Monthly Giving Fuels Online Fundraising Growth — Plus 5 More Insights from M+R ‘Benchmarks’

After 2023’s 1% decline in online fundraising, 2024 rebounded with a 2% increase, according to a new report released today that attributed a 5% increase in monthly giving revenue for that spike. 

The M+R “Benchmarks” report is an annual look at online fundraising outcomes. This year’s iteration features 216 participants and, as always, relies on their year-over-year comparisons as opposed to the prior year’s study results.

M+R found that despite 64% of nonprofits defaulting their donation page to a one-time gift, recurring giving continues to outpace one-time giving, which remained flat year over year. The only mission type that defaulted to monthly giving was public media. 

About 40% of total online giving came from one-time donors who gave $1,000 cumulatively in 2024. However, those donors consist of only 5% of donors, whereas 47% of one-time donors gave less than $100.

Here are five more insights on digital fundraising from the 2025 report. 

1. Facebook Fundraisers Are Out and Influencer Marketing Is In 

As Facebook fundraisers declined in effectiveness (with a 42% decrease in revenue), nonprofits have found success on Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms by working with influencers interested in their causes. Of the 52% of nonprofits that worked with influencers in 2024, 47% used a mix of paid and unpaid influencers and 15% engaged in only paid partnerships.

“Even when a service is stable, the ways that users (and algorithms) behave are not,” according to the report. “Audiences can erode over time, or migrate from one place to another. This means that nonprofits can’t afford to remain static, or assume that what has worked in the past can be relied on in the future. It means they have to go to where they can engage with an audience that matters to them. People move; nonprofits follow.”

Facebook fundraisers have shown a marked decline in effectiveness. | Credit: "Benchmarks" report by M+R

2. Digital Advertising Is an Effective Tool for Fundraising and Awareness

Nonprofits are interested in digital advertising, and therefore increased their spend to 11%. For every $1 of revenue, they are reinvesting $0.14. Where spending varies comes down to organization size. Large nonprofits with annual online revenue exceeding $3 million mainly align with overall sector trends — with nearly three-quarters of spend going directly to fundraising efforts. Meanwhile, small organizations that raise less than $500,000 online annually utilize nearly half of their advertising spend to raise awareness  — with only 32% going directly to fundraising efforts.

When it comes to the best return on ad spend, search topped the list with $2.23. Despite more nonprofits investing in TikTok advertising, it has the worst return. Nonprofits spent $61 per donation from search and $1,040 from TikTok.

“We try to avoid technical jargon as much as we can in ‘Benchmarks,’ but there’s no other way to put it: That’s pretty bad,” according to the report. “For most nonprofits, TikTok was a small, experimental part of the overall fundraising advertising mix. Given these results, that may remain the case — though TikTok may be an effective channel for other goals. For example: cultivating a following by crying into a camera reading moody poems. Or, possibly, lead generation.”

Search yielded the best return on ad spend across all digital advertising types. | Credit: "Benchmarks" report by M+R

3. Email Lists and Donations Outpace Text Messaging Despite Declining Email Revenue

Email list growth slowed, with a 3% increase over the course of 2024. At the same time, nonprofits raised just $58 per 1,000 emails sent — a 10% drop. Overall, revenue attributed to email fell 11%.

“Yes, email programs are growing. Yes, email programs are declining,” according to the report. “And this isn’t only about the usual variation from nonprofit to nonprofit, or even sector to sector. Even a channel as established and venerable as email continues to evolve in complicated ways.”

Though smaller in size, with about a quarter of the subscribers of its email counterpart, text messaging continued to grow at a faster rate. Text lists grew 8% last year, but less than 1% of online revenue is attributed to texting, whereas email accounts for 11% despite its double-digit loss in percentage of online revenue.

4. Year-End Giving Stays Steady After Accounting for Shifts in Popular Giving Days

With the fourth Thursday of November designated for Thanksgiving and the Tuesday after Thanksgiving slated for GivingTuesday, the latter bumped into December when the former landed toward the end of November. As a result, the tallies for GivingTuesday and the final days of the year both fell in December. In addition, that month occurred just weeks after a presidential election. 

“In order to account for both of those factors, we compared November and December revenue in 2023 and 2024,” according to the report. “We found that overall revenue was flat year-over-year.”

Additionally, Dec. 31 returned to a weekday after 2023’s Sunday close, resulting in an 11% spike on New Year’s Eve 2024. Revenue raised on Dec. 31 accounted for 5% of annual online revenue. 

5. Mobile Optimization Remains Important Even Though Donors Still Prefer Giving on Desktop Devices

Even though supporters on desktop devices were more lucrative for nonprofits — accounting for 55% of transactions and 70% of revenue — the majority of nonprofit website traffic came from mobile devices last year. 

Gifts from desktop users ($145) were nearly double that of mobile users ($76), but even so, mobile-friendly payment options break down barriers to donating to nonprofits’ causes. More than three-quarters of nonprofits offered PayPal, while Apple Pay (47%), Google Pay (40%) and Venmo (24%) were also popular options to include on their main donation form. In addition, 30% of nonprofits included a way to pay via a donor-advised fund on their page.  

“The goal for nonprofits is to give supporters options that work for them, especially when it comes to filling out payment information and completing a gift on a mobile device,” according to the report. “The expectation would be that offering PayPal or Google Pay options would capture some donations that might otherwise be lost, increasing overall conversion rates.”

Even though donors prefer to give through desktop devices, the majority of nonprofit website traffic came from mobile devices last year. | Credit: "Benchmarks" report by M+R