Just in case find yourself in a game of Online Trivial Pursuit, you’ll need to know that in 2013 nonprofits received 1.7 cents for every online fundraising message delivered and 60 cents for every website visit.

These factoids — and far, far more of much greater importance — are revealed in The 2014 M+R Benchmarks Study released this morning.

Here at The Agitator our desks are piled high with study after study, but I can say without equivocation you’ll both enjoy and benefit from diving into this one.

Today’s gem – the 8^th annual review by the online consulting firm M+R Strategic Services and NTEN, the nonprofit tech community, is not only jam-packed with analysis, it’s actually fun to read.

In fact, with its quotes and paraphrasing from off-line authorities ranging from Archimedes to Shakespeare to Donald Rumsfeld, this report’s a ‘keeper’, if for no other reason than its style. A welcome relief in the all too solemn and serious nonprofit realm.

Of course there’s much more to it than readability and style. Let me attempt a summary.

Methodology. In order to explain what’s going on in the world of online fundraising and advocacy, M+R/NTEN collected data about email messaging, email list size, fundraising, online advocacy, website traffic, Facebook, Twitter and mobile programs from 53 U.S.-based national nonprofits for the calendar year of 2013.

They then analyzed the results of over 2 billion email messages sent to over 41 million list subscribers; more than $324 million of online donations from over 5.6 million online gifts; and 7.5 million advocacy actions.

Key Takeaways. Here are the 8 main trends identified by the study:

1. The average one-time online donation amount to a nonprofit was $68 in 2013.
2. Nonprofit organization email lists grew significantly – up 14% in 2013.
3. Online donations were higher than ever before. Online giving was up 14% in 2013, with monthly giving revenue up 25% compared to 2012. Monthly giving accounted for 16% of all online revenue.
4. Nonprofits received $17 for every 1,000 email messages delivered. Overall, email accounted for about one-third of nonprofits’ online fundraising revenue.
5. Nonprofits received $0.60 per website visitor.
6. Key email metrics, including open rates and response rates, declined in 2013. Email open rates were down 4%. Response rates were down in 2013 for both fundraising emails (down 11%) and advocacy emails (down 25%) compared to 2012 levels. Interestingly, the response rates to advocacy emails from Environmental nonprofits were more than two times higher than overall response rates for advocacy emails.
7. More people visited nonprofit websites. Monthly website traffic for the nonprofits in the study was up 16% in 2013.
8. Nonprofit social media audiences grew faster than nonprofit email or website audiences. Facebook fans were up 37% and Twitter followers were up 46% in 2013. Despite this rapid growth, for every 1,000 email subscribers, nonprofits had just 199 Facebook fans and 110 Twitter followers.

Bottom-line: According to Sarah DiJulio, Principal at M+R, “The big picture for nonprofits online in 2013 is that organizations reached more people last year through emails, their own websites, and social media.”

BUT … “It’s the little picture that nonprofits should be looking at when they assess how their online program is doing and what can be done better in 2014. How your experience tracks with the benchmarks will help you ask the right questions to strengthen your program, whether that means adjusting your fundraising strategy or pursuing a new approach to advocacy. In this year’s Benchmarks Study, we zoomed in on the data points we think will be the most useful for nonprofits as they strive to make a mark on their cause and our world.”

The BIG questions. Among its 56 pages of detailed findings and charts the report asks and answers these big questions:

• WHAT’S THE RIGHT MIX OF ADVOCACY MESSAGING?

• HOW DID BIG MOMENTS LIKE TYPHOON HAIYAN AND POLITICAL EVENTS AFFECT NONPROFIT SUPPORT  ONLINE?

• WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH END-OF-YEAR FUNDRAISING?

• WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM CHURN?

Download the full report and discover the answers to those big questions.

Some Myth-Puncturing Findings/Observations. If you’re into myth-busting or challenging conventional wisdom, there are some goodies here for you too. For example:

The December Myth: The key takeaway is that there really isn’t anything special when it comes to online fundraising in December. Seems that when it comes to email, heavy messaging volume is what makes December stand out from other months, rather than higher response rates.

The Perfect Day Myth: The folks at M+R also puncture the myth of perfect timing. You know, “Never send a fundraising appeal on Saturday.” And “Tuesday at 3:52 p.m. EST is the ideal moment to launch an email.” And “In a month with five Wednesdays, the third Wednesday is the second-least effective weekday for open rates.”

So, M+R decided to take a look at email fundraising response rate by day of week – to see if they could get a firm answer to the age-old question of which days are best and worst for fundraising messages. And what they found was … no firm answer.

Here’s what they say. “We found no correlation between a message’s response rate and the day of week on which it was sent.”

“So, when is the best time to send a fundraising message? When it’s ready. No, really. It’s not about what the calendar says, it’s about making sure you say something timely, powerful, and relevant to your supporters.”

And, if you’re curious about other myths – like the one about over-solicitation – you’ll find plenty in this report that encourages you to stop worrying and pull out the stops.

In short, download the The 2014 M+R Benchmarks Study, gather the troops and discuss how this wit and wisdom applies to your online activities.

M+R and NTEN you get an Agitator Raise.

Roger