A supplemental post to 101 Digital Marketing & Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits, the email marketing statistics listed below can guide your nonprofit in launching and maintaining an email marketing strategy that engages supporters and inspires donors.
Email Strategy
- 83% of nonprofits utilize email marketing. Of those, 46% send newsletters monthly, 21% quarterly, 10% weekly, 10% twice monthly, 8% every two months, 3% twice weekly, and 2% send daily. [2026 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- Nonprofits sent an average of 50 email messages per subscriber in 2025, with fundraising comprising 31 email messages. [M+R Benchmarks]
- 63% of nonprofits use personalization in their email marketing. [2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- 67% use segmented email lists. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- 34% use UTM codes to track email performance. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. [Campaign Monitor]
- Personalized calls to action convert 202% better than default calls to action. [HubSpot]
- 31% use email subscribe popups on their website. [2026 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- Only 13% of nonprofits are using gated content to grow their email list. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- 81% of marketers use generative AI for email creation. Of those, 85% report that AI improved content quality. [HubSpot]
Email Engagement
- Nonprofits have an average email list size of 4,191 contacts (547 for small nonprofits and 6,602 for large nonprofits). [Neon One Nonprofit Email Report]
- Nonprofits have an average open rate of 28.59% and an average click rate of 3.29%. [Neon One Nonprofit Email Report]
- The average open rate for welcome emails is 80%. [Mailmodo]
- In 2025, 12% of subscribers unsubscribed and 4% became non-deliverable due to bouncing. [M+R Benchmarks]
- Email list sizes increased by 5% in 2025, compared to 4% growth in the previous in 2024. [M+R Benchmarks]
- Only 34% of nonprofits delete unengaged subscribers on a regular basis. [2026 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- 7% stop emailing unengaged subscribers within the first six months, and 22% stop within the first year. 28% say they don’t stop emailing unengaged subscribers until a year or more has passed. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- 14% run re-engagement campaigns designed to win back unengaged subscribers. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- 94% of nonprofits that utilize email marketing use an email marketing service, such as MailerLite or Constant Contact. The remaining 6% send their email campaigns using BCC. [2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
Email Fundraising
- 33% of donors say that email is the tool that most inspires them to give (29% social media, website 17%, print 9%). [Online Donor Feedback Survey]
- Of the 83% of nonprofits that utilize email marketing, 73% send email fundraising appeals and of those 59% send quarterly, 15% monthly, 15% every two months, 6% twice monthly, 4% weekly, and 1% daily. [2026 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- 48% of donors cite email as their preferred method of hearing updates and appeals from the organization. Direct mail was the second most preferred channel at 21%, followed by social media (17%), text messaging (8%), and phone calls (2%). [Neon One Nonprofit Email Report]
- The average nonprofit raises $1.11 per email contact – $6.15 for small nonprofits, $0.88 for large nonprofits. [Neon One Nonprofit Email Report]
- 35% of those nonprofits that send email fundraising appeals raised the amount of money that they expected, 34% raised more, and 31% raised less than they expected. [2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report]
- Email messaging resulted in 16% of all online revenue in 2025 — up from 11% in 2024. [M+R Benchmarks]
- For every 1,000 fundraising messages sent, nonprofits raised $54 in 2025. [M+R Benchmarks]
- Donor retention increases by 29% for offline donors when you have their email address. [NextAfter]
- Fundraising emails with urgency language have a 48% higher click-through rate. [M+R]
- Fundraising emails sent from a person have a 32% lower response rate than emails sent from an organization. [M+R]
- Fundraising emails without a personal story have a 29% lower response rate. [M+R]
Email Design
- 53% of email is opened on a mobile device and if an email is not designed for mobile, it’s likely to be deleted in under three seconds and as many as 15% of users will unsubscribe. [Campaign Monitor]
- 35% of nonprofits use emojis in email, 18% animated GIFs, 12% polls, and 6% countdown timers. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
- Including videos in emails can boost click-through rates by 65%. [Campaign Monitor]
- Emails with graphics have a 1.12% higher click-through rate than emails without any. [Unlayer]
- Countdown timers in emails can boost registrations by 30%. [HubSpot]
- Subject lines comprising 6 to 10 words achieve the highest open rate at 21%. [MailModo]
- Email subject lines with questions have a 50% higher open rate and subject lines with numbers have a 17% higher open rate. [MailModo]
- 35% of nonprofits use emojis in subject lines. [Nonprofit Communications Trends Report]
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