Stop trying to find more donors. The best fundraising idea is to ask the right people for the right amount. That sounds obvious, but most small nonprofits spend their energy on acquisition when the data says the real money is in recurring giving and in simply asking current donors for more.
What if the problem isn't donor count, but donor value?
Look at the numbers. The share of households that donate has fallen from 65% in 2008 to about 49.6% by 2018 (NPTrust). That trend hasn't reversed. If you're banking on broad-based acquisition to grow, you're swimming against a decade-long current. Meanwhile, total giving keeps hitting records: $592.50 billion in 2024 (Giving USA 2025) and $617.20 billion in 2025 (Giving USA 2026). The money is there. It's just concentrating among fewer, more committed donors.
So the question isn't "how do we find more donors?" It's "how do we get more out of the donors we already have?" That's a different playbook, and it starts with recurring giving.
Why recurring giving is the most underrated fundraising idea
Monthly donors have a median annual value of $275, nearly three times the $100 median annual value of non-recurring donors (GivingTuesday Data Commons). That's not a small difference. It's the difference between a program that barely covers its costs and one that can plan ahead.
Yet in 2025, the median organization still had only about 4% of donors on recurring schedules, and at least half of organizations acquired no new recurring donors in any given year (GivingTuesday Data Commons). The share of donors on recurring schedules rose from 6.6% in 2021 to 7.9% in 2025, but that's still a rounding error for most groups. The GivingTuesday Data Commons estimates the sector is leaving upwards of $20 billion a year in untapped recurring-giving opportunity on the table.
Here's a concrete example. Suppose your nonprofit has 1,000 donors who give an average of $100 a year. That's $100,000. If you convert just 10% of them to monthly giving at the median monthly donor value, you'd add roughly $27,500 in annual revenue from those 100 donors alone, because each monthly donor is worth $275 instead of $100. That's a 27.5% lift without acquiring a single new name.
How do you actually convert one-time donors to recurring?
First, ask. The data shows that more than 60% of spontaneous first-time donors said they had already given again or were very likely to give again, and 30% said they had already become or were very likely to become regular annual or monthly donors (Blackbaud Institute). That means the appetite is there. You just have to make the ask.
Second, show them what their gift did. A meta-analysis found that showing donors the consequences of their previous donations increased subsequent giving by 14% and modestly increased feelings of satisfaction (Nature Communications). This is not about guilt. It's about feedback. Tell them the specific outcome: "Your $25 monthly gift provided 12 meals last month." That kind of concrete follow-up is rare, and it works.
Third, make it easy. Recurring giving should be the default option on your donation page, not a hidden checkbox. Monthly schedules already make up roughly two-thirds of all recurring giving schedules, and their share of recurring revenue grew from 73% in 2021 to 84% in 2025 (GivingTuesday Data Commons). The infrastructure exists. Use it.
What about the big shiny objects like GivingTuesday and crypto?
They have their place, but don't confuse a spike with a strategy. GivingTuesday 2025 raised an estimated $4.0 billion in the U.S., up 13% from 2024, with 19.1 million people making financial donations (GivingTuesday Data Commons). That's real money. But it's concentrated in one day, and most of those donors are one-time givers. If you don't have a plan to convert them to recurring, you're just renting revenue.
Crypto is similar. More than $1 billion in cryptocurrency was donated to charitable causes in 2024, with an average crypto donation of $10,978.28 (The Giving Block). That average is huge compared to the mean online gift of $197 (Blackbaud Institute). But crypto donors are a tiny slice of the pie, and 70% of Forbes' Top 100 charities now accept crypto (The Giving Block). If you're a small local charity, crypto is probably not your first move. Recurring giving is.
| Fundraising idea | Typical donor value | Effort to implement | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recurring giving program | $275 median annual value per monthly donor | Moderate: needs software, follow-up, and a culture shift | Any nonprofit with a base of one-time donors |
| GivingTuesday campaign | $4.0 billion total in 2025; average gift not specified | High: requires a big one-day push | Organizations with strong social media reach |
| Crypto donations | $10,978.28 average donation in 2024 | Low to moderate: need a crypto payment processor | Large charities with tech-savvy donors |
| Major gift solicitation | Affluent donors give roughly ten times the general population average | High: requires research, cultivation, and personal asks | Organizations with access to wealthy networks |
Quick tip: Don't launch a recurring giving program without a plan to report back to donors. The 14% lift from feedback only happens if you actually tell them what their money did.
The uncomfortable truth about donor acquisition
Acquisition is expensive and getting harder. The share of households donating is falling (NPTrust). Affluent households are giving more, but 81% of them gave in 2024, down from 91% in 2015 (Bank of America Study of Philanthropy 2025). That means even the wealthy are becoming more selective. If you're a small charity, you can't outspend the big brands on acquisition. But you can out-care them on retention.
Recurring giving is the one lever that doesn't require a huge marketing budget. It requires discipline. You have to ask every one-time donor to upgrade. You have to follow up with impact. You have to make monthly the default. And you have to keep doing it even when a big campaign distracts you.
What I'd actually do
I'd stop chasing new donors for six months. Instead, I'd pull a list of every one-time donor from the past two years and send them a simple, personalized email that says: "You gave $50 last year. Would you consider making it $10 a month? Here's what that would do." Then I'd track the conversion rate. If even 5% say yes, you've just increased their annual value from $50 to $120, based on the median monthly donor value of $275, which is nearly three times the non-recurring median. That's a 140% increase per converted donor, and you didn't spend a dime on acquisition.
Do that before you build a GivingTuesday campaign. Do it before you set up a crypto wallet. Recurring giving is boring, unsexy, and the most reliable way to grow. The sector is leaving $20 billion on the table. Go pick up your share.
Sources
- Giving USA 2025 - https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2025-u-s-charitable-giving-grew-to-592-50-billion-in-2024-lifted-by-stock-market-gains/
- Giving USA 2026 - https://givingusa.org/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/2026/06/Giving-USA-2026-Key-Findings-0623-v2-ofsa0x.pdf
- NPTrust - https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/
- GivingTuesday Data Commons (recurring giving research) - https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/recurring-giving/
- Bank of America Study of Philanthropy 2025 - https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/press-releases/2025/09/-affluent-americans-increase-donations-by-30--over-past-decade--.html
- The Giving Block (2025 Annual Report on Crypto Philanthropy) - https://thegivingblock.com/annual-report/ar25/
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