Fundraisers expecting online revenue to save their 2023 were probably very disappointed. Online revenue declined by 1% during 2023 on average, but revenue from monthly giving increased 6%, and accounted for 31% of all online revenue.
Some nonprofits did have increased online revenue. It was 3% more for Public Media nonprofits, and 4% more for the Health sector. At the other extreme, Disaster/International Aid nonprofits had online revenue decline by 7%.
Nonprofits raised an average 94 cents through direct mail for every dollar raised online. Direct mail revenue fell by 6% in 2023.
Those are some of the statistics on the new report from agency M+R, with operations in Washington, D.C., New York City and Oakland, California. The agency collected responses from fundraisers at 216 nonprofits for its Benchmarks report.
“It’s a continuation of trends we’ve been seeing over the past few years. The big spike in online revenue since 2020 stabilized,” said Will Valverde, lead writer of Benchmarks and senior creative director at M+R. The data showed there has been little year-over-year change in online revenue during the past three years: single digits, up and down, he said. This plateau followed a large spike in revenue in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. Since then, the experience of many nonprofits has been about finding adjustments to a new normal, according to Valverde.
About half of 225 M+R Benchmarks participants reported working with social media influencers during 2023. Of those, 17% relied only on paid partnerships, and 30% used a mix of paid and unpaid influencer work. TikTok audiences for nonprofits increased by 112% during 2023, far faster than other social media platforms tracked in the report. Facebook and Instagram follower counts grew by 6% and 11%. The number of Twitter/X followers declined by 1% on average.
Email revenue declined by 7%. The share of all online revenue directly sourced to email was 16% in 2023, the data showed. A slight majority (52%) of nonprofit website traffic was from users on mobile devices, with 48% of traffic from users on desktop devices. However, 78% of revenue came from users on desktop devices.
“These results may say less about what happened in 2023 than they do about the different context faced by nonprofits heading into the year,” according to Valverde.
The Disaster/International Aid nonprofits, which experienced the largest drop in revenue in 2023, followed a 10% increase in revenue during 2022, largely connected to the escalation of conflict in Ukraine, he explained.
Only a subset of nonprofits used peer-to-peer (P2P) text messaging. Just 23% of M+R Benchmarks participants had an active P2P program in 2023, comparable to the 21% that conducted phone banks for advocacy or community organizing. Several of the most common uses of P2P texting centered on mobilizing audiences to participate in real-world actions, the data showed. Of nonprofits with P2P programs, 85% used them to promote event attendance, 75% recruited volunteers, and 68% leveraged P2P texting to support get out the vote efforts.
A slight majority (58%) of nonprofits with P2P programs used these contacts for relational organizing such as asking supporters to activate people in their own network. Fundraisers relied on a range of senders in their P2P messaging programs. Paid employees sent P2P messages for 82% of the nonprofits with active programs. Unpaid volunteers texted on behalf of 52% of these nonprofits, and 43% used paid contractors.
Every nonprofit with a P2P text program sent messages to their own opt-in subscriber list. For many, this list is relatively modest in size. Nonprofits had an average of 158 mobile subscribers for every 1,000 email list subscribers. To supplement this audience, 47% of nonprofits with P2P programs also targeted outside audiences beyond their existing opt-in file. Fundraisers typically used lists culled from sources such as voter databases or rented from political campaigns or other organizations.
Year-end giving remained true to form. Giving during December made up 26% of all online revenue and 34% of one-time online revenue. Donations made on December 31 accounted for 5% of 2023 revenue.
While revenue from monthly giving increased by 6%, one-time revenue declined by 5%. That split increased monthly revenue and decreased one-time revenue. Every sector and size breakout of organizations and data measured showed an average increase in monthly revenue. Only three sectors reported a rise in one-time revenue — Cultural, Health, and Public Media.
The average size of a monthly gift was $24, while the average one-time gift was $115. Health/Poverty nonprofits had the highest average gift size for both types of giving: $45 for monthly giving, $174 for one-time gifts. Breaking out results by size, small nonprofits had higher average monthly and one- time gifts than medium or large nonprofits.
The data showed is median averages throughout, with half below and half higher, Valverde said. The report changes slightly from year to year. For example, the firm stopped reporting open rates on email after Apple switched its iOS to count an open as something that made it into an in-box and not necessarily opened by the intended recipient.
