The Joy of

Benchmarking
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a single
recipe for nonprofit success? All the
ingredients listed in precise
proportions, the techniques and
methods laid out just so. Follow the
steps, one by one, then set it and forget
it and… presto! A growing audience,
impactful advocacy, and rising revenue,
easy as pie.

Well, the annual M+R Benchmarks

Study is… not that. The reality, difficult
to swallow though it may be, is that our
work and our world are much too
complex to allow for such a
prescriptive approach.

The methods for cooking up a

successful digital program are as
individual and varied as the methods to
make curry, or pho, or chili. So, no
recipe to follow, sorry (unless you want
to know how to make some food,
that's here). Instead we have a
cornucopia of tables and charts, we
have toplines and trends, we have
insights to tantalize your senses and
amuse your bouche. And honestly, it’s
all a lot more exciting — and a lot
more useful — than any set of
simplified instructions.

This year, Benchmarks is informed by

the complicated, diverse, sometimes
messy experiences of 215 nonprofits.
Our wonderful participants shared the
details of almost 5.4 billion email and
SMS messages, 681 million website
visits, 374 thousand social media posts,
and so much more.

The findings in this year’s Benchmarks

represent the creativity and craft of
nonprofit staff who strive every day to
reach and expand audiences. They also
reflect the core values and changing
tastes of millions of supporters who
react, click, share, take action, and
donate to causes of all types. They
reveal the ongoing evolution of digital
channels that are increasingly the
centerpiece of marketing, advocacy, and
fundraising for nonprofits.

There’s a lot here, and if you take the

time to taste everything, you are sure
to find some delicious new insight and
inspiration. We certainly have.

We are grateful, as always, for the

generosity of our nonprofit
participants. We give thanks to
everyone who submitted data, coded
messages, and answered questions to
help this year’s Benchmarks come
together. You are delightful people, we
were pleased as punch to work with
you this year, and we look forward to
welcoming you back again next time.

In addition to the heaping helping of

findings in each year’s Benchmarks, we
often like to choose a theme. Mostly,
this is to make things a bit more fun for
us and for you (yes, we know, it’s a tall
order to make an in-depth discussion of
nonprofit data even more fun, but a
tasteful garnish can improve even the
most delicious meal). If we have been
too subtle so far: our theme this year is
food — and we chose it for reasons
beyond the ready availability of
delectable puns.

Food is more than sustenance. It is

culture and community, a way to come
together and find connection. Preparing
food for others can be a profound
expression of care and love. Food is
also labor, work that is often hidden
from consumers — from farmworkers
in the fields to packing plant assembly
lines to the bussers, dishwashers, and
line cooks in the back of your favorite
restaurant.

The collages throughout this year’s

Benchmarks are intended to recognize
and celebrate the variety of what food
means: love, work, and shared
experience. We’re also excited to share
some favorite recipes from the M+R
staff who have contributed to this
year’s Benchmarks. We hope you enjoy
them.

Now, the table is set, and it’s time to

dig in. Bon appétit!

Tasting Menu
Quick Bites

● Average online revenue declined by 4%

in 2022.

● Revenue from one-time online giving

decreased by 12%.

● Revenue from monthly giving

increased by 11%, and accounted for
28% of all online revenue.

● Digital advertising investment by

nonprofits increased by 28%.

● Return on ad spend was highest for

search ads, $2.75 for every dollar spent.
Return on ad spend for display was
$0.33; for Meta $0.50; and for Twitter
$0.41.

● For every 100,000 email subscribers at

the beginning of 2022, nonprofits
added an average of 9,000 subscribers
through paid advertising.

● Nonprofits sent 60 email messages per

subscriber in 2022, including 29
fundraising appeals. Email accounted
for 14% of all online revenue.

● For every 1,000 email addresses,

nonprofits had an average of 685
Facebook fans, 208 Twitter followers,
and 160 Instagram followers. Nearly all
participants were active on these
platforms.

● TikTok was an active platform for 30%

of participants. They had an average of
4 TikTok followers for every 1,000
email subscribers.

● The majority of nonprofit website

traffic came from users on mobile
devices — 57%, with 43% of traffic
from users on desktop devices.
However, 75% of revenue came from
users on desktop devices.

Buffets can be tricky. If you simply

move down the line from start to
finish, serving yourself a bit of each item
that catches your eye, you risk filling
your plate before you’re halfway across
and missing out on what might have
been the tastiest morsels.

A wise buffet-goer will scout ahead

first, identifying the most appealing
options. Even better: find someone
who’s already sampled it all and ask for
recommendations. That’s what we’re
here for — we’re full to bursting with
all sorts of fun facts and eager to share
what we’ve learned.

The rest of Benchmarks is piled high

with data to suit every taste. Before
you start exploring, we’ve prepared a
menu of what we think are the most
important, telling, useful, and
sometimes surprising findings.

Appetizer

Let’s whet our appetites with a couple

of key data points that provide a taste
of the data feast to come.

The average nonprofit reported

a small drop in revenue from
2021 to 2022, a 4% decline year
over year.

And listen, we don’t like to start this

data smorgasbord with the fundraising
equivalent of sad, mushy broccoli. We
want to see nonprofits thriving,
supporters more engaged, resources
going to where they can do the most
good. But above anything else,
Benchmarks is about two things:
transparently sharing the most accurate
metrics we can, and digging below top-
level findings to better understand the
nuance and context.

The nuance and context surrounding

the 4% decline in revenue are
fascinating.

First, it’s important to note that this

decline was not evenly distributed. It’s
the median figure for all our
participants, so half of all
participants reported a higher
number. (See the Methodology
section for more on how we calculate
our metrics.)

Online revenue
change 2021 to 2022

All

Value

All -4%

Cultural -13%

Disaster/International
8%
Aid

Environmental -4%

Health -3%

Hunger/Poverty -14%

Public Media -5%

Rights -6%

Wildlife/Animal Welfare 8%

Large 3%

Medium -7%

Small -5%

Press Play
Food for Thought

Senior Vice President Jonathan

Benton whips up Jackfruit Barbeque
Sandwiches while walking us through
some of the biggest data points from
this year's study.

Jonathan Benton
Senior Vice President

Download our cookbook to make this recipe!

The context of the moment matters —

that’s one reason that nonprofits in the
Disaster/International Aid sector
reported an 8% increase in revenue.
With the conflict in Ukraine generating
intense media attention and an
outpouring of compassion and
solidarity, nonprofits providing direct
support saw an influx of donors. But if
we are assessing change over time, we
need to look at 2022 and what came
before.

In the chart above, Hunger/Poverty

nonprofits show the steepest decline in
revenue, with a 14% drop from 2021. If
we look further back in time, these
same nonprofits reported an even
larger decrease in revenue from 2020
to 2021 — a 35% drop!

Online revenue
change 2020 to 2021

Value

All 4%

Cultural 21%

Disaster/International
11%
Aid

Environmental 12%

Health 7%

Hunger/Poverty -35%

Public Media 1%

Rights 1%

Wildlife/Animal Welfare 6%

Two consecutive years of declining

revenue might be alarming for any
individual nonprofit, let alone for the
cohort of nonprofits dedicated to
ensuring that our neighbors have a safe
and stable place to live and enough
nutritious food to put on the table.
Let’s pull back even further in time and
see what we find.

Online revenue
change year over year

2018- 2019
19 20

All 27% 38%

Cultural 2% 143%

Disaster/International
1% 30%
Aid

Environmental 17% 22%

Health 13% 38%

Hunger/Poverty 12% 390%

Public Media 6% 21%

Rights 5% 33%

Wildlife/Animal
9% 64%
Welfare

Note: Multi-year trend does not include revenue from

Facebook.

Here we capture the initial response to

the COVID pandemic, and it includes a
390% year-over-year increase in online
revenue for Hunger/Poverty nonprofits.
Not to get too in the weeds on the
math here, but that’s almost a 400%
increase! In one year! Starting from that
baseline, we can better understand the
context of the 14% decline in revenue
for this sector last year. The challenge
for these nonprofits may be primarily
one of retention, rather than donor
acquisition (see the Fundraising section
to explore retention metrics).

It’s helpful to understand that broad,

long-term story — but focusing in on a
couple of bite-sized data chunks can be
just as instructive.

For many nonprofits, the critical end-

of-year fundraising season kicks off right
after Thanksgiving. While normal
people are shopping for discounted air
fryers and crafting increasingly
improbable sandwiches out of leftovers,
fundraisers are putting out a high-
intensity push for donations that
reaches a boiling point on Giving
Tuesday.

In 2022, donations on Giving Tuesday

alone accounted for 3% of the total
online revenue for the year. That makes
Giving Tuesday one of the most
important days on the fundraising
calendar, and makes the data point you
are about to read especially notable.
Giving Tuesday revenue declined
by 13% from 2021, and email
revenue on Giving Tuesday
declined by 18%.

Change in revenue on
Giving Tuesday

Overall

All -13%

Cultural -13%

Disaster/International
-7%
Aid

Environmental -10%

Health -13%

Hunger/Poverty -16%

Rights -37%

Wildlife/Animal
-7%
Welfare

As Giving Tuesday strategies have

evolved over the last few years, many
nonprofits have begun adding early-bird
appeals in the days leading up to Giving
Tuesday, or extending matching gift or
premium offers past the midnight
deadline. It’s possible that some Giving
Tuesday revenue has simply shifted to
the surrounding days.

But this was not the only high-profile

moment with a drop in year-over-year
revenue. In fact, the biggest, most
wonderful, most terrifying
(wonderfying? terriful?) day of the year
showed strikingly similar results.

We’re talking about the day that online

fundraisers consider the big enchilada.
We’re talking about the one day to
make or break your annual budget
numbers, pull out all the stops, post
your 2X 3X 5X matching gift offers,
send your LAST FINAL ULTIMATE
CHANCE FOR REALS THIS TIME
deadline appeals, and obsessively hit the
refresh button on your CRM’s
reporting page all the way up until
midnight.

We’re talking about December 31, and

it’s a huge forking deal. Nonprofits
received 5% of all 2022 revenue on the
last day of the year — what happens
on that day has an outsized impact on
annual performance. And December
31, 2022 looked very different from
December 31, 2021.

Change in revenue on
December 31

Overall

All -13%

Disaster/International
-13%
Aid

Environmental -12%

Health -8%

Hunger/Poverty -19%

Public Media -20%

Rights -18%

Wildlife/Animal
6%
Welfare

Overall revenue was down 13%

from the same day the previous
year, and December 31 email
revenue dropped by 22%. This is a
situation where our data can tell us
what happened, but not why. It’s an
answer that spawns questions.

Did worries about inflation or a

possible recession affect donor
attitudes? Did a more crowded,
competitive messaging environment
make it harder for nonprofits to stand
out? Is this partly a return to “normal”
after COVID-driven fundraising in
previous years, as we saw with
Hunger/Poverty nonprofits? How much
of this decline was simply due to the
fact that December 31 fell on a
Saturday, and supporters were less
likely to pay attention to those last-
chance fundraising appeals?

If the last of these possible explanations

holds water, there’s some good news:
we won’t see another Saturday,
December 31 until the year 2033. On
the other hand, the last day of this year
falls on a Sunday, which may be subject
to some of the same effects.

Giving Tuesday and December 31 are

essential, bread-and-butter components
of the fundraising calendar. If nonprofits
struggle to maintain performance on
these days, it will have far-reaching
impacts on digital fundraising programs.

Main Course

Some things are just meant to go

together. Peanut butter and jelly. Fish
and chips. Cheese and literally anything
else. Email and digital advertising.

There’s a well-known holistic truth

here. In general, it’s a good idea to
adopt a multi-channel approach that
carries a consistent narrative across
different messaging streams — including
email and advertising, along with direct
mail, social media, telemarketing, and so
on. Branding is reinforced, supporters
receive a coherent story, and a
nonprofit develops a recognizable voice.

All true, but that’s not really what we’re

talking about here. It’s not just in the
messaging that email and ads are
intertwined. It’s in the mechanics —
how we identify potential supporters,
how we reach them, how we build
relationships, how we convert them to
activists, volunteers, and donors.

We’ll start on the ads side (see the

Digital Ads section for a full
exploration). Branding, awareness, or
education advertising accounted for
26% of all ad spending — this is the
kind of advertising that typically
supports visibility and broad narrative
efforts. The remainder of ad spending
was oriented toward direct response:
fundraising (56% of spending) and lead
generation ads that leverage a petition,
online action, or other engagement to
capture email, mobile, or other contact
information (15%).

Share of digital
advertising budget by
goal

All Large Medium

Branding
Awareness
26% 29% 15%
or
Education

Direct
56% 56% 58%
Fundraising

Lead
15% 13% 23%
Generation

Other 3% 3% 4%

Share of direct
fundraising budget by
channel

All Large Medium

Display 22% 19% 35%

Search 35% 35% 31%

Meta 36% 38% 24%

Twitter 0% 0% 0%

TikTok 0% 0% —

Video 5% 5% 2%

Other 3% 3% 7%

The cost to generate a single donation

via direct fundraising advertising varied
widely depending on platform and
nonprofit type. For example, Public
Media nonprofits spent $16 on search
to generate a single gift — and $469
per donation on Meta platforms (i.e.
Facebook and Instagram). For
Wildlife/Animal Welfare nonprofits,
cost per donation was $40 for search,
$70 for Meta, and $152 for display
advertising.

Digital advertising:
cost per donation

All

Display

All $217

Disaster/International
$215
Aid

Environmental $274

Health $227

Hunger/Poverty $163

Rights $279

Wildlife/Animal
$152
Welfare

Large $170

Medium $333

Small $441

The cost per donation correlates

strongly with return on ad spend
(ROAS) — the more it costs to
generate a gift, the smaller the net
revenue. Overall, search had the
strongest ROAS at $2.75 in revenue
per dollar spent on ads. Display and
Social advertising (including Meta,
Twitter, and a relative handful of
tentative TikTok investments) all had
ROAS below $1.00.

Digital advertising:
return on ad spend
(ROAS)

All

Display

All $0.33

Cultural —

Disaster/International
$0.12
Aid

Environmental $0.08

Health $0.60

Hunger/Poverty $0.96

Public Media —

Rights $0.26

Wildlife/Animal
$0.21
Welfare

Large $0.65

Medium $0.28

Small $0.21

So we have a situation where it can be

costly to acquire donors directly from
advertising, and in many cases the costs
outweigh the immediate return. That
means that in order to see positive net
revenue from these new donors, we
should be looking beyond that first
interaction and seeking ways to
motivate additional gifts (including
recurring giving). That’s where email
comes in — the welcome series, the
follow-up appeals, the cultivation and
engagement messaging, the ongoing
work of building and feeding
relationships.

Making the most of your

advertising program depends on
having an effective email
program.

But also:

Making the most of your email

program depends on having an
effective advertising program.

Turning back to that 15% of advertising

budgets dedicated to lead generation,
we measure efficiency by the cost per
digital advertising lead. On average,
nonprofits spent $3.41 to acquire one
new lead, though again we see a wide
divergence between nonprofits of
different types. Small nonprofits (those
with annual online revenue under
$500,000) spent significantly more per
lead than their larger peers — perhaps
due to having lower baseline brand
recognition, or the challenges of
optimizing ads on a smaller budget.

Cost Per Digital

Advertising Lead

All

Value

All $3.41

Disaster/International
$2.50
Aid

Environmental $3.45

Health $5.08

Hunger/Poverty $7.85

Public Media $4.65

Rights $2.71

Wildlife/Animal Welfare $1.78

Large $3.16

Medium $2.84

Small $5.14

Still, even at the highest end ($7.85, the

cost per lead for Hunger/Poverty
nonprofits), this would be considered
money well spent if it leads to a larger,
more active supporter base. These new
leads become email and text messaging
subscribers, and breathe new life into
those programs.

Email lists lost subscribers in 2022, with

an average decrease of 2%. It’s a small
net decline, driven by a combination of
bounces, unsubscribes, and nonprofits
removing inactive users from their lists.
Those losses were mostly balanced by
new subscribers being added at nearly
the same rate. Want to guess where a
large portion of those new listmembers
came from?

One of the new metrics we tracked for

this year’s Benchmarks is “ratio of ad-
acquired leads to start of year email list
size.” Now, that’s quite a mouthful, and
probably not something you’ll find on
your CRM’s default reporting
dashboard. So let’s just look at this
chart for a second and then talk about
what it means.

Ratio of ad-acquired
leads to start of year
email list size

median

All 0.09

Disaster/International
0.15
Aid

Environmental 0.08

Health 0.05

Hunger/Poverty 0.12

Public Media 0.01

Rights 0.28

Wildlife/Animal
0.16
Welfare

Large 0.08

Medium 0.09

Small 0.13

The average ratio of ad-acquired leads

to email list size at the start of the year
was 0.09. What this means is that if a
nonprofit came into 2022 with an
email list of 100,000 subscribers,
over the course of the year they
would add 9,000 new subscribers
through advertising lead
generation. For Rights nonprofits, the
average ratio is 0.28 — so a 100,000-
subscriber list would add 28,000 ads-
acquired subscribers in 2022.

That’s a lot — and that’s just the

median. The colored bars in the chart
above represent what we think of as
the “normal” range — down to the
25th percentile on the left, and up to
the 75th percentile on the right.

For nonprofits overall, that 75th

percentile ratio is over 0.3, and even
higher for some sectors. Small
nonprofits in that upper range added
nearly as many subscribers through paid
advertising as they had on their entire
list at the start of the year!

Considering the steady drain of churn,

and how important new subscribers
are to a thriving email program, the
idea of email programs without support
from ads is distinctly unappetizing.

The fundamental metrics underpinning

email and ads programs show how
much each depends on the other. If you
aren’t already, it’s time to start treating
them like milk and cookies, like bangers
and mash, like cacio e pepe.

Press Play
Food for Thought

Director of Data Analytics Theresa

Bugeaud bakes Blueberry Muffins
while sharing some of the new
metrics she's excited about for this
year's study.

Theresa Bugeaud
Director of Data Analytics

Download our cookbook to make this recipe!

Dessert

Here it is, the one and only pie chart in

this year’s (or any year’s!) Benchmarks
Study:
(We mostly abjure the use of pie charts
because it’s hard for people to
accurately compare the relative size of
pie chart slices — bar charts are easier
to grasp at a glance. But sometimes it’s
okay to have a little pie chart, as a
treat.)

Mobile messaging encompasses a

variety of tools and techniques. There
are broadcast messages sent from a
nonprofit to its subscriber list, and
peer-to-peer texting where each
buzzing phone is intended to start a
one-on-one conversation. There’s
quick, text-only SMS, and more robust
MMS. And nonprofits are increasingly
using mobile messaging to serve a
variety of goals.

What is your
organization using
Peer-to-Peer text
messaging for?

value

Fundraising 62%

Advocacy actions 47%

Event attendance 45%

GOTV 39%

Volunteer recruitment 39%

Relational organizing 27%

The most common use of peer-to-peer

text messaging is fundraising — 62% of
participants who engage in peer-to-
peer messaging included fundraising in
the mix. Nearly half (47%) used P2P
messaging to drive advocacy actions.
(These numbers don’t add up to 100%
because they are not mutually exclusive;
many nonprofits leveraged mobile
messaging for multiple goals throughout
the year. One more example of where
you really need to rely on a bar chart
to convey information. Pie charts could
never.)

In addition to direct response efforts,

mobile messaging (and in particular
peer-to-peer) is an important aspect of
digital organizing. Moving supporters
from purely online actions — donating,
taking action, sharing content on social
media — to the deeper engagement
required to show up at an event or put
in a volunteer shift is difficult, resource-
intensive work.

What digital
organizing methods
do you use?

value

Email 95%

Events 84%

Volunteer tracking 78%

Peer-to-Peer 69%

SMS 62%

Volunteer community 53%

Relational organizing 42%

Phonebanking 32%

A cross-channel approach is essential.

Those nonprofits that use one digital
organizing tool are likely to use several,
and 69% of them include peer-to-peer
as part of that mix.

Leveraging digital organizing tools to

build a base of supporters and
volunteers that can then amplify peer-
to-peer messaging efforts? That’s what’s
called having your cake and eating it,
too. (We think. It’s a pretty confusing
saying if we’re being honest. Maybe
better to stick with pie.)

Digestif

Before we move into the rest of the

data, a couple of final morsels that
provide some insight into an established
marketing practice that is becoming
more common for nonprofits:
partnering with social media
influencers.

We surveyed participants about their

influencer strategies and results. Nearly
half (47%) of nonprofits who answered
our questions about social media
influencers reported working with
them in 2022 — but just 13% paid
those influencers to post.

Among that 13%, the average number

of paid influencer partnerships was 6
over the course of 2022, with an
average of 10 posts from those
influencers. The most common use for
influencer partnerships was content
creation around narrative, persuasion,
and/or culture change — 82% of
nonprofits who partnered with paid
influencers reported this type of effort.

As nonprofit digital programs continue

to evolve, we expect to find deeper
connections across platforms, and
continued experimentation with new
channels and innovative strategies.
Hungry for more? Keep eating reading.

Press Play
Food for Thought

Mix a classic-ish negroni and hear

about why Benchmarks matters for
our community with M+R Partner
Madeline Stanionis.

Madeline Stanionis
Partner

Download our cookbook to make this recipe!

Methodology
There’s so much more to a meal than
what you see on the plate. The labor of
people who grow, harvest, pack, and
prepare the food. The interconnected
foodways and traditions that create
ever-evolving cuisines. The experiences,
training, and perspective of the chef.

Benchmarks is no different. We strive

to present the most comprehensive,
clear, informative collection of data we
can — but there’s a lot going on
beneath the surface. Here are a few
things you should know to help you
better understand our findings and put
them to use.

Wherever possible, we have broken out

the findings by sector. Each of our
participants self-identified the
appropriate sector (or, in some cases,
fell outside of our defined sectors and
selected “Other”). If you are not sure
which sector represents your peer
group, review the full list of
participants to find where you
belong.

We also sort our participants by size.

For our study, “Small” refers to
nonprofits with annual online revenue
in 2022 below $500,000; “Medium” is
those nonprofits with annual online
revenue between $500,000 and
$3,000,000; and “Large” covers all
those with annual online revenue
greater than $3,000,000.

The averages displayed in each chart

and discussed throughout Benchmarks
represent the median figure for a
given metric for all participants who
reported data. Not all participants
were able to provide data for every
metric. If a chart does not include data
for a certain sector or size, it’s because
we were not able to collect enough
results to report a reliable average.

We use median rather than mean to

minimize the risk of a single participant
with unusual results having an outsize
impact on the overall findings. You will
also see some charts that include a
range showing the 25th percentile to
the 75th percentile. Half of all reported
values fell within this range, which can
be considered “normal” results for
participants in our study.

Some of the most useful and interesting

data in Benchmarks relies on year-over-
year comparisons. Wherever we
include this type of finding, we are
including long-term data from this year’s
participants — an apples-to-apples
comparison. We do not compare this
year’s findings to what was reported in
previous editions of Benchmarks,
because the participant pool changes
from year to year. That would be more
of an apples-to-oranges situation at
best. At worst, it would be more like
apples-to-pineapples or grapes-to-
grapefruits, where a superficial
similarity hides a massive underlying
difference.

If you have any more questions about

how we cooked up Benchmarks this
year, please reach out to
@mrcampaigns or email
[email protected].

Cook Time: 20 Minutes

Quick Bites

● Online revenue for the average

nonprofit decreased by 4% in 2022.

● Disaster/International Aid and

Wildlife/Animal Welfare were the only
sectors to report an increase in
revenue.

● Much of the decline in revenue

occurred on December 31. Overall
revenue on that day was 13% lower
than on December 31, 2021, including a
22% drop in email revenue.

● There was also a decline on Giving

Tuesday. Overall revenue on Giving
Tuesday was 13% lower than in 2021,
including an 18% drop in email
revenue.

● Monthly giving increased by 11%, while

one-time revenue declined by 12%.
Monthly giving accounted for 28% of
all online revenue in 2022.

● The average one-time gift was $121, up

from $115 the previous year. The
average monthly gift was $25, up from
$24.

● Revenue per donor per year was $287

for supporters who made monthly gifts.
For those who made only one-time
gifts, revenue per donor per year was
$192.

● Overall online donor retention for one-

time donors was 29%. For one-time
donors who made their first gift in
2021, retention was 16%. For previous
repeat one-time donors, retention was
49%.

● Membership giving accounted for 64%

of online revenue for Cultural
nonprofits, with membership revenue
growing by 9% in 2022, following 33%
growth in 2021.

Leftovers get a bad rap sometimes,

undeservedly so. Sure, that pizza is not
going to perk back up in the
microwave, and yesterday’s french fries
may be a lost cause. But so much work
goes into preparing a meal, it’s often a
shame not to get another chance to
enjoy it.

And then there are the times when

something is just as good and maybe
even better the second time around.
Jambalaya, for instance, or a rich and
hearty maafe. Or — spoiler alert for
when we talk about retention in a bit
— renewed support from previous
donors.

Before we get toREAD

that, let’s reheat some
of the metrics weFULL
looked at in the
SECTION
tasting menu, including the big one:
Overall online revenue for the
average nonprofit declined by 4%
from 2021 to 2022.

Cook Time: 18 Minutes

Quick Bites

● Email list sizes decreased by 2% in

2022, after 8% and 9% growth in the
previous two years.

● Email revenue declined by 4%, the

same decline reported in total online
revenue.

● For every 1,000 fundraising messages

sent, nonprofits raised $90. This marks
a 15% decrease from 2021.

● Nonprofits sent an average of 60 email

messages per subscriber in 2022, a 15%
increase in volume from the previous
year. Fundraising appeals made up
about half of the total email volume.

● The average response rate for advocacy

email was 1.31%, an 8% decline over the
previous year.

● The average response rate for

fundraising email was 0.09%, an 18%
decrease compared to 2021.

● Mobile messaging (a.k.a. text messaging

or SMS/MMS) subscriber list size
increased by 11%. Nonprofits had 236
mobile subscribers for every 1,000
email subscribers.

● On average, nonprofits sent 21 text

messages per subscriber per year, a 28%
increase in volume from 2021.

A young apple tree might take six years

or more before it begins bearing fruit.
In that time it needs water, sunshine,
and a bounty of nutrients. It must be
tended and pruned and protected from
pests. Skilled laborers care for the tree,
harvest and pack and ship the fruit.

It is an enormous amount of work,

largely unseen, but a healthy tree can
stay productive for many, many years.

Your email and SMS program is an

orchard, and it will not blossom
without care. Success requires patience,
attention, and a commitment to
cultivating long-term relationships with
supporters. Carelessness leads to decay
and blight: bottom-of-the-barrel
deliverability, crashing response rates,
unsustainable churn.

Email list sizes decreased slightly in

2022 — nonprofits ended the year
with 2% fewer subscribers than they
began. This dip followed 8% growth in
2021, and 9% growth in 2020.
READ
FULL
SECTION
List growth

2020- 2021
21 22

All 9% 8%

Cook Time: 19 Minutes

Quick Bites

● Nonprofit digital ads spend increased

by 28% in 2022, with nonprofits
reinvesting $0.11 in digital ads for
every dollar of online revenue.

● Direct fundraising accounted for 56%

of all ad spending. Branding,
awareness, and education ads made up
26% of spending, and nonprofits spend
15% of ad budgets on lead generation.

● Ad-driven lead generation was an

important source of email subscribers.
For every 100,000 email subscribers at
the start of 2022, nonprofits acquired
9,000 new subscribers via ads.

● The average cost per click (CPC) for

search ads was $3.63; for social media
ads, the average CPC was $4.55.
● Search advertising had the lowest cost
per donation at $47 and highest return
on ad spend (ROAS) at $2.75.

● When relying on Google Grants,

nonprofits reported a “cost” per
donation of $1,208 and a ROAS of
$0.07. (Which is to say: the results for
Google Grants ads are significantly
weaker than for paid search on the
whole. We put the “cost” in quotes here
because the Grant program means no
one actually pays those amounts.)

● View-through revenue (revenue from

donors who made a donation from
seeing, but not clicking on, an ad)
accounted for 26% of all giving sourced
to digital ads.

Television ads for kids’ cereals used to

end with an extraordinary claim: these
Sugar-Crusted Double Marshmallow
Chocoroos™ are part of a balanced
breakfast! And they’d show a bowl of
wondrously dyed cereal next to a glass
of orange juice, a glass of milk, four
slices of buttered toast, fruit salad,
three eggs over medium, a short stack
of pancakes, and another glass of
orange juice, somehow?

The obvious takeaway is that you

should probably not take nutritional
advice from the makers of Gooey
Frooty Gobsmacks™. But the harder
truth is that it’s extremely difficult for
people to agree on what actually
constitutes balanced nutrition. Different
tastes, restrictions, priorities, allergies,
nutritional needs, cultural expectations,
and more lead to infinite variation on
what we mean when we say “balanced.”

READ
That same holds true when we’re
FULL
deciding how to allocate resources,
SECTION
investments, and objectives in a digital
ads campaign. The challenge isn’t so
much that a given platform or audience
is good or bad, any more than High
Fructose Happy Flakes® are healthy or

Cook Time: 17 Minutes

Quick Bites

● For every 1,000 email addresses,

nonprofits had an average of 685
Facebook fans, 208 Twitter followers,
and 160 Instagram followers. Nearly all
nonprofits reported an active presence
on these platforms.

● TikTok was an active platform for 30%

of nonprofits. These participants had
an average of 4 TikTok followers for
every 1,000 email addresses.

● Among the three most commonly used

platforms, Instagram audiences grew at
the fastest rate. Nonprofits had 10%
more Instagram followers in 2022 than
in 2021, while Facebook fans increased
by 4%. Twitter audience sizes held flat
for the year.

● Facebook posts reached 53 users on

average for every 1,000 followers a
nonprofit had. Twitter posts reached
47 users per 1,000 followers, and
Instagram posts reached 65 users per
1,000 followers.

● Revenue from Facebook declined by

34% overall, but surged by 99% for
nonprofits in the
Disaster/International Aid sector.
Facebook giving accounted for 1.1% of
all online revenue.

● The average Facebook Fundraiser

generated 4 gifts, with an average gift
of $34.

Anyone who has ever attended a

rambunctious Thanksgiving gathering,
debated whether a hot dog is a
sandwich, or spent five minutes on
M+R’s internal #feelingsonfood Slack
channel knows: nothing simultaneously
brings people together and sparks
furious argument quite like food. Well,
maybe one thing: social media.

Each platform is a potluck that hosts a

different-but-often-overalapping
audience, and employs a fickle
algorithm that elevates some content
while squashing other posts.
Nonprofits choose which of these
dinner parties to join, and try their best
to earn a seat at the table.

Three social media platforms enjoyed

near-universal adoption from nonprofits
in 2022: Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter.

Percentage of
READ
nonprofits
FULL using
social media
SECTION
platforms

value

Facebook 99%

Cook Time: 9 Minutes

Quick Bites

● The majority of nonprofit website

traffic came from users on mobile
devices (including both phones and
tablets). Mobile users represented 57%
of all visits, with 43% of traffic from
users on desktop devices.

● Users on desktop devices made up the

majority of donation transactions
(63%) and revenue (75%).

● The average gift made on desktop

devices was $194; for mobile users, the
average gift was $94.

● Organic traffic (website traffic

generated by unpaid search results)
comprised 38% of all nonprofit website
visits in 2022.

● Overall, 0.23% of organic website

visitors made a donation, generating an
average of $0.77 per visitor.

Menu design is all about anticipating

what a diner might want, and balancing
that against what a restaurant wants to
serve. At one extreme you have the
prix fixe menu, or better yet, omakase
— absolving the consumer of making
difficult decisions, trusting in the chef to
know what’s best. At the other end of
the spectrum is the Cheesecake
Factory approach: a phone-book sized
tome featuring every kind of cuisine
imaginable, and some that are better
left unimagined.

The menu of options on nonprofit

websites typically falls in between —
aiming for clear navigation while
emphasizing certain choices. You can
donate, take action, explore issues,
make a gift, buy tickets, DONATE,
volunteer, discover resources, search
job openings, become a monthly donor,
ask a question, donate….

A core challenge is optimizing the

webpage so that visitors can easily find
what they are hungry for, and so that
nonprofits can draw attention to those
site elements they most want to
prioritize. To do that, it helps to know
where visitors are coming from, and
how they are experiencing the site.

The average nonprofit website saw 38%

of its visitors arrive via organic search
READ“organic” means
results. In this context,
FULL
the user entered a search term and
SECTION
clicked on a result that was not a paid
ad.

Organic traffic

We Are M+R

We are M+R, and we are hungry for

change.

We believe that the nonprofits we

work for are essential to advancing the
cause of justice, alleviating suffering, and
solving the greatest challenges we face.

We bring experience, talent, and

unshakeable dedication to our clients
through fundraising and supporter
engagement, movement building and
issue advocacy, and message and brand
development.

We’re always cooking up new

resources, advice, and tools for
nonprofits. Visit us at mrss.com.

Find out more about working at M+R

and join our crew at mrss.com/careers.

The Cooks in the Kitchen

Favorite
Chef Role
Breakfast

Jonathan
Data Analysis Coffee
Benton

Theresa French Toast

Data Analysis
Bugeaud Casserole

Hannah Apple with Peanut

Data Analysis
Cullen Butter

Lia
Data Analysis Eggs Benedict
Mancuso

Chocolate
Mugo Muna Data Analysis
Croissant

Sammy
Data Analysis Western Omelet
Stewart

Biscuit, Egg,
Sarah
Data Analysis Cheese, Pepper
Vanderbilt
Jelly

Will
Writing Chilaquiles
Valverde

Melissa Stuffed French

Design
Hines Toast

Laura Salmon Eggs

Design
Klavon Benedict

Bobby Web Buttermilk

Burch Development Pancakes

Tom Web
Biscuits and Gravy
Giordano Development

Lucy Participant
Almond Croissant
Midelfort Management

Bobby Project
Breakfast Burrito
Goldstein Management

Evan Aczon Insights Hash Browns

Ankur Lukewarm
Insights
Asthana Pepperoni Pizza

Asha Bland Insights Leftovers

Miranda Blueberry
Insights
Carter Pancakes

Sarah Bacon and Cheese

Insights
Coughlon Sammie

Kait Grable Strawberry

Insights
Gonzalez Waffles w/ Whip

Ferenc
Insights Smoothie
Koszorus

Yoonhyung Poached Eggs and

Insights
Lee Toast

Julia Granola, Yogurt,

QA
Allenby Blueberries

Alec
QA Breakfast Burrito
MacIntyre

Anne
QA Oatmeal
Paschkopić

Madeline Executive
Swedish Pancakes
Stanionis Sponsor

PRESS PLAY

Food for
Thought
M+R Staff head to the kitchen to talk
data trends and delicious food.

Download their delectable recipes

here!

Ferenc Koszorus
Account Supervisor

Jonathan Benton
Senior Vice President

Julia Allenby
Marketing Support

Laura Klavon
Brand Strategist
 Madeline Stanionis
Partner

Sarah Coughlon
Media Director

Theresa Bugeaud
Director of Data Analytics

Will Valverde
Senior Creative Director

Glossary
A-E F-J K-O

P-T U-Z

Advocacy Message

An email or SMS message that asks

recipients to sign an online
petition, send an email to a
decision-maker, or take a similar
online action. For the purposes of
this Study, advocacy email does not
include higher-bar actions like
making a phone call or attending
an event, largely because tracking
offline response is inconsistent
across organizations. Advocacy
email rates were calculated from
advocacy emails with a simple
action sent to either the full file or
a random sample of the full file.

Biscuits

Hi, UK friends! See: COOKIES.

Click-Through Rate

Calculated as the number of

people who clicked on any
trackable link in an email or text
message divided by the number of
delivered emails or text messages.
People who clicked multiple times
in one email were only counted
once. In other words, if a
subscriber clicked on every link in a
message 10 times, this was
counted the same as if the
subscriber had clicked once on a
single link.

Cookies

A chunk of data placed on a user’s

computer by a web browser, which
can be used to authenticate, track,
or customize the user’s
experience. Chrome, Safari, and
other browsers have recently made
changes to limit tracking cookies,
which can make it more difficult
for nonprofits to target users
based on their browsing history.
This change is described as cookies
being “deprecated,” and is similar
to the experience of when you
reach into the jar for a
snickerdoodle and all that’s left is a
scattering of stale crumbs. You
might say that tracking cookies...
have crumbled.

Deliverable Emails

Only the emails that were

delivered, not including the emails
that are considered inactive or
emails that were sent and bounced.
“Delivered” email messages may
land in a user’s inbox, spam folder,
promotions tab, or custom folder.

Device Type, Desktop

We use the definitions provided by

Google Analytics to separate traffic
data by device type. The “desktop”
category includes any desktop or
laptop computer with a screen
larger than 7” in diagonal.

Device Type, Mobile

We use the definitions provided by

Google Analytics to separate traffic
data by device type. Mobile devices
are hand-held devices that include
a phone or a tablet.

Digital Organizing

Recruiting, engaging and organizing

members, activists, and/or
volunteers toward advocacy
outcomes.

Fans, Facebook

People who “like” a nonprofit’s

Facebook Fan page.

Followers, Instagram

People who subscribe to see posts

from a nonprofit’s Instagram
account.

Followers, TikTok

People who follow a nonprofit’s

TikTok account.

Followers, Twitter

People who subscribe to receive

the tweets from a nonprofit’s
Twitter account.

Full File

All of an organization’s deliverable

email addresses, not including
unsubscribed email addresses or
email addresses to which an
organization no longer sends email
messages.

Fundraising Message

An email or SMS message that only

asks for a donation, as opposed to
an email newsletter, which might
ask for a donation and include
other links. For the purposes of
this Study, fundraising email only
includes one-time donation asks; it
does not include monthly gift asks.
Fundraising email rates were
calculated from all fundraising
emails, regardless of whether the
email went to the full file, a
random sample of the file, or a
targeted portion of the file.

Google Grants

A distinct Google Ads account

where nonprofits can buy up to
$10,000/mo in search ads using
free credits. Subject to restrictions
(such as caps on certain bidding
strategies): think of it as a giant
coupon with a lot of fine print!

Influencers

Social media influencers are people

who have an established presence
on one or more social media
platforms, with a reputation for
being knowledgeable about a
certain topic. Influencers regularly
post content around that topic for
their established, engaged follower
base. These audiences, ranging
from thousands to millions, follow
influencers for their authentic
views on their area of expertise.

List Churn

Calculated as the number of

subscribers who became
unreachable in a 12-month period
divided by the sum of the number
of deliverable email addresses at
the end of that period plus the
number of subscribers who
became unreachable during that
period. Study participants were
required to track the number of
subscribers who became
unreachable each month to
account for subscribers both
joining and leaving an email list
during the 12-month period who
would otherwise go uncounted.

Monthly Gift

A donation where the donor signs

up once to donate on a regular
schedule, typically by pledging a
regular gift amount on a credit card
each month. Also known as a
sustaining gift.

Newsletters, Email

An email with multiple links or

asks, which can include fundraising
or advocacy asks. Email newsletter
rates were calculated from all email
newsletters, regardless of whether
the newsletter went to the full file,
a random sample of the file, or a
targeted portion of the file.

Newtons

Not cookies — they are fruit and

cake. See also: COOKIES.

Online Retention, New

Donor

Of the donors that made their

first-ever online gift in the previous
calendar year, the percent that
made an online gift in the current
calendar year. Note that we count
someone as “new” in 2022 if they
have no online donations reported
between the start of 2018 and the
end of 2021.

Online Retention, Prior

Donor

Of the donors that made an online

gift in the previous calendar year
that wasn’t their first online gift,
the percent that made an online
gift in the current calendar year.

Open Rate

Calculated as the number of

HTML email messages opened
divided by the number of delivered
emails. Email messages that bounce
are not included. In 2021, Apple
made changes to how opens can
be tracked on its devices,
effectively breaking open tracking
in many systems. As a result we’re
no longer reporting out a
Benchmark open rate (sorry!).

Organic

“Organic Traffic” includes website

visits generated by unpaid search
results. “Organic Produce” is food
that has been certified as abiding
by certain government restrictions,
typically meaning it is free of
additives, GMO crops, or synthetic
pesticides. “Organ? Ick!” is how
some people respond when
presented with haggis, menudo, or
chitterlings. They simply can’t
stomach it! These same people
also tend to misspell “offal,” instead
writing “awful.” They refuse to just
hold their tongue and go a lung
with it. Imagine the utter gall. The
sheer cheek! They have a heart
time adopting a liver let live
attitude. All kidneying aside, they
reject the very concept of brain
food. Help please I can’t stop.

Page Completion Rate

Calculated as the number of

people who completed a form
divided by the number of people
who clicked on the link to get to
that form. For the purposes of this
Study, it was not always possible to
use the number of people who
clicked on a link to a specific form,
so we used the number of unique
clicks in the message.

Peer-to-Peer Text
Messaging

Unlike a single mass message to a

full list, these SMS messages
connect volunteers and staff to
individuals, enabling one-on-one
conversations.

Percentile

The percentage of observed values

below the named data point. 25%
of the observations are below the
25th percentile; 75% of the
observations are below the 75th
percentile. The values between the
25th percentile and the 75th
percentile are the middle 50% of
the observed values and represent
the normal range of values.

Ratio of Ad-Acquired Leads

to Start of Year Email List
Size

Ratio of new email leads acquired

through digital advertising divided
email size at the start of the year.

Reach per Post per 1,000

Followers

The total number of users who see

a social media post divided by the
number of fans/followers of the
non-profit posting it, times 1,000.
Meant to represent how many
people actually see non-profit
posts, relative to the size of their
following.

Relational Organizing

Mobilizing personal contacts within

a volunteer’s network. It could be
calls, texts, or in-person
conversations with people in their
own community.

Response Rate

Calculated as the number of

people who took the main action
requested by an email or text
message divided by the number of
delivered messages.

Twitter Engagement Rate

The total number of users who

engage with a post (by liking,
clicking, sharing, etc.), divided by
post reach.

Unique Clicks

The number of people who clicked

on any trackable link in an email
message, as opposed to the
number of times the links in an
email were clicked. If a subscriber
clicked on every link in a message
10 times, this is counted as 1
unique click. It is also counted as 1
strange person.

Unsubscribe Rate

Calculated as the number of

individuals who unsubscribed in
response to an email message
divided by the number of delivered
emails.

View-Through Revenue

Revenue from donors who made a

donation (typically within 30 days)
of seeing, but not clicking on, an
ad. For example, a supporter who
sees a banner ad and later goes
directly to the nonprofit’s website
to make a gift.

Website Donation Page

Conversion Rate

Calculated from the number of

donations to a participant’s main
donation page, divided by the
number of unique pageviews of
that page. We included only unique
pageviews for the one-time
donation page, if a separate
donation page existed for monthly
gifts.

Website Page Load Time

The number of seconds before a

page appears to be visually
complete, as measured by the
WebPageTest tool at
http://webpagetest.org

Website Revenue per Visitor

Calculated as the total revenue

from one-time online gifts, plus the
value of initial monthly gifts, divided
by the total number of website
visitors for the year. Depending on
retention, the long-term value of
monthly gifts may be substantially
higher.

Website Visitors per Month

The number of monthly unique

visitors to a participant’s main
website.

Participant List

Cultural

American Museum of Natural History

Art Fund
Arts Alliance Illinois
California Academy of Sciences
Central Park Conservancy
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Museum of Science
National Trust for Historic Preservation

Disaster/International Aid

Action Against Hunger USA

American Red Cross
Anera
British Red Cross
Canadian Red Cross
Christian Aid
CMMB - Healthier Lives Worldwide
Health Equity International
HIAS
Hope and Homes for Children
International Development Research
Centre (IDRC)
International Justice Mission
International Rescue Committee
Islamic Relief UK
MAG (Mines Advisory Group)
Mercy Corps
Oxfam America
Oxfam GB
Philip Hayden Foundation
Right To Play
Save the Children
Save the Children UK
Sightsavers
The Leprosy Mission
UK for UNHCR
USA for UNHCR
Women for Women International UK
World Food Program USA
World Vision UK

Environmental

Alliance for the Great Lakes

ClientEarth
Colorado Headwaters Land Trust
Conservation Law Foundation
David Suzuki Foundation
Ecojustice Canada
Food & Water Watch
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace Canada
Greenpeace USA
Izaak Walton League of America
League of Conservation Voters
Mono Lake Committee
Mystic River Watershed Association
National Audubon Society
National Geographic Society
Natural Resources Council of Maine
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nature Conservancy of Canada
NRDC Action Fund
Oceana
Overton Park Conservancy
Puget Soundkeeper
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Rainforest Trust
Rare
Riverkeeper
Sierra Club
The Trust for Public Land
The Wilderness Society
The Wilderness Society Action Fund
Union of Concerned Scientists
Washington Trails Association
Wildlife Conservation Society
World Wildlife Fund
Wyoming Outdoor Council

Health

Action on Smoking and Health

Alzheimer’s Association
American Heart Association
American Lung Association
Atlanta Ronald McDonald House
Charities
BC Cancer Foundation
Blood Cancer UK
Blood:Water
Children’s Hospice South West
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Colorectal Cancer Alliance
Dementia UK
Evelina London Children’s Charity
Foundation Fighting Blindness
Fountain House
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Children’s Charity
Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity
Guy’s Cancer Charity
JDRF
Kidney Research UK
Langley Memorial Hospital Foundation
Maggie’s
March of Dimes
Marie Curie
Muscular Dystrophy Association
Project Open Hand
ReSurge International
Ronald McDonald House Charities of
Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana
Samaritans
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Sands
Sense
Smile Train UK
Special Olympics
Teenage Cancer Trust
The Eve Appeal

Hunger/Poverty

Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank

All Faiths Food Bank
Care and Share Food Bank
Centrepoint
Child Poverty Action Group
Community Food Bank of New Jersey
Feeding America
Feeding South Dakota
Food Bank of Eastern Michigan
Food Bank of Northeast Louisiana
Food Bank of the Rockies
Food Finders Food Bank
God’s Pantry Food Bank, Inc.
Golden State Opportunity
Good Shepherd Food Bank
Great Plains Food Bank
Greater Chicago Food Depository
Greater Cleveland Food Bank
Greater Lansing Food Bank
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food
Bank
Maryland Food Bank
Oregon Food Bank
Philabundance
Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma
San Antonio Food Bank
Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle
Tennessee
Second Harvest Food Bank of
Northeast Tennessee
Share Our Strength
Shelter
The Food Bank of Central Louisiana
The Food Bank of Contra Costa and
Solano
Union Gospel Mission (Vancouver)

Public Media

KAWC
KNKX
KPBS Public Media
KQED
Louisville Public Media
Nebraska Public Media
WETA
WNET

Rights

Advancement Project
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International UK
Amnesty International USA
Equality Federation
Fòs Feminista
Freedom from Torture
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders
(GLAD)
Global Fund for Women
Human Rights Campaign
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
Liberty
National Network to End Domestic
Violence (NNEDV)
National Women’s Law Center
Pathfinder International
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Planned Parenthood Federation of
America
RAICES
Refuge
Reprieve
Stand Up America
Trans Empowerment Project

Wildlife/Animal Welfare

Animal Place
Animals Asia UK
ASPCA
BC SPCA
Dogs Trust
Humane Society International
IFAW UK
International Fund for Animal Welfare
National Wildlife Federation
Operation Kindness
People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals
RedRover
Rise for Animals
The Brooke
The Humane Society of the United
States
The International Wildlife Rehabilitation
Council
World Animal Protection

Other

Afterschool for Children and Teens

Now (ACT Now) Coalition
American Friends Service Committee
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Children’s Society
Communications Workers of America
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
Digital Moment (formerly Kids Code
Jeunesse)
EdReports
Embarc
Friends Committee on National
Legislation
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Help for Heroes
Indspire
MoveOn
National Deaf Children’s Society
Non-Profit Housing Association of
Northern California
People For the American Way
Project On Government Oversight
Room to Read
The Salvation Army
True Patriot Love Foundation
UJA Federation of New York
Walking With The Wounded
Washington STEM
Win Without War

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