Digital donation numbers rise in France while value flatlines, report shows

An iRaiser study into online donations to non-profit users of its payment module in France has revealed insights into the country’s online giving behaviour over the past year. The number of digital donations has risen, while the value flatlined.

iRaiser studied donations to 82 associations registered on its payment module for its digital collection benchmarking report. The data reveals that there was a 6.9% increase in online donations to these organisations last year, from 550,000 transactions in 2017 to 588,000 transactions in 2018, according to its analysis.

However, it found that while more donations were made in 2018, the overall amount raised increased just 1.2%, with the only monthly rises seen in May, June and September.

In addition, while donations of up to €1,000 increased in 2018, those above this value dropped. Donations in the €1,001-€5,000 bracket saw a 6.2% fall in value with an 8.7% decline in volume, those in the €5,001-€10,000 bracket saw the value and volume of donations drop by almost a quarter, and donations between €10,001 and €50,000 fell 13.8% and 18.1% respectively.

The change from the ISF tax on wealth to the new IFI property tax also had an impact with organisations that had benefitted under IFI seeing the biggest drop in their online donations: an overall decrease of €6m with 61% of this attributable to donations of more than €1,000, and 30% to those from €50 to €250.

Elsewhere, where the IFI tax did not apply, digital collection grew by 14.7% across all sectors although the average donation size fell slightly in almost all sectors.

More key findings include:

– 57% of online donations are given in December, and 74% over the last quarter of the year

– Donors give on average 1.4 times a year

– 82% of donations are made via a PC

– Average donation size via a PC is €148, compared to €146 via tablets, and €97 via mobile

– 87% of people pay by credit card

– 23% of donors give to at least two charities

The report is available from the iRaiser site.