“How fast should our team be processing gifts?” It’s one of the most frequently asked questions in nonprofit fundraising, and for good reason—efficient gift processing is essential for donor stewardship and maximizing resources.
To help nonprofits benchmark their performance, we shared insights based on our work with hundreds of organizations. Here are PSG’s 2025 benchmarks for how many gifts your team should process per hour on average:
-
Online Gifts via Online Express (OLX): 60/hour
-
Online Gifts via NXT Donation Forms: 100/hour
-
Paper Gifts with Direct Mail Response Cards: 60/hour
-
Manual Paper Gifts (No Response Cards): 30/hour
These benchmarks are a starting point for evaluating your team’s efficiency. As Nic Prenger, CEO of Prenger Solutions Group, explains: “If you are processing gifts at this speed or faster—great job! If your organization is below these benchmarks, you’ve got room for improvement, either in your PEOPLE or your PROCESSES—usually the latter.”
Why Organizations Fall Behind
If your team’s processing times don’t match these benchmarks, it’s often due to inefficiencies in workflows or outdated processes.
Stacy Cope, Director of Automation Services at Prenger Solutions Group, highlights some common culprits: “Where I’ve seen organizations falling below these targets is when there are extra steps involved in the gift entry process—duplication of reporting, entering the same information into multiple fields, needing to track down gift officers for missing details, or just plain inefficiency in how gifts are gathered, sorted, and entered.”
These inefficiencies don’t just cost time; they can also lead to burnout during high-volume seasons like year-end giving campaigns.
Efficiency Is Key to Success
Improving gift processing isn’t just about meeting a speed benchmark—it’s about ensuring that your processes are streamlined and effective. Nic emphasizes that evaluating your workflows is the first step to improvement:
“These benchmarks are realistic for the typical nonprofit processing routine gifts, but if your team is processing gifts at a slower pace, it’s time to look at what’s holding you back. Are there unnecessary steps in your process? Is your team well trained? Are you using the best tools available? Small changes can unlock major improvements.”
For teams exceeding these benchmarks, the numbers can serve as validation that your people and processes are optimized. For those falling behind, the benchmarks are an invitation to identify bottlenecks and build more efficient workflows.
2025: The Year to Improve Gift Processing
As nonprofits navigate another year of fundraising, meeting or exceeding these gift processing benchmarks can free up time and energy for what really matters: engaging donors and driving impact. Whether it’s investing in automation, optimizing workflows, or simply cutting out redundancies, there’s no better time to improve than now.
So, how does your team measure up? And what steps will you take in 2025 to streamline your gift processing?