Email gets nonprofits donations, but young donors live on social and mobile
Nonprofits don’t need to be complete digital masterminds to find success, but they do need to apply a digital lens to their work to stay relevant -- especially if they want to rake in donations.
The proof is in the 2016 M+R Benchmarks Study, an annual report published by communications agency M+R and the Nonprofit Technology Network, which will be released in full on Wednesday.
The analysis of more than 100 leading nonprofits, 2.8 billion emails and 69.4 million subscribers shows that nonprofits still heavily rely on email to promote their causes, when they should be giving more attention to mobile and social media.
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In 2015 alone, nonprofits sent the average email subscriber a staggering 49 messages to gain their attention, but email open rates, click-through rates and response rates all declined over the past year.
Though engagement via email is down for nonprofits, there is one place where email excels: raising money. Email revenue grew by 25% in 2015, accounting for 29% of all online revenue last year.
About 13% of the $481 million in online donations in 2015 came from mobile.
It indicates a larger shift in how younger generations are connecting with the causes they care about: through their phones. About 13% of the $481 million in online donations raised by leading organizations in 2015 came from mobile (overall giving, the study found, increased by 19%).
Social media, meanwhile, remains a strong way for nonprofits to reach supporters -- and while that may seem obvious, many legacy organizations can be reluctant to allocate resources to social strategies.
But it's paying off for those that do. Over a 12-month period, the nonprofits surveyed -- including Planned Parenthood, Oxfam America, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the U.S. Humane Society and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF -- saw an average of 29% growth of support on Facebook and a 25% growth of support on Twitter.
Check out more essential findings from the upcoming report in the exclusive infographic below.
This piece has been updated for clarification.
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Topics Social Good
Katie Dupere was a Social Good reporter at Mashable from May 2015 to July 2017, covering activism, identities and social impact. Prior to her work with Mashable, Katie penned pieces about queerness, body positivity, sex and relationships for Gurl. She also previously contributed LGBTQ news coverage to PinkNews.
