Fewer than half of the people who gave to your organization last year will give again this year. That is not a guess about your organization. It is the sector's number, and it has been falling for five years.
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project, which tracks giving across thousands of nonprofits, reported full-year 2024 donor retention of 42.9 percent, the fifth consecutive annual decline, with retention of first-time donors near 19 percent. Its report on the first quarter of 2026 found retention falling again across most donor segments. The organizations bucking that trend are not the largest ones. They are the ones that treat keeping a donor as work, with an owner and a calendar. Here is what a small nonprofit can do about retention, in the order that pays fastest.
Why retention is the cheapest fundraising you will ever do
A new donor costs money and time to find: the appeal, the event, the ad, the list. A retained donor costs a thank-you and an update. Every point of retention is revenue you did not have to go out and find, and retained donors give more over time as trust builds. The math also runs the other way. An organization losing more than half its donors every year has to replace them just to stand still, which is why so many small nonprofits work harder each year for the same total. Our article on fewer donors and larger gifts explains what that pattern does to the whole sector.
First: know your own number
Pull last year's donors and this year's, and count who appears on both lists. Divide by last year's total. That is your retention rate. Do it separately for first-time donors and repeat donors, because the two numbers tell different stories: first-time retention shows whether your welcome works, repeat retention shows whether your stewardship does. If pulling the lists takes more than an hour, the records are the first thing to fix; our article on the donor data you already have shows how.
You cannot keep donors you do not know you are losing. The retention rate is the number that tells you.
Second: the first forty-eight hours
The thank-you decides more about retention than anything else you do. It should arrive within two days, name the gift and the donor, say what the money will do in specific terms, and come from a person rather than a system. For gifts above your typical amount, a phone call from a board member or the executive director, with no ask attached, is the single highest-return hour in fundraising. Our article on thanking donors so they give again covers the letter, the call, and the timing.
Third: the report before the ask
Donors leave when they hear nothing until the next request. Between gifts, send at least one update that asks for nothing: what the gift did, one story, one number. A quarterly note is enough. Donors who see their money at work renew; donors who see only appeals conclude the organization only wants more. Our article on why donors stop giving and how to bring them back lists the other reasons, and most of them are silence.
Fourth: earn the second gift on purpose
With first-time retention near 19 percent, roughly four of every five new donors never give again, and the second gift is the moment that changes a donor's future. Ask for it within a few months, for a specific and modest purpose, after the thank-you and the first update have landed. Offer monthly giving as one option, since a monthly donor is retained at far higher rates than a one-time donor. The whole sequence is in the second gift: why it predicts everything and building a monthly giving program from zero.
Fifth: segment, even simply
Three groups are enough to start. New donors get the welcome sequence. Repeat donors get the update rhythm and a renewal ask timed to their last gift, not to your calendar. Donors above your typical gift get a named person and personal contact. Lapsed donors, anyone who gave in the prior year but not this one, get a specific "we missed you" message in the months after their usual giving date, which is the cheapest reactivation you will ever run.
The thank-you sequences, the update rhythm, the second-gift ask, and the lapsed-donor reactivation are exactly the recurring work our Fundraising department runs for organizations without a development director. See how our staff grow donors while you lead.
A retention calendar for a small team
- Every gift: thank-you within forty-eight hours; call for larger gifts.
- Thirty days after a first gift: a welcome note with one story and no ask.
- Ninety days after a first gift: the second-gift ask, with a monthly option.
- Quarterly: an update to every donor that asks for nothing.
- Monthly: the lapsed list, with a personal message to each name.
- Yearly: the retention rate, by segment, on the board report.
Questions nonprofits ask about donor retention
What is a good retention rate?
Anything above the sector's number is good, and the number to beat is your own last year. Repeat-donor retention well above half and first-time retention above one in four are realistic goals for a small organization that runs the calendar above.
Should we stop acquiring new donors and focus on retention?
No. Do both, in that order of effort. Retention is cheaper and faster; acquisition keeps the base from shrinking. Our article on what to advertise with Google Ad Grants covers low-cost acquisition.
How many messages is too many?
Donors leave from silence far more often than from frequency. The mix matters more than the count: for every ask, at least one message that only reports and thanks.
Do we need a donor management system to do this?
A spreadsheet can run the calendar above for a few hundred donors. Beyond that, a system saves the hours that the calendar depends on.
Your mission is bigger than the next new donor
The people who already believe in the mission are the easiest to keep and the most often forgotten. A retention program is a calendar and an owner, and most small nonprofits have neither. You do not need to become a stewardship expert on top of everything else. You need a staff that is already sending the thank-yous, already writing the updates, and already reaching the lapsed donors while you lead the mission only you can lead. Find out what our staff can do for you.
Zoya Syal is Content and Production Manager at Nonprofits Engine, where she leads the content and testimonial work for a team that helps small nonprofits get set up and funded.
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