2024 Email Marketing Statistics for Nonprofits

A supplemental post to 101 Digital Marketing & Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits, the email marketing statistics listed below can guide your nonprofit in launching and maintaining an email marketing strategy that engages supporters and inspires donors.

Email Strategy

  • Only 68% of nonprofits utilize email marketing. Of those, 41% send newsletters monthly, 27% quarterly, 17% twice monthly, 10% weekly, 3% twice weekly, and 2% send daily. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • Nonprofits sent an average of 60 email messages per subscriber in 2022, a 15% increase in volume from the previous year. [M+R Benchmarks]
  • 74% of nonprofits send an automated welcome email after joining a newsletter and these messages have an average open rate of 202% higher than traditional email campaigns. [Classy.org]
  • 63% of nonprofits use personalization in their email marketing. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. [Campaign Monitor]
  • Personalized calls to action convert 202% better than default calls to action. [HubSpot]
  • 28% use email subscribe popups on their website. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • Only 13% of nonprofits are using gated content to grow their email list. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
  • 95% of marketers who use generative AI for email creation rate it effective” with 54% rating it very effective. [HubSpot]

Email Engagement

  • Nonprofits have an average email list size of 4,191 contacts (547 for small nonprofits and 6,602 for large nonprofits). [Neon One]
  • Nonprofits have an average open rate of 28.59% and an average click rate of 3.29%. [Neon One]
  • In 2022, 9% of subscribers unsubscribed and 8% became non-deliverable due to bouncing. [M+R Benchmarks]
  • Email list sizes increased by 7% in 2023, after 5% and 8% growth in the previous two years. [M+R Benchmarks]
  • Only 38% of nonprofits delete unengaged subscribers on a regular basis. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • 94% of nonprofits that utilize email marketing use an email marketing service, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. The remaining 6% send their email campaigns using BCC. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]

Email Fundraising

  • 26% of donors say that email is the tool that most inspires them to give (25% social media, website 17%, print 13%). [Global Trends in Giving Report]
  • Of the 68% of nonprofits that utilize email marketing, 74% send email fundraising appeals — 67% send quarterly, 19% monthly, 7% twice monthly, 3% weekly, 3% daily, and 1% send twice weekly. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • 48% of donors cite email as their preferred method of hearing updates and appeals from the organization. Direct mail was the second most preferred channel at 21%, followed by social media (17%), text messaging (8%), and phone calls (2%). [Neon One]
  • 35% of those nonprofits that send email fundraising appeals raised the amount of money that they expected, 34% raised more, and 31% raised less than they expected. [Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
  • Email messaging resulted in 14% of all online revenue in 2022 – down from 15% in 2021. [M+R Benchmarks]
  • Email revenue on Giving Tuesday declined by 18% in 2022. [M+R Benchmarks]
  • For every 1,000 fundraising messages sent, nonprofits raised $90 in 2022.  [M+R Benchmarks]
  • Donor retention increases by 29% for offline donors when you have their email address. [NextAfter]

Email Design

  • 76% of brands use HTML email templates to design their email campaigns. (Litmus)
  • 49% of email is opened on a mobile device and if an email is not designed for mobile, it’s likely to be deleted in under three seconds and as many as 15% of users will unsubscribe. [Campaign Monitor]
  • 35% of nonprofits use emojis in email, 18% animated GIFs, 12% polls, and 6% countdown timers. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
  • Including videos in emails can boost click-through rates by 65%. [Campaign Monitor]
  • Emails with graphics have a 1.12% higher click-through rate than emails without any. [Unlayer]
  • When text in a call to action button is changed from a second-person viewpoint to a first-person viewpoint clicks improve by 90%. [Campaign Monitor]
  • Countdown timers in emails can boost registrations by 30%. [HubSpot]
  • Subject lines comprising 6 to 10 words achieve the highest open rate at 21%. [MailModo]
  • Email subject lines with questions have a 50% higher open rate and subject lines with numbers have a 17% higher open rate. [OptinMonster]
  • 35% of nonprofits use emojis in subject lines. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]

Our Certificate in Digital Marketing & Fundraising program covers the fundamentals of website design, email marketing, online fundraising, and social media for nonprofits.

The program requires the completion of three webinars and costs a total of $100 USD. To earn the certificate, you can attend the webinars live or view the recordings – or a combination of both. Learn more & register!