It is common wisdom in online fundraising that more email opens and clicks lead to more donations but that is not exactly the case, as a new study reports. In email fundraising there is not an exact correlation between opens and donations.

“A recently released study reports the growth of nonprofit fundraising email revenue was up 25 percent even though email metrics such as open and click-through rates are down.”

Non-profit supporters are becoming more sophisticated and they very likely recognize fundraising emails when they see them. They already know something about the non-profit, and once they see an email, that they know is a donation email, they open or do not open depending on their willingness to give at a moment.

This means that non-profits have to become more sophisticated in developing their online fundraising strategies. We have different ways to promote our non-profits and get the word out about what we are doing, so we should use all the different channels to spread the word. So when our supporters receive a fundraising email from us, they already have some knowledge of what we are doing.

For more on the report, check out: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/04/25/study-email-opens-down-but-email-fundraising-revenue-is-up/