Convio released this spring their 4th Nonprofit Benchmark Study. They included over 400 nonprofit clients of Convio fundraising software for the study, factoring out organizations for which they had less than two years of data gathered, and orgs that had spikes in growth attributable to "one-time, unrepeatable" events.
I like how the study groups nonprofits into vertical segments, making their results more closely related to specific groups. 15 vertical nonprofit segments were defined, such as Animal Welfare, Christian Ministries, Hospitals, Higher education and eleven others. A range from a more sparse 10 to 83 nonprofits are included in each segment. Convio is a more expensive option for online fundraising system and does tend to attract larger nonprofits - a bias to keep in mind.
Some findings I find most interesting:
- Nearly all vertical segments experienced growth in online fundraising.
- 69% of nonprofits raised more online in 2009 than in 2008 (despite a challenging economy)
- Smaller organizations grew online fundraising faster than larger
- Constituents are more reluctant to open emails or click-through on hyperlinks.