Every fundraiser knows that research is key to success. But with so many reports out there, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve put together a list of all the best nonprofit industry reports, so you can find the information you need to make your next fundraising campaign a success by benchmarking against industry standards.
Each metric is categorized by fundraising channel. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of the most recent industry reports. This way, you can quickly scan through and find the information you need to stay informed and improve your fundraising strategy.
Fundraising Metrics
- 30% of annual donation volume occurs between Giving Tuesday and December 31st. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- Donors like choice: the average one-time donation was 1.5x more when the nonprofit offers ACH, PayPal, and digital wallet payments. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- Number of donors has decreased 5.6% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Total dollars given has increased 2.3% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Donor retention has decreased 6.2% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Second year donor retention decreased by 30.4% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Multi-year donor retention decreased by 4.8% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Lapsed donor reactivation decreased by 1.6% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Retention rate for donors giving 1 donation is down 10.1% year over year. Retention rates for donors giving 7+ gifts is down 1.4% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Giving Tuesday 2021 donations reach $2.7B. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- 35 million people participated in Giving Tuesday 2021. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- Over 80% of Giving Tuesday donors were 18-34 years old. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- 36 million Americans use charity watchdogs. (Grey Matter Research)
- Average age of a donor in the US: 65 years old. (The Charitable Giving Report)
Direct Mail
- 29% first-year donor retention in offline giving. (The Charitable Giving Report)
- 60% multi-year donor retention in offline giving. (The Charitable Giving Report)
Digital Fundraising
- Total online giving grew by 3% in 2021. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Email accounted for 15% of all digital revenue. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- For every 1,000 email messages sent, nonprofits raised $78. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- 22% of traffic coming to a donation page is mobile. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- 87% of mobile traffic coming from social media to the donation page is from Facebook. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- Giving peaks at 10am on Tuesdays (in a donor’s timezone). (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- 10x more donors are acquired on Giving Tuesday compared to any other day of the year. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- Facebook fundraising match $8m in donations in 2021. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- TikTok donated $7m to nonprofits using the platform. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- #GivingTuesday was used 1.9m times on Instagram. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
Digital Marketing
- Nonprofit audience size on Facebook grew by 1%. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Nonprofits increased digital advertising spend by 19%. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Email list sizes grew by 7%. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Mobile devices (phones & tablets) accounted for 54% of all devices visiting nonprofit websites. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Nonprofits sent an average of 63 emails per subscriber. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Nonprofit emails have an average open rate of 26.6%. (Campaign Monitor 2022)
- Nonprofit emails have an average click thru rate of 2.7%. (Campaign Monitor 2022)
- Nonprofit emails have an average click-to-open rates of 10.2%. (Campaign Monitor 2022)
- Nonprofit emails have an average spam reporting rate of 0.2%. (Campaign Monitor 2022)
- 9 in 10 people value user generated content (UGC) over branded posts and emails. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
Monthly Giving
- Monthly giving grew by 24% in 2022. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- Monthly giving was 22% of all online giving in 2022. (M+R Benchmarks 2022)
- 48% of 18-29 year olds and more than a third of 30-44 year olds give monthly. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
Major Donors
- Major donors ($5,000-$50,000 annual giving) increased 0.2% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- Supersized donors ($50k+ annual giving) decreased 5% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
Midlevel Donors
- Midlevel donors ($500-$5,000 annual giving) decreased 4.6% year over year. (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q1 2022)
- The average midlevel donor gives to 4.3 organizations. (Understanding Evangelical Midlevel Donors 2022)
Peer-to-peer Fundraising
- Fundraising events with a peer-to-peer fundraising component converted at 47%, the highest of rate of all campaign types. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
- Social media accounts for 32% of mobile traffic to peer-to-peer campaigns. (The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022)
Generational Giving (Silent Generation, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Y, Gen Z)
- 39% of donors aged 18-29 gave more during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- 48% of 18-29 year olds and more than a third of 30-44 year olds give monthly. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
- Gen Z and Millennials want to receive updates from organization at least monthly. (Fundraising Trends for 2022)
Religious Trends
- 58% of evangelicals give to charities outside their church. (The Generation Gap: Evangelical Giving Preferences)
- Evangelicals prefer to give locally (46%) vs overseas (27%). (The Generation Gap: Evangelical Giving Preferences)
- Evangelical donors prefer to give to an organization they already know (58%) compared to researching new organizations (27%). (The Generation Gap: Evangelical Giving Preferences)
- 74% of Evangelicals gave to the church they attended in the past 12 months. (The Generation Gap: Evangelical Giving Preferences)