Lautman’s Top Ten Take-Aways from the 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study

The M&R Benchmarks Study is always chock-full of information that helps us better understand our digital programs – and this year was no different. The 2025 data underscored that donors are still giving, but they’re becoming more selective and values-driven – and it takes creativity and more messages to cut through the noise.

Here are our top take-aways:

1. Digital Fundraising is on the upswing – because our organizations are in crisis. Revenues are rising and retention is looking good. Revenue is up 15% (!!) year over year – a big change compared to the past few years of flat growth. There are many things that led to this, but overall it shows that people are stepping up to help the organizations they care about when they’re under threat. Retention also improved, with 48% of one-time donors returning to make a gift again in 2025, up from 46% in 2024. But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. This spike in giving is somewhat episodic and organizations would be wise to prepare for revenue to swing back. To this end, we recommend continuing to invest in tests that reduce friction and prioritize sustainer giving, while also including meaningful cultivation in our calendars.

2. Email still drives significant revenue. Email revenue increased by 16% on average. For every 1,000 fundraising messages sent, nonprofits raised $54. This was a 4% increase from 2024. Why such a substantial increase in performance? Ignoring the obvious reasons (domestic and international crises), email list sizes increased (this varied widely by sector) and nonprofits sent more emails – 15% more. We need to continue to invest in lead generation and continue to use email to build relationships with donors to support increased fundraising asks. Organizations that communicate clearly and create emotional relevance will see the strongest results in this channel.
3. SMS is reaching a tipping point. After multiple years of double-digit subscriber growth, SMS lists only grew by 4% in 2025. Do we slow things down or double down? I believe we should double down. Ad partners like Care2, Good Influence, and Co-Ops have all put out new SMS offerings – they clearly see value in SMS and we should too. And maybe this moves away from a fundraising channel, into a way to amplify messages and get people to engage – and that’s OK.
4. Desktop is still king when it comes to giving. Even though 52% of all traffic comes from Mobile, only 43% of all transactions and 28% of all revenue comes from mobile devices. At this point, it can’t just be about mobile optimized forms and payment gateways, but the way people behave on – and off – their phones. Ask yourself, when you are on your phone, are you happily grabbing your wallet and entering your credit card information? Or are you just using Apple Pay or Venmo, or whatever mobile payment platform you use to buy something? Or if your information isn’t saved, are you just waiting until later? Is this behavior changeable? While we don’t have all of these answers, we do know it’s critical to optimize email and forms for desktop and mobile – because people are viewing our messages on both.

5. We are now paying for things we used to get for free in ads – thank you AI. Paid Search is important because it guarantees you top placement in search terms, something that a good SEO strategy used to help with. Now, we must pay to play and it’s just another change in how the internet works.

6. Nonprofits need an AI strategy yesterday. Organic traffic is down and going to continue to dive due to AI. It is more important than ever to invest in getting the right information placed in search overviews. AI is fundamentally changing how data is shared online and everyone clinging to the old internet is going to be left behind. But, the past can provide a roadmap for the future:

• • Revisit past SEO strategies to see what you did to ensure high organic rank in searches. Post more content on your website. Track search keywords and use them to help develop a content calendar. Repurpose content used on other channels (like quizzes, actions, infographics, videos, and photos) to create blog posts on your website.
  • Updating your Google Grants could prove to be valuable. Per the benchmarks: “While Google Grants can’t compete with paid search for direct fundraising, they can still help increase organizations’ reach. Nonprofits received 229 site visits for every $1k in Grant spend. With AI summaries affecting search and organic traffic seemingly in decline, this can be a meaningful source of visitors.”
  • Make sure the places that AI indexes from (LinkedIn, Reddit, Wikipedia, Charity Engine, etc.) all have accurate information and that you are part of the conversation. These AI tools are actively crawling these sites (since they determine them to be reputable – which is a whole different argument) and incorrect or outdated information is going to actively hurt you. These places are often forgotten but need just 5 minutes once a year to ensure they actively help you, instead of damaging your brand.

To read or download the full report visit mrbenchmarks.com