Swissfundraising reveals a decade’s worth of direct mail trends

The average donation size in Switzerland has continued to increase over the past decade, despite fewer campaigns and a drop in response rates, according to Swissfundraising.

Through its Direct Mail Panel, Swissfundraising tracks direct mail trends, enabling nonprofit organisations to benchmark their response rates against their peers. The data is based on ten years of direct mail activity and now incorporates over 60 nonprofits.

In 2018, participating organisations generated 120 million Swiss francs from their direct mail activity. Although the number of campaigns was 15% lower than in the previous year, the average circulation rose by 54% and yielded an additional one million francs.

Around 70 supporter acquisition campaigns also went out from the participating organisations in 2018, with an average response rate of just under 2%, and yielding an average donation of around 45 francs, for a cost per letter of 1.70 francs.

Looking at the data for the past decade, the Panel reveals that the average donation has increased by around 20% to 65 francs, but response rates have decreased.

Overall, organisations in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland have fared better than in German-speaking Switzerland, with the response rate showing less of a decline and a more significant increase in the value of donations.

Now in its 25^th year, Swissfundraising represents a growing membership of over 770 individual fundraisers.  A clear majority of its members are women (60%) although there is a male majority among consultants and service providers. 88% of members are registered as German speaking.