The pandemic has prompted philanthropists to donate quicker than they did in the past, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported April 9.
"We're all taught that the major gift cycle is 18 months — that you need to wait, that you need to build up," Kathryn Van Sickle, director of major gifts at New York's Chapin School, told The Chronicle of Philanthropy. "That's no longer the case because people have taken a lot of time to sit down, to revisit their values, to think about their legacies."
In addition to acting faster on contributions, donors have become pickier about what they give money for, Patrick Gamble, the leader of fundraising for early childhood nonprofit SproutFive, told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
"People are like, 'All right, I only really care about this,'" he said. "'Don't talk to me about the playground.'"
Donors are also more interested in having long, intimate conversations with fundraisers about what they've been through, leading fundraisers to not only raise money, but give emotional support to their donors.
"We're the first to hear from prospects what they're going through," Reshunda Mahone, a fundraiser at Emory University's business school, told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.