The Fundraising Effectiveness Project unveiled new research highlighting the hurdles nonprofits face as they prepare for 2025. The data revealed a 4.6% drop in donor retention through the third quarter of 2024 — marking the fourth consecutive year of declining retention during that period.
One likely contributor to declining retention rates is the lack of consistent donor engagement and cultivation communications. According to NonProfit PRO’s inaugural “Nonprofit Fundraising Study,” 56% of nonprofits lack an engagement strategy. Additionally, donor acquisition emerged as the top challenge, with 47% of nonprofit leaders identifying it as their primary hurdle in 2024.
As nonprofits prioritize donor acquisition, engagement and retention for 2025, what actionable strategies can they implement? Here are key takeaways from 2024 to guide nonprofit efforts in the coming year.
1. Prioritize Year-Round Engagement Through High-Visibility Channels
With many nonprofits not having a formal donor engagement strategy and retention rates continuing to decline, nonprofits must go beyond appeals and focus on thoughtful engagement — asking, thanking, and reporting back to donors consistently.
To maximize impact, these engagement and cultivation communications should utilize high-visibility channels. For instance, emails reporting the impact of donations may go unopened or end up in junk folders. By contrast, channels like text messaging’s 99% open rate can ensure higher visibility.
In 2024, nonprofits that committed to year-round engagement and cultivation that included using text messaging reported significant improvements in their year-end campaigns.
Related story: 3 Solutions to Multichannel Fundraising Challenges
For example, Boys Town launched a text messaging program in the fourth quarter of 2023 and initially saw promising results from late-December texts. However, by cultivating and engaging their text subscriber list throughout 2024 — using gratitude messages, storytelling, donor surveys and holiday e-cards — the organization doubled its GivingTuesday text messaging revenue while texting fewer people. Boys Town also nearly doubled its number of GivingTuesday donors.
2. Continue to Grow Monthly Giving
Monthly giving continues to outpace one-time giving in both growth and retention. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, retention rates for one-time donors are just 18.6%, compared to 38.1% for donors who give twice and 61.2% for those giving three to six times. Similarly, monthly donors are nine times more valuable than one-time donors. Over the past decade, online monthly giving has experienced consistent double-digit growth, far surpassing the growth of online one-time gifts.
For example, in 2024, Boys & Girls Clubs of America saw a 21% increase in revenue from its monthly giving program with a few strategic shifts. First, the organization incorporated regular cultivation to existing monthly donors using automated gift receipts from its donation platform. By customizing the content of an automated message, the nonprofit was able to weave in impact updates to monthly donors while keeping the lift on staff minimal.
Secondly, Boys & Girls Clubs of America focused on increasing omnichannel promotion of the program. Instead of focusing solely on email and paid and organic search, the nonprofit expanded promotion across multiple channels, including social advertising, text messaging and high-impact display advertising. The organization also took advantage of features within its donation platform, such as custom upgrade links and a post-donation upsell. By diversifying its acquisition strategy and channels, the nonprofit saw a 27% lift in new recurring donors year over year.
Finally, they tested offering a premium to monthly donors who committed to a gift at a certain level. Utilizing the premium across more visual creative channels, such as social and performance max advertising, led to 50% more conversions and a 60% lower cost per acquisition than content that did not feature the premium item.
3. Bring the Right People Onto the File When Boosting Donor Acquisition
With 47% of nonprofit leaders identifying donor acquisition as a major hurdle, focusing on creative ways to bring not only new, but qualified leads to the file in 2025 will be paramount. But how can organizations identify and acquire leads that will ultimately convert to bring the most value to their file?
First, nonprofits must find the right people. Social ad platform targeting can help identify not only donor look-alike audiences, but audiences with interests related to your organization’s cause.
For example, for a lead generation campaign centered around downloading its top-performing web content, a gut-friendly recipe guide, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation targeted audiences with an interest around gut health in addition to their standard donor and prospect look-alike audiences. This approach, combined with omnichannel support to new leads — such as a triggered follow-up email, and adding them into additional advertising — contributed more than 3,500 new names to their file. On average, these new names have a 26% higher click-through rate and a revenue per 1,000 sends nearly double that of their existing prospect file.
Once the leads are on file, it’s important to follow up with them using the content that brought them there in the first place, as they’ll be more likely to convert. A great example of this is the Remember Everyone Deployed (RED) Day campaign by the Armed Services YMCA. The nonprofit collected leads (email and mobile number) asking people to pledge to wear red on RED Day. The organization then re-targeted this group with an ask featuring a three-times match via SMS and email on the National Day of the Deployed. The SMS appeal saw a click-through rate of 2.76%, and garnered a 1,005% return on investment.
By leveraging custom targeting, top-performing content, and an omnichannel follow up approach, organizations can maximize the value of the leads they bring in.
4. Make Major Moments Extend Beyond the Inbox
Nonprofits are no strangers to mobilizing when disaster strikes — that adrenaline rush of getting an email out the door to support rapid response efforts typically pays off in revenue. But if we want to truly build relationships with donors and stave off declining retention rates, we should be applying those rapid response tactics to everyday moments.
Despite the instinct to send an email, which may have been the right move in the past, times have changed and email isn’t often the fastest or most effective way to reach your audience anymore as other channels can provide more visibility and immediacy. So instead of defaulting to email when major moments — good or bad — happen for your mission, consider an omnichannel approach:
- Texting is the fastest way to reach your audience and ensure your message is seen, and not passed over in the inbox. When you need to share breaking news, such as a research update, giving day or disaster relief, try meeting constituents where they are — on their phones. Over the past two years, a disaster relief text (with a 28-times return on investment) and a giving day text (59-times return on investment) have stood out as two of the highest return on investment texts we’ve seen.
- Monitor search traffic around specific terms related to the moment/event. If those are spiking, be sure to update your website with applicable information.
- Search ads are often a quicker turn than email — be sure to add any keywords into paid or grant strategies.
The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.
- Categories:
- Acquisition
- Mobile
- Multichannel
Mike Snusz brings 20 years of digital fundraising experience to his role as director of nonprofit customer experience at Tatango. Today, Mike closely partners with Tatango's nonprofit customer to maximize the impact text marketing can have to further their mission.
Prior to Tatango, Mike spent 15 years at Blackbaud, leading a team of digital consultants focused on increasing nonprofit fundraising. Mike started his nonprofit career managing the Ride For Roswell in 2003.
Lizzie Russell brings 12 years of experience across multiple aspects of nonprofit digital marketing and fundraising, including experience in overall digital direct response program strategy, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, national affiliate organizations, text messaging and content marketing, and data analysis. In her role as director of direct response strategy for Streetlight Digital, she’s focused on innovative strategies to drive revenue for her clients.
She is based in Washington, D.C. Outside of work, she loves traveling, discovering new music, and trying out the latest restaurants and craft brews with her husband.