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Use These 5 Metrics To Supercharge Your 2025 Fundraising
Crack The Code
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If you’re like many nonprofit professionals, you may have felt like someone sliding backward down a water slide in 2024.
You may feel like your bathing suit came partly off halfway through the ride, but you splashed into December with a mix of chaos and relief.
Your budget for this year might feel like worst-case scenario planning meets a choose-your-own-adventure novel, complete with the risk of economic chaos at every turn. If you’re in social services, you may worry the demand for your programs will skyrocket as your funding sources dwindle.
But you don’t have the luxury of wallowing in despair.
Not today.
The stakes are too high for your cause and the communities relying on you.
So it’s “Not today, crippling anxiety, not today!” because you love your cause and your community too much to give up on them now.
And… not today, passive-aggressive email from the board chair.
Also, not today, full-blown panic over meeting our aggressive budget goals.
This year will be different. Better. Easier. This year, you’re starting on the right foot—with data-driven insights, realistic, air-tight goals, and the perfect plan to reach them.
How will you do it? By focusing on the metrics that matter and setting clear goals—because you can’t improve what you don’t measure.
The retention metrics that matter
Retention is your single most important metric—the easiest, fastest, and most affordable way to raise more money. Use this handy retention calculator to get started. Then, you can dig a bit deeper.
Measure your retention in three ways:
1. First-time donor conversion rate
If you can get a first-time donor to make a second and even a third gift, you’re well on your way to keeping them! But first-time donors are fickle—only 19% give again. But convert them to repeat donors, and a whopping 63% stick around. Run a report of first-time donors and track how many made a second donation within the same year.
2. Number of new donors retained into year two
Knowing this number helps you set a realistic goal to boost your new donor renewal rate. To find out how many new donors gave again the following year, calculate the number of donors who made their first gift to you in a 12-month period, for example, in 2023. Then, determine how many also made a gift to you in 2024 by dividing the number of 2023 donors by the number of 2024 donors.
For example, if you had 100 first-time donors in 2023 and only 10 made a repeat gift in 2024, that’s a 10% renewal rate. This information might lead you to set a goal for 2025 of a 20% new donor renewal rate and add new donor cultivation strategies to your plan, like new donor welcome calls, a one-month update, or a new donor survey.
3. Multi-year retention rates
Retention over time matters just as much as year-to-year numbers.
One year, you might raise more money and see your average gift size increase. But if you look at donor loyalty over time, you’d realize your success was based on your most loyal donors giving you more of their hard-earned cash. Over the years, you’ve likely lost thousands of dollars from donor attrition. This scenario usually goes hand in hand with poor donor stewardship—a lack of reporting back to donors, poor thank-you processes, and scant or inconsistent stewardship.
Nonprofits that don’t consider multi-year retention are blind to this problem because they only look at overall income and average gift size. Get under the hood of your data, look at donors who made their first gift 3 – 5 years ago, and track how each donor class (by year) has stayed loyal or dropped off.
You may find tens—if not hundreds—of thousands of dollars you could have easily recovered with better donor retention measurement and stewardship.
Leading metrics that rarely get measured but predict donor value and satisfaction
Retention metrics are the most critical to your success, but they can only tell you what’s already happened. They can help you diagnose where and when donors are falling out of your pipeline, but they don’t give you insight into how a donor will behave in the future.
4. Lifetime value of a donor (LTV)
Knowing donor lifetime value helps you make more educated decisions about investing in acquisition or retention. For example, if you know the lifetime value of your annual fund donors is $1,000, spending $100 to acquire a new one looks like a good investment.
If you have a strong upgrade program to convert donors to monthly giving, major gifts, and bequests, your donor lifetime value should skyrocket.
To calculate your donor lifetime value, multiply the average years a donor stays with you by the average annual gifts, then multiply it by your average gift amount.
For example, if your average donor has supported you for 5 years and gives 3 gifts per year with an average gift of $25, their lifetime value is $375.
5. Donor satisfaction, well-being, and identity
Donors who feel satisfied are twice as likely to give again. Dig deeper into their motivations with surveys or calls that ask: Why do you give?
Adrian Sargeant’s research shows that the strongest predictors of donor loyalty are satisfaction, supporter well-being, and identity—ideas drawn from the emerging science of Philanthropic Psychology or PhilPsych®. In a nutshell, it distinguishes the good feelings we, as donors, get from what we do from the good feelings we get from who we are. Applying the principles of Philanthropic Psychology enables fundraisers to help donors discover their best selves. The more fundraising copy speaks to a person’s identity, the more likely they will increase their giving.
Where do I go from here?
1) Run your retention reports: Calculate your first-time donor conversion rate, new donor retention into year two, and multi-year retention trends.
2) Calculate donor lifetime value: LTV gives you the data to decide where to invest. Use it to plan better acquisition budgets and retention strategies that keep supporters engaged.
3) Measure donor satisfaction: Ask donors what drives them. Their feedback will help you refine your messaging to better align with their motivations.
4) Set up strategies: Use this data to set air-tight, achievable goals. For instance:
- Increase first-time donor conversion to 25% with a targeted welcome series.
- Boost year-two retention by 10% through personalized updates and calls.
- Upgrade monthly givers to increase lifetime value.
Using data to boost donor retention
The numbers tell a story—if you’re willing to listen. Retention metrics show you what’s working, where you’re losing donors, and how much opportunity is still on the table. Leading indicators like lifetime value and donor satisfaction help you make informed decisions to build a more sustainable future.
Remember: Each number represents a donor who believes in your cause. Treat them well, show them their impact, and make them feel like the heroes they are.
Start measuring, keep improving, and let’s make 2025 your best fundraising year yet.
Ready? You’ve got this.
How do you plan to boost donor retention this year? Let us know in the comments.
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