There’s a moment in every M+R Benchmarks Study when the room goes quiet. Not because the data is shocking, but because it confirms what many already know—and haven’t acted on.

This year’s M+R Report doesn’t scream.   It sighs.

 Growth… but bring a microscope

Online revenue is up—sometimes sharply, depending on the slice of the data you’re looking at.  But remember, averages still lie.  So, in reality, some organizations are riding a wave of urgency.
Others are paddling hard just to stay in place. Averages are polite, while reality is uneven.

Monthly giving is no longer a tactic—it’s the engine

Monthly giving continues its quiet takeover—reliable, compounding, patient.  One-time giving? Drifting.

I believe this is a significant migration:   from transaction to relationship; from campaign to continuity. And yet… many donation pages still default to one-time gifts.   –that’s habit.

Email: still alive, but no longer the hero

We are sending more and getting less which should alert to a trend: email hasn’t died, but it’s sure been reassigned to a different role. More and more its moving from the role of collecting to one more focused on warming, nudging, connecting.

However,  if you’re still carrying the weight of your revenue expectations on yesterday’s tool to to do today’s job you’re in for increasing disappointment because in the digital realm email is no longer the system, it’s now a small part of a larger system.

The real leak: not traffic—conversion

We’ve gotten very good at getting people to the door, but remained remarkably bad at getting them through it.  Most site visitors never give.  And every conversation about optimization that avoids the conversion/donation experience is a conversation that avoids reality.

More channels, more chaos

Ad spend rises. Platforms fragment. Influencers appear where institutions fade.  Everything multiplies. Nothing consolidates.

The old model—one channel, one list, one lever—is gone. Plan and invest accordingly.

ROAS: The metric wearing a rented tuxedo

Now comes the part where everyone starts throwing numbers around: Online revenue up…
…Email revenue up.  …Ad spend up…. Paid search ROAS: tidy, impressive, reassuring.Lovely.

Also: dangerous.

Because, as Kevin sardonically points out in his post on the Memo from the CFO, that ROAS number may not be a business result.  In fact, it may well be an accounting artifact wearing cologne.

Here’s the problem:

Paid search often gets credit for donors who were already coming. A donor types your name into Google. Your paid ad appears above your organic listing.   They click the ad. The platform celebrates.  The agency reports success.  The dashboard glows.

But did the ad create the gift or simply step in front of it? That is the ROAS trap.

And it’s why no metric in this report—or any report—should be treated as scripture without skepticism, testing, and a flashlight under the floorboards.

Kevin’s advice is blunt and right:  Test “incrementality” by turning off paid brand search in part of your market, but leave it on elsewhere.  Then…watch what actually changes.

If nothing changes…  your ROAS wasn’t return, it was theater.

And the problem runs deeper.  Channels built for awareness—podcasts, CTV, broad-reach display—are being judged by short-term ROAS.  Which is like judging a first date by the wedding.  Wrong timeframe and wrong question.

So yes—read the numbers.

But don’t kneel before them.   Ask instead:

What would have happened without the ad?
Are we creating demand—or intercepting it?
Are we measuring donors built—or donors captured?

Because the prettiest metric in the room may also be the one picking your pocket.

And now—the part most other reports whisper about: staffing

Here’s the line buried beneath the charts:  We are asking fewer people to do more work.

Across the sector:

• Teams are leaner
• Budgets are tighter
• Expectations are higher

Fundraising staff are stretched thin.

The illusion of productivity

On paper, the numbers look fine—sometimes even strong.

But underneath?  More emails, more channels, more campaigns layered on top of each other.All carried by teams that haven’t grown—and in many cases, have shrunk.

The quiet shift: selective staffing

Organizations are triaging teams, not expanding them.   Only essential roles get filled. Everything else gets absorbed, delayed or endured.  What looks like “efficiency” in a report often looks like something else inside an office: Burnout. Turnover risk.Institutional memory slipping out the door.

And here’s the dangerous part: The system still works—for a while.   Because people are carrying it.

The hidden dependency in the M+R story

If you read closely, the report admits it:  All this performance—every click, every gift, every uptick—  rests on the effort of nonprofit teams.  Not better systems.  Not better structures.   Better endurance.

So what does it all mean now?

Here’re are the main points I take away from M+R’s latest report. (You may have some of your own, so read the full report) :

• Email is weakening
• Monthly giving is rising
• Conversion is broken
• Channels are multiplying
• Metrics are… questionable
• Staff capacity is shrinking

That’s not just some trend lines. That’s reflection of building tension, diminishing performance and the need to change

If you take nothing else from this report, take this: Stop asking how to send more.
Start asking what’s actually working—and for how long.

Because somewhere between the inbox, the ad buy, and the donation page there’s a system under pressure with a team trying to hold it together—one more send, one more test, one more late night—  until something finally gives.

Roger