Donation/Grant Dependence Ratio — get_donations_revenue

Measures reliance on contributions and fundraising as a share of total revenue.

Formula:

dgdr = donation_revenue / total_revenue

donation_revenue = contributions + fundraising_revenue

Definitional Range

Bounded [0, 1]. Values near 1.0 characterize traditional charitable organizations with minimal earned income; values near 0 characterize fee-based service providers.

Benchmarks and rules of thumb

Values above 0.70-0.80 warrant monitoring of donor concentration and retention.
Organizations above 0.90 have almost no earned income buffer if philanthropic support declines.

Calculated For: 990 + 990EZ filers.

Usage

get_donations_revenue_ratio( df,
  contributions        = "F9_08_REV_CONTR_TOT",
  fundraising_revenue  = "F9_08_REV_OTH_FUNDR_NET_TOT",
  total_revenue        = "F9_08_REV_TOT_TOT",
  numerator = NULL, denominator = NULL, winsorize = 0.98 ,
  range     = "zo",
  sanitize  = TRUE,
  summarize = FALSE )

Arguments

df: A data.frame containing the fields required for computing the metric.
contributions: Total contributions, EOY.
fundraising_revenue: Net fundraising event revenue.
total_revenue: Total revenue.
numerator: Optional. A pre-aggregated column name for donation revenue, bypassing contributions and fundraising_revenue. Cannot be combined with those arguments.
denominator: Optional. A pre-aggregated column name for the denominator. Cannot be combined with total_revenue.
winsorize: The winsorization value (between 0 and 1), defaults to 0.98, which winsorizes at the 1st and 99th percentiles.
range: Character string specifying the theoretical range of the ratio, used to set winsorization bounds. Default "zo". Options: "np" (negative to positive), "zp" (zero to positive), "zo" (zero to one), "nz" (negative to zero), or a custom "lo;hi" pair (e.g. "0;10").
sanitize: Logical (default TRUE). If TRUE, NA values in the financial input columns are imputed to zero before the ratio is computed, respecting form scope: Part X and VIII/IX fields (990 only) are imputed only for 990 filers; Part I summary fields (990 + 990EZ) are imputed for all filers. The returned dataframe always contains the original unmodified input columns.
summarize: Logical. If TRUE, prints a summary() of the results and plots density curves for all four output columns (raw, winsorized, z-score, percentile). Defaults to FALSE.

Value

Object of class data.frame: the original dataframe appended with four new columns:

- `donations_rev`   - donation/grant dependence ratio (raw)
- `donations_rev_w` - winsorized version
- `donations_rev_z` - standardized z-score (based on winsorized values)
- `donations_rev_p` - percentile rank (1-100)

Details

Primary uses and key insights

The donations and grant dependence ratio measures the combined share of total revenue from contributions (individual donations, foundation grants, corporate giving, federated campaigns) and net fundraising event income. It captures the overall dependence on philanthropic and voluntary support.

A high ratio indicates the organization relies heavily on the goodwill of donors and the fundraising environment rather than earned or contractual income. This creates vulnerability to donor fatigue, economic downturns (when charitable giving declines), and changes in donor priorities.

Formula variations and their sources

(Total contributions + net fundraising event revenue) / total revenue (Part VIII lines 1h + 8c / line 12A). Government grants are included in total contributions (line 1h) in this formulation. For a pure private philanthropy measure that excludes government grants, combine this ratio with get_grants_govt_ratio().

Canonical citations

Chang, C.F. & Tuckman, H.P. (1994). Revenue diversification among nonprofits. VOLUNTAS, 5(3), 273-290.
Froelich, K.A. (1999). Diversification of revenue strategies. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(3), 246-268.

Variables used:

F9_08_REV_CONTR_TOT: Total contributions (contributions)
F9_08_REV_OTH_FUNDR_NET_TOT: Net fundraising event revenue (fundraising_revenue)
F9_08_REV_TOT_TOT: Total revenue (total_revenue)

Examples

library( fiscal )
data( dat10k )

d <- get_donations_revenue_ratio( df = dat10k )
#>    :: Total revenue equal to zero :: 74 case(s) replaced with NaN
head( d[ , c( "donations_rev", "donations_rev_w", "donations_rev_z", "donations_rev_p" ) ] )
#>    donations_rev donations_rev_w donations_rev_z donations_rev_p
#>            <num>           <num>           <num>           <int>
#> 1:            NA              NA              NA              NA
#> 2:     0.9999857       0.9999857       1.1394010              89
#> 3:     0.9678987       0.9678987       0.5973001              73
#> 4:            NA              NA              NA              NA
#> 5:     0.0000000       0.0000000      -2.7225063               1
#> 6:            NA              NA              NA              NA