DIRECT MAIL
- Direct mail revenue increased by 9% in 2025, and the number of direct mail gifts increased by 4%.
- For every $1 received online, nonprofits in this study received an average of $0.66 through direct mail.
- Nonprofits sent about 15 mailings to active donors in 2025; lapsed donors were sent 8; non-donor prospects were sent 6.
- The average gift size for direct mail donations was $120.
- Fundraising mailings to active donor audiences had an average ROI of $4.51; for lapsed audiences the ROI was $0.90; for non-donor/prospecting, the ROI was $0.41.
- Public Media saw extraordinary growth in direct mail fundraising. It was wild.
Our primary goal with the annual M+R Benchmarks Study is to create a clear, comprehensive, and useful guide to nonprofit digital programs. But why limit ourselves? Turns out, we’re actually pretty interested in what happens offline as well.
After all, supporters don’t exist in distinct silos, and most successful programs integrate closely across marketing channels. So this year, we have expanded our review of direct mail data. Let’s dive in!
Direct mail revenue increased by 9% in 2025, not quite keeping pace with the 15% growth for online revenue or 16% for email revenue. As in those other channels, Public Media nonprofits reported a surge in giving in response to federal budget cuts. Average direct mail revenue for the Public Media sector increased by 43% year over year.
The number of gifts from direct mail also increased, but not quite as much as revenue. Nonprofits received 4% more gifts via direct mail than the previous year, with an 11% average increase for Public Media.
On average, organizations raised about two-thirds as much revenue through direct mail as they did through all online sources combined. For every dollar raised online, nonprofits raised $0.66 through direct mail. There were distinct differences between sectors in the relative amount of direct mail and online revenue; Rights groups raised just $0.34 through direct mail per dollar raised online, while Hunger/Poverty nonprofits raised $0.87 through direct mail per dollar raised online.
How much mail an individual received from a nonprofit depended heavily on the state of their donor relationship. Groups in our study sent active donors the highest volume of mail at about 15 pieces per year. They sent about 8 lapsed donor mailings per year (organizations define “lapsed” differently, most often as someone who has not donated in 24 months or more), and about 6 mailings targeting non-donors/prospects.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the cost of production and mailing (not to mention staff time), organizations with larger budgets sent more mail. Small nonprofits send just 6 mailings to active donors, 3 to lapsed donors, and 4 to prospects, far below their larger peers.
Given that there are 8.3 billion people in the world and most of them do not donate to your organization, there are usually a lot more prospects than active donors. So although individual active donors received a lot more mail, nonprofits allocated nearly as much budget to reach prospect audiences. Overall, 41% of direct mail budget was spent to reach active donors, and 38% was spent to reach prospects.
It’s a tricky balancing act. The truest truism in fundraising is that donors donate — a solicitation that reaches someone with a known giving history is more likely to generate a gift than a prospect mailing. On the other hand, growth and the reality of attrition demand that nonprofits reach new audiences and recruit new supporters.
The cost to generate a donation from an active donor audience was $21, and for lapsed donors $69. These averages were remarkably consistent regardless of nonprofit size, with only slightly higher efficiency for nonprofits with the largest budgets.
For prospect audiences, things looked a little different. Small nonprofits spent more to acquire new donors than their larger peers. Larger nonprofits (with, presumably, more brand recognition) may find prospect audiences are more familiar with their work and more receptive to their case for giving. It may also be that they have access to improved data and targeting for prospect audiences.
While Small organizations paid more to acquire donors, they had an advantage on average gift size for every audience type. The average direct mail gift to Small nonprofits was $163, well above the overall average of $120.
In general, active donors made larger gifts than lapsed donors, and lapsed donors made larger average gifts than prospects. Combined with a lower cost per donation, that means that active donors had a much higher ROI than other audiences.
A dollar spent on a mailing to acquisition audiences generated an average of $0.41 in revenue. For lapsed donors, the average direct mail ROI was $0.90. And because donors donate, the average ROI for active donor mailings was $4.51.
It’s worth pointing out one last time just what an outlier Public Media nonprofits were in 2025. They reported an average ROI of $9.02 across mailings of all types, and raised $15.42 per dollar spent mailing active donors.
That is an impressive indication of donor loyalty, at a time when federal cuts threaten the future of public media. We saw a similar surge in support for Public Media in email and other channels as well. Another reminder that offline or online, we are all in this together.
