Tag Archives: eNonprofit Benchmarks Study

2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study

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If you haven’t yet seen it, take a look at the latest eNonprofit Benchmarks Study released last week where you can also listen to the recording or view slides from the May 14 event.  The report covers major ephilanthropy topics: email messaging, online fundraising, and online advocacy.  Major takeaways:

  • email open and click through rates continue to decline, although less than in previous years;  but a message that is ‘opened’ may not be actually read by the constituent
  • the number of online gifts and total dollars raised online continue to increase;  the increase in number of gifts helped to offset a decline in average gift from $86 to $71
  • email lists continue to grow, but at a slower rates than in past studies;  almost 20% of email addresses go bad every year due to bounces or unsubscribes
  • email results vary dramatically by audience sent to;  are you still making the mistake of sending everything to everyone?
  • gifts of under $250 represent 97% of all gifts, yet donations of $250 or more make up 41% of revenue – don’t forget to recruit and acknowledge your major donors
  • while social media gets most of the buzz lately, email clearly is still king, at least for now.

Thanks to Nten and M&R Strategic Services for updating this very useful report.  Network for Good, which continually offers wonderful guidance in online fundraising and marketing, offers Creating an Online Fundraising and Marketing Strategy to Thrive in Tough Times next Tuesday, May 26 at 1 PM EST.  Also see my previous post, Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times, where you can also listen to a recording of the event I moderated at the Foundation Center in NYC. earlier this year.

Tips for Online Success

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  1. After sending out email blasts, are you reviewing reports to learn how many of them were actually opened and what links were clicked?  See the recently released eNonprofit Benchmarks Study
  2. Have you tried ‘microsites’ – a separate page focused on a specific event or campaign with an strong call to action – see NothingButNets.
  3. Have you created an organization presence on social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace?   See this blog posting on Best Practices for Non-Profits Using Web 2.0 and Idealware’s Should Your Organization Use Social Networking Sites.
  4. Have you looked at Barack Obama’s web site, which has changed the landscape for online fundraising and engagement?
  5. Do you get ideas from other nonprofit organizations that have done especially well in raising money online?  According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy (June 12 issue), these five organizations have raised more than 10% of their revenues online: Heifer International (28 percent), Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (27 percent),Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund (21 percent), National Multiple Sclerosis Society (15 percent), and Make-a-Wish Foundation (10 percent).
  6. Do you participate in groups, both online and off, to share success (and failure) stories?  People in Nten are always willing to help.  Don’t forget about for profit groups – I recently discovered the Internet Strategy Forum, which discusses many of the online strategy challenges that we also deal with in nonprofit.
  7. Are you too busy to leave the office occasionally for a conference, such as this week’s Fundraising Day and Social Networking Symposium in New York?  If so, you’re missing the opportunity to learn from our colleagues.

2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study

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Nten and M&R Strategic Services have released a fascinating study which provides metrics for online messaging, fundraising and advocacy.  Some highlights and observations:

  • open rates (compared to a study in 2006) declined from 21.3% to 17.6%;  click-through rates dropped from 4.9% to 3.6%.  I’ve found that many NPO staff don’t take the time to analyze reports which clearly demonstrate that most constituents who get email are not bothering to open them, fewer are clicking on any included links.
  • on the average, constituents are emailed 4 times / month.  Seems like once a week is still too often, making more of a case to use segmentation to target content to selected constituents.
  • About 20% of an email list ‘goes bad’ each year due to unsubscribes and other changes in email addresses.  So a nonprofit that wants to grow its list needs to first make up for this loss in numbers first.
  • Advocacy mailings consistently show higher response rates than other types of mailings.  How many of these constituents can be effectively converted to other types of engagement?
  • $1000+ gifts were only 1% of the total number of donations, yet represented over 20% of online giving revenues.  Major gifts still deserves consistent attention.

Thanks to Holly Ross at Nten, and Sarah Dijulio at M&R  for collaborating on this report and the 21 nonprofit organizations that participated in this analysis; a webinar discussing the study is available.