Luminate Online

Building Better Nonprofits
with a Decade of Data

The 2016 Luminate OnlineTM Benchmark Report is here. This year's report is our 10th year of publication. Find detailed analysis and year-over-year comparison data on the performance of nonprofits using Luminate Online. Scroll down to find key takeaways from the report and to use our interactive benchmarking tool to see exactly how you stack up.
1 Year-over-year email list growth slowed down to 10% this past year, which may not be a bad thing. The ever-changing algorithms of ISPs are demanding increased quality, driving the trend for slimmer but more engaged lists.
2 Email is still gold, with each address worth $12.30 of online revenue in 2015. This value is bolstered by what looks like a shift of focus from quantity to quality.
3 This year’s report reflects the first full year since CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Law) compliance required stricter email opt-in, and it appears Canadian organizations are rising to the challenge. Canadians saw 15% organic email growth and were among the highest performers for the percent of total email file that donates.
4 Healthy email appeal click rates suggest that organizations are creating strong content and targeting supporters effectively. Fundraising email click rates increased year over year 2.11%.
5 Total online revenue grew by 4.89% year over year, which although much healthier than overall giving, is modest compared to previous years. During the same time period, the Blackbaud Charitable Index (covering the full nonprofit sector) also shows slower growth, especially among larger organization sizes.
6 First-time giving decreased slightly year over year with 1.3% less revenue coming from first-time donors and the average first-time gift holding steady at $105.81—a 2.56% increase year over year. Disaster and international relief experienced a significant decline, seeing over 19% less revenue from first-time gifts year over year.
7 Relationships rule, and this year’s data continues a positive trend of strong repeat-giving performance, up 8.63% year over year.
8 Sustained giving FTW! Nonprofits are building a more stable and sustainable future by building a strong base of regular donors. This year, the double-digit growth continued, with sustained-giving revenue growing 14.26% year over year.
9 Advocacy organizations understandably had a busy year and showed strong results getting more constituents engaged in advocacy action, growing 6% year over year and getting more advocates to contribute financially, growing nearly 4% year over year.

Benchmark Yourself

Let's find out how you compare to your peers.

Restart Benchmark

Look into the Past

Here you can access the reports from the last three years.

X

Your Personal Benchmark Report

Click or swipe left and right to view your report.

We have prepared you benchmark report based on the data you provided. In it, you can see how you compare to other nonprofit organizations on various metrics. You will be able to compare your organization’s performance against others in the same industry category, as well as the total median across all industries.

Let’s Use This Data to Build Something Even Better Together

See something in your report you’d like to review further? Is there one area you could use some help improving? Take a screenshot or simply copy and paste your personal URL and send it to your account executive at Blackbaud.

How to read the report.

Below is an example legend [not to scale] that outlines the key features of the report.
  • Lower and Upper Quartiles: the bar indicates the 25th and 75th quartiles respectively for each of the categories.
  • 2015 Median: the hash mark indicates the median of each category for the prior year.
  • 2016 Median: the hash mark indicates the median of each category for the current year. Hovering over the mark will reveal additional information for the median year-over-year change.
  • You: the chevron indicates where you fall in each of the categories based on your inputs.

Total Online Revenue

Total Online Revenue YOY

Constituents with Email

The number of constituents with email addresses as of fiscal year end.

Fundraising Email Open Rate

Email Donation Open Count / Email Donation Delivered Count.

Fundraising Email Click Rate

Email Donation Click Count / Email Donation Delivered Count.

Fundraising Email Conversion Rate

Email Donation Conversion Count / Email Donation Delivered Count.

Share Your Results

Copy the Url above to clipbaord and share with your colleagues.