If you’ll accept that Convio customers are larger in size and better financed than the average nonprofit, then this annual study provides a useful source for online benchmarks such as average online gift sizes, online fundraising response rates, email list growth, website traffic, and much more.

Here are the key findings for 2009:

• Online giving grew 14 percent despite a difficult economy. Overall, 69 percent of organizations raised more in 2009 than 2008, while 31 percent saw declines in their online fundraising.
• Donors were still giving, but giving smaller amounts. 61 percent of all organizations saw their average gift drop in 2009.
• The average online gift was $80.81, with higher giving reported for disaster fundraising. For those calculating return on investment for list growth, the online revenue per usable email address in 2009 was $11.68.
• Small organizations grew fastest. Organizations with fewer than 10,000 email addresses on file grew online revenue by 26 percent, and gifts by 32 percent.
• Email files continued to grow strongly. The total email file grew 27 percent in 2009 to 39,100 constituents.
• The open rate for email fundraising appeals was 19%.  The click-through rate was 1.7%, down from 2% in 2008.  The overall performance of online fundraising appeals was 0.15%, a slight rise from the year before.
• Web traffic growth continued for most, but at a slower rate. 60 percent of organizations grew their website traffic from 2008 to 2009. Web traffic growth in 2009 was in the single digits at 6 percent compared with double digit growth seen in previous years.
• Web traffic was strongly correlated with email file growth. 38 percent of an organization’s success building large email files could be directly attributed to the amount of traffic to the organization’s website.
• Registration rates dropped. The rate at which organizations converted website visitors to their email file declined to 2.12 percent in 2009.
• Constituents were more reluctant to open emails and click-through. While open rates for both fundraising appeals and newsletters remained around 20 percent, the click-through rates for both types of online communication declined in 2009.
• About 7% of online activists also donated money online to the organization they took action with.  Conversely, 8% of online donors also took an online advocacy action with the same organization.

This annual review by Convio is a useful compendium of benchmarks, although I advise organizations to not feel too locked in by these average results.  More than anything they provide a useful look into how digital fundraising is evolving, particularly at a time when electronic tools are changing rapidly and the economy is having an impact on giving.  Missing from Convio’s annual reports are the still murky impact of online social media and mobile messaging on fundraising, along with changing attitudes towards paper-based direct mail.

Download the Convio Benchmarks Report

These highlights stand out:

• 400,000 people have made at least one donation
• $25 median donation amount
• 35,000 causes have received at least one donation
• $2.1 million raised by 2009 America’s Giving Challenge participants
• $4.5 million raised through the Birthday Wish feature

Read more about how Facebook Causes helps nonprofits with fundraising.