June 3, 2016 | Read Time: 1 minute
Title: “2016 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study”
Organization: EveryAction
Summary: Nonprofits are capturing more online donations than they were in 2014, in part because a smaller share of their emails are going to spam folders. On average, 7 percent of nonprofit emails were delivered to spam folders each month in 2015, down from 12 percent in 2014, according to the study of 55 national organizations conducted by EveryAction, a tech start-up in Washington that helps nonprofits organize fundraising campaigns.
Charities sent more email in 2015 than the year before. Email brought in about a third of all money charities raised online, and groups with a higher share of emails going spam folders raised less online over all, according to the report.
Among other findings:
- Nonprofits lost about $7,400 on average last year due to emails lost to spam. That compares to nearly $15,000 in 2014.
- More year-end fundraising emails in 2015 ended up in spam folders than in 2014. Average spam rates during that period jumped from almost 9 percent in 2014 to just over 10 percent the following year. In 2015, November saw the highest spam rate (10.3 percent) and February saw the lowest (nearly 5.8 percent). In 2014 November had the lowest spam rate, about 8 percent, and June the highest, at 14.8 percent.
- Nonprofits sent more than twice as many fundraising emails on Giving Tuesday 2015 than on that day in the previous year. In 2015, an average of 9.3 percent of those emails went to spam — an improvement from the 11.6 percent in 2014.
- The average email open rate in 2015 was about 15.9 percent, down from 16.4 percent in 2014.
