Even as overall dollars raised by US nonprofits increased last year, the number of giving donors dropped for the fourth year in a row, marking a worrying trend in grassroots fundraising, according to the latest data from the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ (AFP) Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday’s Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP).

Based on the FEP’s Quarterly Fundraising Report for the fourth quarter of 2024, which aggregated information from over 12,000 nonprofits and 6.7 million donors, the nonprofit sector saw a 3.5 percent increase in fundraising dollars but a 4.5 percent decline in the number of donors, when compared to 2023.

The increase in dollars disrupted two consecutive years of diminishing funding seen in 2023 and 2022, but from fewer donors.

Focusing on Donor Retention as Grassroots Giving Declines

Donor retention rates decreased by 2.6 percent in 2024, prompting the FEP to urge nonprofits to bolster fundraising initiatives at the grassroots level: “The continued decline in small donor participation, despite an increase in overall dollars, highlights the pressing need for renewed strategic focus,” Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer at GivingTuesday, noted in a press release. “Our Q4 FEP data emphasizes the growing reliance on fewer, larger gifts, a trend that underscores the urgency of revitalizing small donor engagement to sustain long-term sector health.”

The drop-off in donors was seen across the spectrum of previous engagement levels, from first-time donors to those who had contributed several times to an organization in past years.

The number of new donors fell 7 percent from 2023, and those donors gifted 2.5 percent less in fundraising dollars in 2024 than the previous year. New retained donors, who donated for the first time in 2023, saw the greatest drop at an 8 percent decline.

Donations in 2024 were largely driven by repeat retained donors, who contributed both in 2023 and in previous years, gifting 60 percent of the total funding and pointing to nonprofits’ greater success engaging donors who have demonstrated retention over multiple years, as compared to newer donors. Fundraising dollars increased from those giving three or more donations but decreased from donors contributing one or two donations. However, those less frequent donors made up 82.6 percent of the total donor base last year.

Read the full article about the decline in grassroots giving by Aashna Miharia at Nonprofit Quarterly.