Title: 2018 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study

Organization: EveryAction

Summary: Fundraising emails continue to be hit-or-miss for nonprofits, with 24 percent going to spam folders in 2017, resulting in a $30,000 loss, on average, for nonprofits.

For most charities, online fundraising remains a small portion of revenue but one that continues to grow every year, with email contributing to over a quarter of all money raised online. The success of fundraising emails is affected by spam rates: A 1 percent spam rate means a loss of $1,225.73 for every 100,000 email addresses, according to the report from EveryAction, which provides fundraising and email service tools for nonprofits.

To reduce spam rates so that more emails find their target audiences, EveryAction recommends that nonprofits implement an opt-in-and-confirm process to make sure emails are coded properly and that the addresses are correct. Pay attention to bounce rates and remove inactive email addresses.

Among the findings:

  • Spam rates on Giving Tuesday caused nonprofits to lose over 20 percent of their fundraising potential, on average.
  • Open rates increased to 21 percent in 2017 after holding steady at around 15 percent to 16 percent for the previous two years.
  • Nonprofits sent about 21 fundraising emails a month last year, one more per month than in 2016 and three fewer each month than in 2015.
  • The average spam rate in 2017 was 6 percent higher than in 2016, and 17 percent higher than in 2015.
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