Donor Retention: 4 Strategies to Keep Supporters Engaged

If your nonprofit is having trouble keeping donors engaged from one year to the next, you aren’t alone. In 2024, the average donor retention rate across the nonprofit sector was 42.9%, and this number has been decreasing year over year since 2020. First-time donors have proven especially challenging to retain, with less than 20% giving to the same organization again the following year (as compared to 69% of repeat donors).

More retained donors naturally means more donors overall, which leads to more opportunities to secure critical funding for your nonprofit. But strategic donor retention is about more than just numbers—it allows your organization to build strong relationships that fuel your mission for many years to come.

In this guide, we’ll discuss four strategies to help your nonprofit not only retain more of its donors, but also encourage them to engage more deeply throughout their supporter journey. Let’s get started!

1. Understand Why Donors Commonly Lapse

The opposite of donor retention is donor attrition or churn, which occurs when a supporter stops giving to or engaging with your nonprofit. Donors who have disengaged for a certain period of time (often one year) are known as lapsed donors.

According to DonorSearch’s donor retention guide, some common reasons for donor attrition include:

• Changes in supporters’ personal financial situations that make monetary contributions more difficult.
• A lack of engagement often caused by receiving too few communications from your organization, leading donors to deprioritize supporting your mission consistently.
• Donor fatigue, which usually happens when supporters feel like they’re getting too many messages (especially donation requests) from your nonprofit.
• Feeling unappreciated or undervalued, since donors want to know that your nonprofit sees them as individual, integral members of its community, not just ATMs with legs.
• Uncertainty about the impact of donating—i.e., whether their money is actually furthering your mission in the ways that matter most to them or fulfilling their gifts’ designations.
• Losing confidence in your nonprofit if issues arise around its legal, financial, or social standing.

When you know why you might lose donors’ support, you can choose retention tactics that help prevent attrition for those specific reasons. For example, if supporter survey responses show a general level of uncertainty about impact, you might publish financial reports and incorporate more impact data on your organization’s website to demonstrate results and responsibility. Or, if you find out that a donor is facing a financial setback, you could encourage them to participate in free activities like volunteering and advocacy until they can give again.

2. Thank Supporters for Every Contribution

Although stewardship and retention are often considered separate steps in the donor journey, they actually overlap quite a bit, since thanking donors shows you value them and want them to stay involved with your nonprofit. No contribution is too small to warrant gratitude, but the size of your thank-you should match the size of the gift to strike the right chord with each donor.

Here are some popular donor recognition ideas organized by giving level:

• Small gift: Thank-you email, text message for mobile donations, end-of-year mass mailing thanking all small-dollar donors for the year
• Mid-level gift: Handwritten card, phone call from one of your nonprofit’s leaders, small tangible gift (e.g., branded merchandise or a discount card from a corporate sponsor)
• Major gift: Annual report mention, social media shoutout, donor appreciation event invitation, donor wall inclusion, naming rights to an area of your organization’s facility

You can also use this scale to consider how to thank supporters for non-monetary contributions. For example, the average value of a volunteer hour is $34.79, so you can multiply this value by the number of hours a volunteer has served to determine which recognition tier they qualify for. The same goes for in-kind donations—the gift’s equivalent monetary value determines how you should thank them.

3. Prioritize Transparency When Sharing Impact

In a 2024 survey of nonprofit supporters, approximately 67% of respondents said it was essential for them to trust the organizations they contributed to, but only 22% reported high levels of trust in nonprofits. This means there is necessary room for improvement in trust-building, especially as a part of donor retention efforts, and transparent communication is critical for building this confidence.

You can incorporate transparency into your marketing messages by:

• Highlighting statistics that show your achievements to date and the work you still hope to do (e.g., “We’ve raised $7 million for our current capital campaign already, but we still need to bring in another $3 million over the next year to reach our final goal.”)
• Collecting testimonials from various individuals across your organization, including staff members, board members, donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries.
• Asking for supporter feedback, then letting them know which suggestions you do and don’t decide to implement and the reasoning behind each choice.

Remember that true transparency involves sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of your nonprofit with the same openness across the board—while also encouraging continued support. Make sure donors know that your successes were only possible because of their contributions and commitment to your mission. For any shortcomings or missteps, explain why you think they occurred, how you plan to correct them, and how supporters can come alongside you as you work to do better in the near future.

4. Encourage Recurring Involvement

Donors will be most inclined to engage repeatedly with your nonprofit when it’s convenient for them to do so. Recurring giving programs are among the most effective ways to make this happen, since donors can automate contributions to occur on their preferred timeline (typically once a month). Plus, Meyer Partners’ monthly giving guide points out that these programs provide reliable revenue for your organization and tend to increase donor lifetime value, so it’s a win-win!

You can also make other types of engagement easy for donors by helping them work it into their routines. Some ways to do this include:

• Hosting annual fundraising events, so loyal supporters will know to keep the last Friday night in March free each year for your silent auction or time their training for your 5K so they’re always ready by the second Saturday in October.
• Planning seasonal in-kind donation drives—for example, a food bank might hold one drive every November to help provide Thanksgiving dinners for families in need and another in May to ensure students who rely on school breakfast and lunch can continue getting nutritious meals over the summer. Donors can drop off supplies whenever their schedule allows, so it’s a low-lift way to connect with your cause.
• Offering flexible volunteer opportunities that align with a variety of schedules, from sporadic event assistance to monthly, bimonthly, or weekly shifts on different days and at different times of the day.

Each supporter should have an individual profile in your donor database that you can update as they participate in these programs and activities. That way, it’ll be easier to use what you know about donors to recommend recurring engagement opportunities that resonate with them.

Implementing the strategies above will set your nonprofit up to overcome its donor retention challenges and build longer-lasting relationships. Use the 42.9% average retention rate as your initial benchmark, then try to grow from there to secure as much reliable support for your mission as possible.

Sarah Tedesco 

Sarah Tedesco is the Chief Operating Officer and Part Owner of DonorSearch, a prospect research company that focuses on proven philanthropy. Sarah is responsible for managing the production and customer support department, which focuses on client contract fulfillment, retention, and satisfaction. She also collaborates with other team members in various areas like sales, marketing, and product development. Sarah holds an MBA from the University of Maryland and worked as a foundation prospect researcher before joining DonorSearch, providing her with industry experience that she applies to her responsibilities day-to-day.