Well, really, there are more than just six mistakes that nonprofits make when they try to raise funds online. But these six really stand out.

They are from a new study from Dunhan+Company, a consultant for nonprofit fundraising and marketing, and Next After, a fundraising think tank. The study, the Online Fundraising Scorecard, found that most nonprofits only get a failing or, at best, mediocre grade when what they do is measured against online fundraising best practices.

Of the 151 organizations that were covered in the study, 127 achieved a score of 75% or below. The researchers used 46 key indicators in four aspects of online fundraising to reach their conclusions. They looked at email registration, email communication, the donation experience, and gift acknowledgement.

The study was done over nine months in 2013. Researchers reviewed websites, signed up to receive emails and gave a $20 gift online.

Here are the most serious of the mistakes that the surveyed organizations made:

1. More than a third of nonprofits did not send any email within 30 days after the researchers subscribed to receive them.
2. More than three-quarters did not bother to personalize emails with the person’s first or last name.
3. More than a third sent emails that had multiple and conflicting calls to action.
4. Sixty-five percent required using three or more pages to give an online gift.
5. Eighty-four percent did not optimize their giving pages for mobile devices.
6. More than 60% of the nonprofits did not suggest a next step for donors once they had been thanked for their donations.

The study includes several suggestions to help remedy these problems. The most telling to me was this observation from Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Blackbaud’s Idea Lab:

“Online Giving is More Complicated than Sophisticated: Too many clicks. Too many steps. Too many fields. One of the main reasons donors prefer online giving is because of its convenience. The research suggests that nonprofits are placing too many barriers between donors and the online giving experience.”

Who did the best and the worst? According to the study, animal welfare organizations, political candidates and environmental and wildlife groups got the highest average scores. The lowest scores were earned by Jewish organizations and Christian ministries.

It should be noted that online giving is only about six percent of total charitable gifts, but it is also the fastest growing segment of charitable giving.