Thursday April 30- M+R 2026 report

Hi !

The Great One: What’s cookin this week 

In this week’s enews…

• The poll: Email revenue

• How does your organization measure up?

• What the ?$%# are we doing?!

• Great post: The why of fundraising

• A food item I will NOT be trying

• P.S. The state of things

The solution to last week’s Triple E (enews easter egg): Characters from The Pitt.

Also, about last week’s poll: Fewer than half of you guessed that the Chinese automaker received a patent for an in-car toilet. Not sure if that’s a bad or good thing 🙂 Also not sure if an in-car toilet is something I’d want or not.

This week’s edition takes a look at one of my favorite nonprofit reports of the year and shares with you a whole bunch of takeaways you can use. Let’s dive in.

The Pocket Rocket: Are you average?

Data tells a story. Using data absolutely must be part of how you judge the success of your fundraising and marketing efforts.

But to know where you’re succeeding and where work is needed, you need to know industry standards.

Which is why I’m thrilled the 2026 M+R Benchmarks Report is out! This annual report is one of my sector favorites to dive into. As I do each year, I have written a blog post highlighting some of the report’s findings in the areas of:

• Online revenue

• Monthly giving

• Email

• Retention

• End of year giving

• Online donation forms

• Payment methods and

• Desktop vs. mobile giving

I have highlighted a specific data point and shared with you my takeaways, insights, advice and tips.

Please have a look. It is important to know industry standards and then to ask: Are you average?

And if you’re below average in some areas, how can you boost your efforts to hit and surpass industry standards?

Super Mario: I need to rant

Sometimes I have to get something off my chest and my enews is where I do that. Here we go…

The latest data from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project is in.

• The good news: Charitable dollars donated in 2025 grew by an estimated 5%.

• The bad news: The number of donors declined by 3.6%.

The decline in donors? Continues a downward trend that started in 2021.

I have been a CEO of a growing nonprofit (budget less than $1M). I have been a fundraiser and grant writer. I know the pressures of always worrying if enough money will come in and having to wear 7 hats because the organization is understaffed.

But look at the above numbers again. Know what’s happening? Organizations are simply ABANDONING small donors and actively putting most of their eggs in the major donor basket. (Donated dollars are up due to more large gifts.)

Because hopefully Oprah or McKenzie or Jeff or Elon will call us and deliver that $25,000,000 we’ve been sitting around waiting for. 🙄 🙄 🙄 

In the last five years our sector has moved towards trying to find the big bucks. Major donors, large foundation grants and huge corporate sponsors. The “big three” of big bucks.

I’m not against major donors but look what’s happened: The chase for the big bucks means we have neglected a HUGE amount of givers!

Monthly donors who give $10 a month? I don’t have time for them! I’ll put my time and effort into finding 5, 6 and 7-figure checks. Never mind that monthly givers have a retention rate of up to 90% and give more over time than most annual givers. Don’t let the data ruin your plans for money to just fall out of the sky.

No wonder the number of donors keeps falling. Organizations make it very clear to donors that their gift doesn’t matter! They aren’t thanked properly, communications with them is every few months or non existent and then we wonder: Where did all our donors go?!

And for me- this is for the CEO’s and Board members out there- the math isn’t mathing:

Acquisition costs 5-10 times MORE than retention! You have donors and yet you let them slip away. Which means you spend MORE time, money and effort trying to fill the hole left by donors who simply didn’t feel engaged or valued.

What the 😡 are we doing???!!!

We have best practices that have remained steady for decades. We know what works. We know that a diversified fundraising portfolio is a winner. And yet it seems that many organizations have narrowed their focus to bigger gifts from fewer people.

Instead of allowing everyone to join the joy of philanthropy, we are showing by our actions that their gifts are not valued. We only value gifts that have commas- the more the better.

This is not how you grow and thrive. This is how you remain with a poverty and scarcity mindset.

McKenzie Scott isn’t calling folks. Deal with it.

Given the cuts in federal funding and the economy, you should be hard at work trying to retain every last donor you have, regardless of the donation amount. That’s where the magic happens.

The Dominator: A little of this and that

In this section I’m going to share with you great content I’ve picked out that you can learn from.

1. The why of fundraising (Ann Green)

2. How to make your impact report more effective (Nonprofit Pro)

3. A guide to DAF’s (Causevox)

4. 5 ways to segment your donors (The Fundraising Coach)

5. A checklist for planning a gala event (Soapbox Engage)

The Golden Jet: Ewwwwwwww

For some people IKEA is their happy place. So many options for so many items!

Me? I’m a little less excited. They have good deals and I don’t mind walking around and looking. But I also have two left hands and am not the build-it-yourself type.

What do I like at IKEA? The food. It’s great here because the food is kosher and so I can shop and then have lunch. Time well spent.

IKEA is of course known for their Swedish meatballs. They’re pretty good! But I think that IKEA may have taken the whole “people love our meatballs” thing too far. Take a look at what they’re introducing this summer. Ewwwwww.

SOTW (Song of the week): I listened to The Cure’s Friday I’m In Love on an endless loop while composing the enews. It’s been a week.

I’ll be back in your inbox next Thursday. Have a great weekend!

P.S. I honestly don’t think they needed to mention what state this happened in. We already knew.