Donor retention hits 26.4%: how belonging brings givers back
Donor retention fell to 26.4% in the first half of 2026, and only 11.3% of donors acquired in 2025 had given again by the end of June, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Donors who gave seven or more times stayed at a 90% rate. For nonprofits, the message is clear: regular, personal contact between gifts is what brings people back.
A development lead's November fills up fast: GivingTuesday on December 1, year-end appeals to write, a gala to wrap up and a spreadsheet of first-time donors nobody has had time to call. The newest numbers show what happens to those first-time donors when the year gets busy.
What happened: donor retention slipped to 26.4%
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project's Q2 2026 report, a joint project of the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday, found that "Dollars rose an estimated 6.6% year-to-date through Q2, while donors fell 1.6% and retention slipped 0.4 percentage points to 26.4%." The dataset covers 5.7 million donors and 17,000 organizations. The NonProfit Times summarized the findings on November 2 under the headline "Dollars Up And Donors Down."
The sharpest drop came at the start of the relationship. "Only 11.3% of donors acquired in 2025 had given again by the end of Q2," and new retained donors fell 9.5%, the steepest decline of any stage. Small gifts are shrinking too: micro donors giving $1 to $100 are 51.6% of all donors, and "the only size segment to decline in both donors (-4.2%) and dollars (-4.4%)."
One number points the way forward: "Donors who gave seven or more times last year were retained at 90%, compared with 14.4% of one-time donors."
Why does donor retention matter more than the next appeal?
Our view at InspireHUB is that the retention problem is a belonging problem. A first gift is an act of trust. When the next thing a donor hears is another ask, the relationship stays a transaction, and most people quietly drift away. Donors who give often have usually been brought inside: they know the people, see the progress and feel part of the work.
Some leaders worry that more contact will feel like pressure, or that AI-written updates will feel hollow. The evidence suggests donors welcome more connection. The BBB Wise Giving Alliance's 2026 Donor Trust Report found "42.1% of U.S. adults saying they are open to give more," and that "67.7% of respondents say trusting a charity is essential before donating, yet only 18.3% report high trust." Trust grows through honest, regular updates. AI can draft them; a person who knows the donors should always shape the final word. That is how a nonprofit helps its supporters flourish as part of something larger, as our look at flourishing as the north star explains.
What to do before GivingTuesday
1. Welcome 2025's first-time donors back in. Send each one a short note about what their gift made possible this year, with no ask attached. Invite them to see the work in person or online.
2. Give donors a place to belong between gifts. A supporters' space with monthly impact stories and a quarterly open house turns a single gift into a relationship. Frequency is what the 90% group has in common.
3. Audit the first 90 days through a new donor's eyes. The prompt card below shows where a first-time donor feels welcomed and where they feel forgotten. For more ways AI can give staff hours back, see the AI executive assistant.
Prompt card: the new donor diary What it does: replays your first 90 days of messages as a diary written by one realistic first-time donor, scores each moment for belonging, and rewrites the weakest message. So that: you fix the exact moments where new donors drift away, before GivingTuesday brings in the next group. Why it works: it combines audience simulation over time with grounding in quotes and a self-check. Anthropic's prompting guide says XML tags "help Claude parse complex prompts unambiguously" and recommends asking Claude to "quote relevant parts of the documents first." A dated diary makes the AI feel the gaps between messages, which a single review misses, and the three written criteria give it a test it must pass. The same pattern works for new members, volunteers or employees. Try: <messages>[paste, in date order, everything a new donor receives in their first 90 days: receipt, thank-you, newsletters, appeals, event invitations]</messages> <donor>A first-time donor who gave $40 after a friend's post, has never visited, and is not sure the gift mattered.</donor> Context: this is to find why first-time donors do not give a second time. Write a dated diary, one short entry per message, as the person in <donor> reading each item in <messages>. In each entry, quote the exact line that made them feel welcomed or forgotten, and rate belonging from 1 (a transaction) to 5 (part of the work). Then step out of the diary. List the three lowest-scoring moments, the one change that would most raise each score, and the effort each change takes. Rewrite the weakest message so that it names a specific result of the gift, invites the donor into something, and contains no request for money. Check the rewrite against those three criteria and fix any it misses. Before starting, ask about anything missing that would change the diary. |
| If you do one thing this week: pick ten donors who gave for the first time last year and send each a personal note about what their gift changed, with no ask. |
Where IHUBApp fits
An IHUBApp Hubsite gives donors and volunteers a home between gifts: impact stories, events and conversations in one place your organization runs. The built-in automation keeps the rhythm going. Welcome messages for new members, newsletters, event reminders, RSVP confirmations and push notifications run on their own, and giving sits on the same Hubsite.
IHUBApp AI Assist, our connector that works with Claude and is now in public beta, runs on top of that. From a Claude conversation, a development lead can draft this month's impact story as a post, create a supporters' channel, set up an open house event and draft replies to comments. AI writes the first draft; someone on your staff reviews it, edits it and adds the human touch. The hours go where they matter most: your people. See how IHUBApp AI Assist works with Claude and the full list of IHUBApp features.
Illustrative example: a food bank's two-person development team asks Claude, through IHUBApp AI Assist, to draft a Saturday open house and a "Where your gift went" post on its Hubsite. Volunteers greet each guest at the door. By January, several of last year's first-time donors are on the volunteer roster.
Frequently asked questions
What is the donor retention rate in 2026?
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project reported donor retention of 26.4% year-to-date through the second quarter of 2026, down 0.4 percentage points. Only 11.3% of donors acquired in 2025 had given again by the end of June.
Why do first-time donors not give again?
The FEP data shows that the relationship is weakest at the start, with new retained donors falling 9.5%. Donors who give often are retained at 90%, which suggests regular, personal contact between gifts makes the difference.
How can a nonprofit improve donor retention before GivingTuesday?
Thank recent first-time donors personally with a specific result of their gift, invite them into the work without an ask, and give them a place to stay connected between gifts. GivingTuesday 2026 falls on December 1.
IHUBApp AI Assist Bring your givers back with belongingGive donors and volunteers one Hubsite to stay connected between gifts, with IHUBApp AI Assist drafting alongside your team. |
Last updated: November 4, 2026.
By KZ Hart, President of InspireHUB. KZ leads the team behind IHUBApp and the Hubsite.
