What Industry Retention Trends are Telling Us, and What We Can Do About It
With the release of several Q4 2024 benchmarks in April 2025, we now have a clearer picture of last year’s fundraising landscape:
Donor counts continued their year-over-year (YoY) decline.
Increased donor value helped offset those losses and stabilize overall revenue.
These trends mirror what we’ve seen across programs for our partners. Most recently, we reviewed the Q4 report from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP), which takes a closer look at donor retention — and what we’re seeing there is putting a finer point on the drop in donor counts. This isn’t just a problem with acquiring first-year donors but also in keeping existing donors.
Here are a few standout findings from the FEP Q4 2024 report:
Overall donor retention reported 42.9%, a drop of 2.6% from 2023.
Repeat donor retention dropped 3% YoY, while First-time donor retention dropped 5.9% YoY, highlighting how hard it is to convert new donors into repeat supporters.
Donor counts dropped 4.5% while revenue increased 3.5% — meaning fewer donors are giving more, but the base is shrinking.
While strong donor value is helping maintain short-term revenue, these retention trends point to long-term sustainability risks. A shrinking donor base now could mean major revenue challenges down the line if retention isn't addressed — especially when you couple this with rising costs.
Breaking Down the Numbers
First-year retention has continued to erode since its peak in 2021, during the pandemic bump. Over the last three years, it has declined YoY by 17%, 8%, and now 6%. Multi-year retention has also fallen each year but has seen more erratic trends affected by global events like COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and other crisis-driven giving spikes.
But as useful as these reported trends are, it’s important not to apply aggregate industry trends to every program indiscriminately. Here’s why:
"New" and "new last year" donors are tightly defined groups, and the type of acquisition (mission-based vs. emergency-driven) and join channel, can significantly affect retention outcomes. Meanwhile, “repeat donors” are a broader mix, most simply defined as anyone who gave last year and any year prior to that. Each cohort retains at vastly different rates, yet they’re all bundled into the repeat donor retention metric.
Consider these three donors:
Gave ten years ago, lapsed, then gave again last year.
Gave their first gift two years ago and gave again last year.
Gave consistently for the last ten years.
All are considered repeat donors, but their retention likelihoods are not the same. If your program reactivates a large number of lapsed donors in one year, your repeat donor mix shifts. Even if all cohorts improve their individual retention, the overall repeat donor retention may drop, simply due to a change in audience composition.
In short, understanding why your metrics shift is often more valuable than knowing how they compare to industry averages.
What’s Driving the Long-Term Decline?
Most files are shrinking. As donor pipelines narrow, we might expect retention to increase as tenured donors would make up a larger share of the active file. However, many files are not replenishing their tenured donor base quickly enough.
In these cases, deep-tenured donors are lapsing at a faster rate than they are being replaced, so “consecutive givers” are less tenured every year. This adds pressure to sustain revenue growth not by volume, but through increasing donor value.
What Can We Do?
To face the challenges head-on, we must double down on strategies proven to work:
1. Improve the Onboarding Experience for New Donors
First-time retention is the lowest it’s been in years. A thoughtful welcome series, clear impact stories, and timely follow-up can help turn a one-time gift into a lasting relationship. The sooner they make that second gift, the more likely they are to stick around.
2. Reinforce the Value of Recurring Giving
We can’t say it enough. Monthly donors are among your most dedicated supporters. If you haven’t already, now is the time to fully embrace monthly giving. Lead with this ask on donation forms and across all communication channels. Monthly gifts not only provide steady, predictable revenue, but they also take fewer donors to offset the losses from one-time gifts. Prioritize this strategy to build a more resilient donor base for the long term.
3. Invest in Stewardship, Not Just Appeals
Retention starts after the first gift. Are you thanking donors quickly and meaningfully? Are they hearing from you when you’re not asking for money? Personalized stewardship builds long-term loyalty.
4. Segment with Purpose
Catch them before they lapse. Use what you know — donation history, frequency, engagement level — to create messages that feel tailored. Donors are more likely to stick around when they feel known and understood.
5. Track Retention Metrics Regularly
Don’t wait for an annual report to find out trends are going in the wrong direction. Monitoring retention monthly or quarterly can help you spot trends early and respond proactively.
Retention challenges aren’t new, but understanding their complexity is more important than ever. By taking a nuanced, data-informed approach and focusing on both the composition and behavior of your donor base, you can move beyond benchmarks and toward more targeted and meaningful strategies to optimize results.
At Fuse, we help organizations navigate shifts in donor makeup and strategic priorities with data-driven tactics. If you’re looking for expert insights to steer your fundraising through uncertain times, connect with us here!