Dec 2025
Nonprofit Trends by MissionWired
Stay wired with us for insights on building a better digital world.
The Narrative: Context & Takeaways
In a high-pressure year for fundraising, nonprofits met the moment and donors stepped up: 2025 comes to a close with +16% growth in revenue over 2024 overall.
Over the course of 2025, nonprofit fundraisers faced relentless conversations about volatility in the giving landscape: unpredictable news cycles, market uncertainty, resource cuts, and the imperative to meet rising needs on a limited budget. Across the industry, programs faced unnecessary obstacles to their critical work to drive positive change in their communities.
Month by month, we’ve parsed our fundraising data to offer the latest results and dig into the trends that are driving nonprofit giving from one moment to the next, across nonprofits of all sizes and verticals. We’ve highlighted how the organizations whose missions have been most impacted by the events of the year have seen the highest year-over-year growth in response to increased need and media coverage.
Looking across 2025 in the results below, overall revenue is up +16% and year-to-date gifts are up +13% year over year. Taken month by month, we’re seeing six months of the year outperform 2024 in total revenue, with the softer months coming in nearly flat year over year
What do these results tell us? Nonprofits leaned into urgent moments in 2025 to reflect the needs of their communities through compelling stories and results-driving tactics. And that these powerful campaigns inspired donors to take action, driving necessary revenue and year-over-year growth for organizations doing critical response work.
Our recently released End-of-Year Digital Report takes a deeper dive into how performance at Giving Tuesday and year-end shaped some of the biggest campaigns of 2025, breaking down the giving metrics on a more granular level. We also share the biggest trends across digital 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!
+16%
Average revenue increase CYTD in 2025
+13%
Average total gifts increase in 2025
44%
Total gifts from new donors in 2025 (+1% from 2024)
6.4%
New acquisition
Navigate Results:
Results
| 2024 | 2025 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average Revenue | $2,115,018.21 | $2,450,750.51 | + 15.87% |
| Average Total Gifts | 36,197 | 40,735 | + 12.54% |
| Open Rate | 27.72% | 32.04% | + 15.60% |
| Click Rate | 1.43% | 1.58% | + 10.51% |
| New Donors | 43.09% | 43.45% | + 0.84% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.35% | 0.35% | - 1.93% |
| Average Revenue | $575,471.46 | $366,825.39 | - 36.26% |
| Average Revenue | $1,534,479.88 | $2,162,569.54 | + 40.93% |
| Average Revenue | $4,235,103.27 | $4,822,856.62 | + 13.88% |
| Average Total Gifts | 6,669 | 4,991 | - 25.16% |
| Average Total Gifts | 23,615 | 29,776 | +26.09% |
| Average Total Gifts | 78,306 | 87,437 | + 10.44% |
| Open Rate | 25.72% | 31.64% | + 23.02% |
| Open Rate | 26.84% | 29.42% | + 9.63% |
| Open Rate | 30.59% | 35.06% | + 14.59% |
| Click Rate | 1.48% | 1.91% | + 28.65% |
| Click Rate | 1.54% | 1.51% | - 1.78% |
| Click Rate | 1.27% | 1.32% | + 4.19% |
| New Donors | 46.45% | 44.52% | - 4.17% |
| New Donors | 40.94% | 44.86% | + 9.56% |
| New Donors | 41.86% | 40.97% | - 2.14% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.38% | 0.37% | - 3.82% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.36% | 0.36% | - 1.62% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.33% | 0.32% | - 4.58% |
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.