We just released the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study with our fantastic friends at M+R Strategic Services. The report is chock full of amazing and interesting information you can use to make better decisions about your online campaigns.

To help folks get started, we hosted a release party. Get the recording to see how Children's Defense Fund and HRC use benchmarks to increase the performance of their online campaigns.

Or, for those of you who can't be bothered to open another link -- that's how I roll, so I feel you -- here are some highlights from this year's report:

Flickr Photo: Andrew_NWe had a staff meeting at NTEN a few weeks ago. In addition to seeing a bald eagle while kayaking, we brainstormed our ideas for 2009, and started translating those ideas into goals for the year. I've been chewing on those goals as we finalize our plans here. I have this unsettling feeling that the metrics we're setting for ourselves are adequate, but not outstanding. In short, I wonder if we're measuring what matters.

At the same time, I spent the last two days with some ridiculously smart, funny, and inquisitive folks talking about social media. These were sophisticated nonprofits, and as we discussed what social media might mean for their organizations, they zeroed in on one of the most interesting topics in the space: how do we measure this stuff? It seems that measuring what matters is in the water.

Flickr Photo: ralphhogaboomIf you're an NTEN member, you got to sit in on a great Ask the Expert session with Avinash Kaushik last month. (If you missed, it you should definitely check out the recording.)

Anyone who's had the pleasure of listening to Avinash talk about metrics knows he's the real deal. He's not just measuring for the sake of measuring: this guy is out to measure REAL IMPACT. He knows that measuring bounce rates or click throughs is meaningless unless you can explain what those statistics mean to the mission of your organization.

The latest post on his blog blows the lid off traditional analytics and explores a side of your website you may not have known about before: its offline impact.

We all know that, to some degree, our websites drive offline action as well as online action. Our sites encourage people to pick up their phone and call us. They drive people to come into our offices and volunteer. They compel people to change the lightbulbs in their houses to CFLs.

But how can you use web analytics to track what people aren't doing on your site?

M+R Strategic Services and NTEN are excited to announce that we’re releasing an updated eNonprofit Benchmarks Study for 2008. We’ve analyzed online messaging, fundraising, and advocacy data from 21 leading nonprofit organizations.

Be one of the first to get your hands on a copy by joining us for the release of the report:

• In Washington DC: Thursday 4/24 from 3pm to 5pm Eastern
  
• Online at the NTEN webcast: Thursday 4/24 from 3pm to 5pm Eastern

Join us at the release event when we will:

• Cover key findings on fundraising and advocacy metrics
• Explore what the data tells us about industry-wide changes
• Provide key metrics to analyze your organization’s online program
• Hear from Amnesty International USA and Environmental Defense Fund on how they use data to measure success and fine tune their strategies.
• Take questions about the study and nonprofit online metrics

Evaluation is clearly a sticky wicket. Now that we're smack dab in the middle of the information age, it's easier than ever for nonprofits to track all kinds of data that help them measure and evaluate their performance. We know down to the minute how many people are downloading reports, signing up to volunteer, sending emails to decision makers, visiting our clinics, etc. Pervasive Internet access and ever-shrinking hardware mean that we can collect and store more data than ever before. And we can publish that data more easily than ever before, increasing our transparency as we increase our measurements.

No one will argue that this is a bad thing. But are we really measuring what matters? Do all these numbers really tell us if we are meeting our missions? Take this number. Tell me what you think this number says about NTEN:

• 7158: September site visits to date at http://nten.org.