First, I need to acknowledge a mistake. A much beloved former board member called me on the phrase “charitably promiscuous” on Tuesday. In thinking more about this, this probably should have been “promiscuously charitable” in order to mean what I meant to mean. As it stands, I’m probably going to have some interesting search engine implications for a while.

So I’m leaving it there — as it isn’t my goal to rewrite history — but admit my mistake here.

Second, I received in my inbox Wednesday an email from Apogee talking about results from a new study they did of ten non-profits’ donor bases. They looked at these donors’ behavior in their cooperative. Their results?

“On average, within the past year these 24-month donors have given to 3 charities. Over their lifetime in Apogee, they’ve given to 10 charities.”

“Approximately 70% to 80% of these donors have made a contribution within their core category in the past 12 months, but at least 10% of each organization’s 24-month donors donated to six other categories as well within the past year.”

“On average, only 31% of the total amounts contributed by each organization’s donors were made within category. The percentages fluctuated with 26% being the lowest and 46.5% being the highest.”

The full study is gated, but you can sign up to receive it here.  Don’t worry: there is an opt-out link should you wish it.

So, however you want to say it, our donors give to a lot of different organizations, some related to our cause, some not.  Since I was using older data on Tuesday to make this point, I wanted to give out a quick update.