Dec 2025
Nonprofit Trends by MissionWired
Stay wired with us for insights on building a better digital world.
The Narrative: Context & Takeaways
After a December packed with Giving Tuesday and a high-volume year-end, 2025 comes to a close with +14% growth in revenue over 2024 overall.
The final month of the year brought us Giving Tuesday in the midst of another unrelenting stream of breaking news – with tensions escalating over immigration concerns across the United States and with Venezuela abroad. With all of this in the midst of end-of-year campaigns, December results encompass a broad range of nonprofit efforts.
While the dashboards below show a -4% decrease in December revenue compared with 2024, we’ve found that with some data coming in on a delay, we tend to see those numbers creep higher over the months to come. Our first priority is to share monthly insights with you that are timely and will help you shape your strategy – so as data finalizes over subsequent months, we also recommend looking back across results for the year for an even fuller picture. Across our partners, we’re seeing that a majority of programs were up both at Giving Tuesday and end-of-year.
Looking across 2025 in the results below, year-to-date revenue is up +14% and year-to-date gifts are up +11% year over year. Taken month by month, we’re seeing seven months of the year outperform 2024, with the softer months coming in nearly flat year over year. With organization size taken into account, this growth had the greatest impact on medium-sized organizations, with small organizations seeing softer results compared with 2024.
As we’ve seen play out throughout much of 2025, results by sector depend a great deal on whether a program’s mission is impacted by the highest-urgency moments in the news. In December, that means we’ve continued to see food banks and public society organizations drive the highest year-over-year growth in response to an increase in need and media coverage. Nonprofit sectors with missions getting less attention in this moment saw softer results.
Our 2025 End-of-Year Report takes a deeper dive into the trends from both Giving Tuesday and year-end to assess giving metrics for December on a more granular level. We also share the biggest trends across direct response channels, breakthrough strategies that moved the needle this year, top-performing creative, and more. Check out the full breakdown here.
As we kick off a new year of Nonprofit Trends, we’re excited to bring you more month-by-month results, takeaways from across the industry, and strategies to bring back to your critical work. Thanks for being here!
+14%
Average revenue increase CYTD in 2025
+11%
Average total gifts increase in 2025
+4%
Growth in new acquisitions YOY
$103
Average gift in Dec., up 3% YOY
Navigate Results:
Results
| 2024 | 2025 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average Revenue | $2,094,116.69 | $2,390,864.37 | + 14.17% |
| Average Total Gifts | 35,874 | 39,899 | + 11.22% |
| Open Rate | 27.53% | 32.15% | + 16.75% |
| Click Rate | 1.41% | 1.60% | + 13.22% |
| New Donors | 44.39% | 43.56% | - 1.87% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.35% | 0.35% | - 0.58% |
| Average Revenue | $809,285.29 | $777,537.41 | - 3.92% |
| Average Total Gifts | 9,478 | 8,839 | - 6.75% |
| Open Rate | 30.32% | 30.45% | + 0.43% |
| Click Rate | 1.23% | 1.10% | - 10.37% |
| New Donors | 37.37% | 38.99% | + 4.33% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.47% | 0.48% | + 1.92% |
| Average Revenue | $563,500.19 | $365,571.38 | - 35.12% |
| Average Revenue | $1,476,325.43 | $2,127,800.10 | + 44.13% |
| Average Revenue | $4,242,524.46 | $4,679,221.64 | + 10.29% |
| Average Total Gifts | 6,522 | 4,838 | - 25.82% |
| Average Total Gifts | 22,724 | 29,352 | + 29.17% |
| Average Total Gifts | 78,376 | 85,507 | + 8.34% |
| Open Rate | 25.44% | 31.98% | + 25.68% |
| Open Rate | 26.56% | 29.54% | + 11.23% |
| Open Rate | 30.60% | 34.92% | + 14.13% |
| Click Rate | 1.46% | 1.94% | + 32.77% |
| Click Rate | 1.51% | 1.53% | + 1.44% |
| Click Rate | 1.27% | 1.33% | + 4.69% |
| New Donors | 48.20% | 44.77% | - 7.12% |
| New Donors | 43.08% | 44.93% | + 4.28% |
| New Donors | 41.87% | 40.97% | - 2.16% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.38% | 0.37% | - 2.81% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.36% | 0.37% | + 1.25% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.33% | 0.32% | - 3.59% |
| Average Revenue | $359,652.85 | $154,400.19 | - 57.07% |
| Average Revenue | $712,765.43 | $885,657.79 | + 24.26% |
| Average Revenue | $1,355,437.58 | $1,292,554.24 | - 4.64% |
| Average Total Gifts | 3,194 | 1,534 | - 51.97% |
| Average Total Gifts | 8,055 | 9,447 | + 17.28% |
| Average Total Gifts | 17,186 | 15,536 | - 9.60% |
| Open Rate | 30.57% | 24.35% | - 20.35% |
| Open Rate | 28.26% | 31.44% | + 11.25% |
| Open Rate | 32.14% | 35.56% | + 10.67% |
| Click Rate | 1.37% | 1.41% | + 3.16% |
| Click Rate | 1.16% | 1.05% | - 9.66% |
| Click Rate | 1.15% | 0.84% | - 27.17% |
| New Donors | 45.36% | 43.18% | - 4.80% |
| New Donors | 32.99% | 39.62% | + 20.09% |
| New Donors | 33.76% | 34.17% | + 1.21% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.72% | 0.65% | - 9.75% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.43% | 0.45% | + 5.14% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.27% | 0.34% | + 28.35% |
Revenue
Average Revenue Raised
The view below shows the average revenue raised across all digital channels for a nonprofit organization – excluding mid-level ($1,000+) donations and recurring (monthly) donations.
Average Total Gifts
Included below is the average number of total 1x gifts per nonprofit organization across all digital channels – excluding mid-level ($1,000+) and recurring (monthly) donations.
Average Gift
Defined as total revenue/total gifts, this chart shows the average 1x donation made across digital channels – excluding mid-level ($1,000+) and recurring (monthly) donations.
Acquisition
Average New Donors
Across all digital channels, the chart below shows, on average, how many 1x donations a nonprofit organization saw from first-time donors – excluding mid-level ($1,000+) and recurring (monthly) donations.
Average Active List Composition
Looking at all active email files, the chart below shows the average percentage of new acquisitions (new leads) that were added to the email file. This view shows the current year-to-date over previous years.
Email Engagement
Open Rate
Defined as total opens/total sent, this view shows the average email open rates across nonprofit organizations.
Click Rate
The view below shows the average click rate, defined as unique clicks/unique opens across nonprofit organizations.
Opt-Out Rate
The view below shows the average opt-out rate, defined as total opt-outs/total emails sent across nonprofit organizations.
Our Methodology
The results displayed are a view of more than 60 nonprofits across a variety of sectors. We have taken the metrics from these nonprofits and created averages for each of the KPIs so that nonprofits can easily see how their results compare. All fundraising metrics encompass all digital channels – including but not limited to email, SMS, advertising, and web. Each metric is broken down by nonprofit size, defined by the size of the active email file.
- Large: sending to 300,000 + unique emails in a month
- Medium: sending to 100,000-299,999 unique emails in a month
- Small: sending to less than 100,000 unique emails in a month
These metrics have excluded donors and donations more than $1,000 – often defined as mid-level – as well as monthly donors and donations.