1. Is “churn and burn” dead? The rate of growth in email sending slowed in 2018. Email lists grew at 7.1%, roughly the same rate as the number of emails sent (7.6%), a positive sign for deliverability.
2. Nonprofits inspired 18.4% of their email lists to donate. Some verticals got even more financial backing from their lists. Health Services and Research saw a full 60% of their housefiles donating. Food Banks and Hospital Foundations secured gifts from 28% and 24% of their lists, respectively.
3. Fundraising email open rates declined 7.06%, while click rates increased by 4.35% and conversion rates remained steady. This continues a trend we saw last year: While fewer people open fundraising emails, those who do are more inclined to engage.
4. You focused on sustainer programs and won. Sustainer revenue grew by 18.4%, compared to 7.4% growth for non-sustainer gifts.
5. When viewing the sources of online revenue as one great big pie, more of that pie—9.64% more of total giving—came from sustainer gifts.
6. Strong sustainer revenue growth correlated with the healthiest overall revenue growth Organizations that focus on growing monthly giving create a revenue base to build upon year after year.
7. We saw strong growth in retention this year with “repeat” online revenue increasing by 13.8%. Repeat revenue comes from existing donors who give once or more in the current year.
8. Each usable email on your list was worth $14.23 in annual revenue. This stat can help justify investments in organically growing your list and programs to nurture and grow relationships with existing supporters.
9. With retention going strong (powered by sustainers), first-time giving is experiencing the inverse. First-time giving as a proportion of total online giving is down at a median rate of -6.25%, managing to grow a modest 1.5% in revenue year over year in spite of fewer transactions.