Online Giving Revenue Up, But E-mail Response Dips

The good news for online nonprofit fundraising is that overall online revenue has grown robustly, e-mail lists are up, online sustained giving is rising, and social media audiences are soaring. The bad news: E-mail response rates, dragged down by steep declines in click-through, have fallen. Those are the findings reported by MarketingProfs from the "2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study" by M+R Strategic Services and NTEN, which is based on 2012 e-mail and online donations data from 55 nonprofits across appeals sectors. Online revenue overall rose 21% in 2012 compared with 2011, with international groups the only ones recording online giving declines, according to the study. And monthly online giving grew 43% in 2012, twice as fast as one-time giving. E-mail lists for nonprofits across the board also rose an average of 15% from 2011, with wildlife and animal welfare groups showing the strongest growth, up 32%. But social media audiences grew even faster: Facebook, still the primary social network of charitable support, had an average 43% growth in fan base, while Twitter turned in a whopping 264% increase in nonprofit followers last year. Despite all the 2012 growth, e-mail metrics sagged. A 14% decline in click-through for advocacy messages and 27% drop in clicks for fundraising e-mail sent average e-mail response rates tumbling last year. Fundraising response, for example, dipped 21% from 2011, to an average 0.07% in 2012. The steepest response declines were felt by human rights and international groups. For more information and a great infographic, go to the MarketingProfs report at http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10508/nonprofit-benchmarks-email-social-audience-fundraising-infographic