Oct 2025
Nonprofit Trends by MissionWired
Stay wired with us for insights on building a better digital world.
The Narrative: Context & Takeaways
October revenue reflects growing donor response, keeping pace year-over-year
And nonprofits are investing in new acquisition ahead of Giving Tuesday
October brought with it yet another wave of major news moments: the longest government shutdown in history, the looming end of SNAP benefits on Nov. 1, a Category 5 hurricane in Jamaica, and ongoing conflicts around the world. Donors responded to these moments, driving strong fundraising months for many nonprofits with impacted missions. In the Trends charts below, you can see these results reflect most clearly for small and medium organizations (be sure to use the dropdown for each section to view results by program size!). Food banks, for example, saw huge spikes in donor response amid the government shutdown, with some of our partners driving their highest two weeks of digital fundraising of the year this month.
For larger organizations, the results are just a bit more mixed. When we look back at October 2024 to assess year-over-year metrics, we see major national disasters like Hurricanes Milton and Helene driving revenue and gift numbers for large disaster-response organizations, posing a challenging October to match. We’ll be keeping our eye on 2025 October revenue and gift totals: As we perfect how we capture data for our Trends dashboard, we’ve identified a slight delay in some reporting from certain large organizations (you may notice some growth in our July-Sept totals as this revenue comes in). The great news is that Q3 fundraising was a bit more successful than our immediate projections, and it’s possible that as more revenue from large organizations comes in October, we may see the scales tip overall, from being just 2% shy of flat YoY, to possible growth over a strong 2024.
Calendar-year-to-date revenue across the industry increased in October and is now +11% over 2024 and +8% YoY in average total gifts. And we’re seeing important growth in new acquisitions this month, jumping from 7.8% in September to 12.6% and bringing the YTD total to 6%. As year-end approaches, this indicates that nonprofits are starting to invest more in acquisition to maximize the reach of their major campaigns. This is a key trend to leverage in your end-of-year strategy, as digital acquisition investments made in the months just before Giving Tuesday and end of year have proven to return quickest and drive higher conversion rates..
+11%
Average revenue increase CYTD
+8%
Average total gifts increase CYTD
+62%
Increase in average active list composition
$72
Average gift in October
Navigate Results:
Results
| 2024 | 2025 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average Revenue | $1,390,557.09 | $1,549,388.78 | + 11.42% |
| Average Total Gifts | 27,102 | 29,404 | + 8.49% |
| Open Rate | 26.72% | 32.60% | + 22.02% |
| Click Rate | 1.49% | 1.70% | + 14.13% |
| New Donors | 44.15% | 42.64% | - 3.41% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.34% | 0.34% | + 0.62% |
| Average Revenue | $265,693.45 | $259,609.35 | - 2.29% |
| Average Total Gifts | 4,413 | 4,114 | - 6.77% |
| Open Rate | 31.14% | 33.28% | + 6.86% |
| Click Rate | 1.73% | 2.07% | + 19.38% |
| New Donors | 44.05% | 44.42% | + 0.84% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.28% | 0.60% | + 116.52% |
| Average Revenue | $288,643.66 | $227,927.61 | - 21.03% |
| Average Revenue | $978,964.19 | $1,319,613.37 | + 34.80% |
| Average Revenue | $2,904,063.41 | $3,100,625.36 | + 6.77% |
| Average Total Gifts | 3,901 | 3,276 | - 16.02% |
| Average Total Gifts | 16,897 | 20,392 | + 20.68% |
| Average Total Gifts | 60,507 | 64,544 | + 6.25% |
| Open Rate | 23.86% | 33.08% | + 38.61% |
| Open Rate | 26.35% | 30.03% | + 14.00% |
| Open Rate | 29.95% | 34.70% | + 15.85% |
| Click Rate | 1.51% | 2.11% | + 39.61% |
| Click Rate | 1.65% | 1.63% | - 1.40% |
| Click Rate | 1.32% | 1.37% | + 4.32% |
| New Donors | 45.75% | 42.33% | - 7.48% |
| New Donors | 42.93% | 43.80% | + 2.03% |
| New Donors | 43.78% | 41.81% | - 4.50% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.39% | 0.36% | - 7.01% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.32% | 0.36% | + 10.29% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.32% | 0.30% | - 4.38% |
| Average Revenue | $49,536.72 | $63,371.36 | + 27.93% |
| Average Revenue | $228,112.72 | $373,818.65 | + 63.87% |
| Average Revenue | $519,430.91 | $341,638.04 | - 34.23% |
| Average Total Gifts | 678 | 764 | + 12.77% |
| Average Total Gifts | 3,419 | 4,715 | + 37.91% |
| Average Total Gifts | 9,141 | 6,862 | - 24.93% |
| Open Rate | 29.58% | 31.72% | + 7.23% |
| Open Rate | 31.52% | 31.84% | + 1.04% |
| Open Rate | 32.32% | 36.27% | + 12.22% |
| Click Rate | 2.79% | 3.43% | + 22.95% |
| Click Rate | 1.38% | 1.76% | + 27.20% |
| Click Rate | 1.02% | 1.01% | - 0.90% |
| New Donors | 47.58% | 47.33% | - 0.53% |
| New Donors | 41.54% | 43.41% | + 4.50% |
| New Donors | 43.03% | 42.54% | - 1.16% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.27% | 0.91% | + 238.71% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.33% | 0.47% | + 42.30% |
| Opt-Out Rate | 0.23% | 0.42% | + 79.92% |
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.