company’s AI offerings, nonprofit client mix, and digital fundraising tools track against these sector trends.

Key Terms

agentic ai, online giving, matching gift programs

3 terms

agentic ai technical

"Fundraisers should consider how AI tools including Agentic AI can help fill this gap."

Agentic AI refers to computer systems that can make their own decisions and take actions without needing someone to tell them what to do each time. It's like giving a robot a degree of independence to solve problems or achieve goals on its own, which matters because it could change how we work and interact with technology in everyday life.

online giving financial

"Online giving continued to outperform: Digital fundraising increased by approximately 11% year over year"

Online giving is the act of donating money to a charity, nonprofit, religious group or cause through the internet using websites, apps, social media or fundraising platforms. For investors, it matters because these digital donations act like an online cash register—providing faster, often recurring revenue, cheaper fundraising costs and detailed donor data that can improve forecasting, growth prospects and reputation risk for organizations that rely on public support.

matching gift programs financial

"pool funds from employee giving and matching gift programs provides a significant revenue opportunity"

An employer-run program that matches charitable donations made by employees, typically by contributing the same amount or a set ratio to the same nonprofit. For investors, these programs show how a company allocates discretionary funds, support employee engagement, and influence public reputation; they can signal corporate priorities and affect measured community investment without altering core business performance, similar to a company doubling employees’ goodwill contributions.

AI-generated analysis. Not financial advice.

Charitable Giving Remained Strong in 2025, but Growth Varied by Organization Size and Gift Size 

CHARLESTON, S.C., March 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Blackbaud Institute, a research lab at Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact, today released new insights and giving data in its 2025 Trends in Giving data spotlight.

This data reveals that charitable giving proved resilient in 2025 despite a cooling economy. The typical nonprofit organization saw revenue growth of approximately 4.3% year over year, powered by a strong finish in end-of-year giving. However, growth was concentrated among organizations and donors with greater capacity. Large organizations and mid-to- major gifts experienced gains, while small organizations and sub $1,000 giving lagged or declined in 2025. Large organizations derived most of their year-end gains from major gifts, while small organizations remained more reliant on lower-level giving, which tapered off at year end.

"Our 2025 data shows a stark difference in the performance of large organizations versus small organizations—a bifurcation that has become more evident in the last two years," said Carrie Cobb, chief data and AI officer, Blackbaud. "For a while now, the sector has seen the trend of 'fewer donors, more dollars' play out, with the average gift size nearly doubling in the last ten years. But it's only in the last two years that small organizations in particular have faced growing challenges with major giving, contributing to the performance gap we're seeing. There's an opportunity now for smaller organizations to reorient around a strategy that prioritizes major giving and for organizations of all sizes to build their midlevel giving structures to cultivate future major donors."

Summary of Key Findings

• Year-end giving remained an engine of growth: 
  • More than 36% of all charitable revenue was raised in Q4, with December alone accounting for roughly 18% of annual giving, despite a cooling macro environment.
• Growth varied sharply by organization size:
  • Large organizations finished the year with approximately 11.7% revenue growth year over year.
  • Midsize organizations saw modest growth of approximately 2%.
  • Small organizations ended 2025 down approximately 6.4%.
• Major and mid‑level donors drove gains: 
  • Gifts of $1,000 or more grew by roughly 4.7% year over year, while gifts under $1,000 declined by about 1.1%.
  • Large organizations received 84.5% of annual revenue from major gifts, compared with 51.7% for small organizations.
• Online giving continued to outperform: 
  • Digital fundraising increased by approximately 11% year over year, peaking at nearly 15% growth in November.
• Gifts have grown over the past decade:
  • Average gift size has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, from $727 in 2016 to $1,346 in 2025.

Insights and Opportunities for 2026

Based on these findings, opportunities for growth that have emerged from this report as well as other recent Blackbaud Institute research include:

1. While major gifts drove the greatest gains in 2025, midlevel donors remain an often overlooked and under-engaged donor segment. Fundraisers should consider how AI tools including Agentic AI can help fill this gap.
2. Online giving continues to outperform, indicating strong ROI for the organizations who prioritize this platform. Fundraising teams should consider leveraging AI-optimized online donation forms to capitalize on this opportunity.
3. End-of-year campaigns should be prioritized, since Q4 accounts for an outsized proportion of all charitable revenue. Fundraising teams should look at ways to develop relationships, test messaging, and strengthen overall brand awareness throughout the first half of the year to prepare to capitalize on end-of-year donor generosity.
4. Corporate giving should be considered as a pathway to major giving. The ability to pool funds from employee giving and matching gift programs provides a significant revenue opportunity, as well as an opportunity to steward new supporters in the form of individual employees, many of whom are Gen Z and Millennial givers that have high rates of participation in workplace giving and volunteering programs.

"What's inspiring optimism in this moment is that we're beginning to see the very capacity constraints smaller organizations have typically faced in the past—building a strong midlevel pipeline, sustaining consistent stewardship, and identifying major-gift potential—become more achievable as teams adopt AI to strengthen segmentation, surface next-best actions, and personalize outreach at scale," said Lori Poer, head of the Blackbaud Institute. "With the right data foundation, AI can take repetitive work off teams' plates and help more organizations scale relationship-based fundraising and drive sustainable growth."

The full 2025 Trends in Giving Spotlight is available here. All Blackbaud Institute resources are offered for free, as part of Blackbaud's commitment to accelerating social impact.

The Blackbaud Philanthropic Dataset
Blackbaud's proprietary philanthropic data set estimates the experience of an average nonprofit organization using giving data from a subset of Blackbaud customers representing over 7,500 nonprofit organizations, totaling over $66 billion in fundraising revenue. Nonprofit data available from the IRS and Giving USA are used to weight the data of the sample to align with the makeup of the sector proportionally by organization size and focus to give a representative snapshot of the sector. Organizations' size is defined by annual revenue: Small (up to 1 million dollars), Medium (between 1 million dollars and up to 10 million dollars), and Large (10 million dollars and above).

About Blackbaud Institute
The Blackbaud Institute develops leading-edge research and convenes expert voices to equip the social impact community with knowledge, insight, and confidence. The Blackbaud Institute draws from Blackbaud's proprietary data set, the most comprehensive in the social impact community. In addition, the Institute facilitates public research studies to drive original qualitative and quantitative insight. Our research agenda is grounded in a commitment to topics that social impact organizations can apply immediately to better understand, benchmark, and improve their essential business operations. We are guided by our commitment to the social impact sector to provide timely, transparent, and well-rounded research that is free to access. From how organizations run to how donors give, we're 100% focused on research and resources for this sector.

About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact. Serving nonprofits, educational institutions, companies committed to corporate social responsibility, and individual change makers, Blackbaud propels impact at scale with the sector's most intelligent solutions for fundraising and engagement, education solutions, financial management and CSR and grantmaking. With the deepest expertise powered by the world's largest philanthropic data set, the most connected workflows, and the most powerful impact network, Blackbaud's solutions are building a future where resources are unleashed at the speed of need. Blackbaud has been recognized by Fast Company, Newsweek, Quartz, Forbes and more for AI innovation, responsible leadership and workplace excellence. Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries. Learn more at www.blackbaud.com or follow us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media Inquiries
media@blackbaud.com

Forward-looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding expected benefits of products and product features. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud's investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.

 

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SOURCE Blackbaud

FAQ

How much did typical nonprofit revenue change in 2025 according to Blackbaud (BLKB)?

The typical nonprofit saw approximately 4.3% revenue growth in 2025. According to Blackbaud, that growth was driven largely by end-of-year giving, with Q4 accounting for about 36% of annual philanthropic revenue.

What does Blackbaud report about small nonprofit performance in 2025 (BLKB)?

Small organizations ended 2025 down about 6.4% year-over-year. According to Blackbaud, small groups relied on lower-level giving, which tapered at year end, widening the performance gap versus larger peers.

How did major and midlevel gifts perform in 2025 per Blackbaud (BLKB)?

Gifts of $1,000 or more rose roughly 4.7% in 2025. According to Blackbaud, major and midlevel donors drove gains, while gifts under $1,000 declined about 1.1% year-over-year.

What role did year-end giving play in 2025 fundraising according to Blackbaud (BLKB)?

Year-end giving remained critical: Q4 produced over 36% of annual revenue, and December about 18%. According to Blackbaud, a strong finish in Q4 powered much of sector growth in 2025.

How much did digital fundraising grow in 2025 according to Blackbaud (BLKB)?

Digital fundraising increased approximately 11% year-over-year in 2025, peaking at nearly 15% growth in November. According to Blackbaud, online channels outperformed overall, offering strong ROI for organizations prioritizing digital.

What data sample underpins Blackbaud's 2025 Trends in Giving report (BLKB)?

The analysis uses a proprietary dataset representing over 7,500 nonprofits and $66 billion in fundraising revenue. According to Blackbaud, the sample is weighted to sector proportions by organization size and focus.