Searching for fundraising statistics and data can be frustrating, because you never really know if other people’s data will reflect your own. How does yours compare? Even worse, do you have enough control of your data to generate some of the most useful fundraising statistics?
Organizing, updating, and visualizing data requires ongoing effort and attention, and many nonprofits don’t have the time or the personnel to keep it going.
The Fundraising Report Card tool offers an easy solution. Simply upload your data to this platform, and you can turn it into dazzling graphs and charts, for a wide array of fundraising metrics and KPIs, in a matter of seconds.
Fundraising Statistics from Real Nonprofits
Here’s a sampling of some incredible fundraising statistics. You can upload yours and then compare them to these.
Average Donation Amounts – Year to Year
Here’s the trend from 2019 to 2023:
2019 – $310.40
2020 – $349.81
2021 – $355.70
2022 – $357.58
2023 – $327.66
Note that these averages include the biggest major gifts alongside the smallest gifts. Everything goes into these averages. A few major gifts can tilt this average far higher than what is typical for an average donor.
It’s interesting to consider these in light of the effect of the covid lockdowns and the ensuing inflation. Average giving amounts increased at first, but took a precipitous drop in 2023. While the political and economic climate are certainly not the only reasons people choose how much to give, their role also cannot be disregarded.
How has your average donation amount changed the last five years?
Percentage of Donors Who Give Under $100
76.12% of all donors give less than $100.
This means three fourths of donors contribute very small amounts. The question is, how much of your overall revenue do all these small gifts add up to? We’ll see that very surprising fundraising statistic in a moment.
Percentage of Donors Who Give at Different Levels
First, let’s look at the percentages of donors who give at other levels. The Fundraising Report Card breaks up fundraising statistics and data into five giving levels. The under $100 group is the first level. Here are the percentages of donors giving in the middle three levels.
- 14.61% of all donors give between $100 and $250
- 5.87% of all donors give between $250 and $1000
- 2.63% of all donors give between $1000 and $5000
You can see that the dropoff happens very fast. When you include the under-$100 group from above, about 90% of donors give less than $250 when they make a gift.
This gives you an indication of how misleading the opening statistic about average donation amounts really is. Those figures are in the $300s, but over 90% of donors give less than those averages. The very large gifts have a big effect on the average.
Percentage of Donors Who Give over $5000 per Year
0.77% of all donors give over $5000 when they make a gift.
This tiny slice accounts for a large share of the revenue at most organizations. We’ll see the numbers for that in a bit.
Revenue from Donors Who Give Under $100
Now, let’s compare the donors giving at different levels with the percentage of an organization’s revenue those gifts represent.
6.33% of all revenue comes from the donors who give less than $100.
So even though 76% of donors give in this category, their combined revenue accounts for less than 7% of what a typical organization brings in.
Revenue from Donors at Other Giving Levels
For the next three giving levels, let’s see how their revenue share compares to their percentage of donors.
- 5.56% of donation revenues come from donors giving $100 to $250
- 7.4% of donation revenues come from donors giving $250 to $1000
- 12.28% of donation revenues come from donors giving $1000 to $5000
Unless you’ve been around the fundraising world for a while and pay close attention to these types of fundraising statistics, those numbers probably shock you.
Here’s why: All donors giving under $5000 account for about 30% of total giving.
Also, because there are so many donors giving under $100 as you saw earlier, their role in providing revenue for nonprofits is quite comparable with donors giving up to $1000, because far fewer donors give even at that level. All three of the lowest giving levels account for 5-7% of revenue, each.
It is only at the $1000 to $5000 level where we begin to see a notable increase in the percentage of nonprofit revenue they’re providing.
Revenue Percentage from Major Donors
68.43% of donation revenue comes from major donors, those who give over $5000.
This means that 0.77% of donors, for the numerous organizations who have submitted their data to the Fundraising Report Card, are providing nearly 70% of overall revenue for nonprofits.
This is astounding.
It certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fundraise at all these levels. Because donors move up giving levels, a fundraising metric we call donor upgrades. But it does suggest that pursuing major gifts, if you’re not devoting enough attention or resources to that, should become a major focus for your nonprofit.
Donor Retention Rates for Donors at Different Giving Levels
How loyal are the donors at the five giving levels? As of June 1st 2024, let’s see how many donors are giving again.
- 17.88% of donors who give less than $100 make a second gift
- 19.89% of donors who give $100 to $250 make a second gift
- 27.31% of donors who give $250 to $1000 make a second gift
- 30.41% of donors who give $1000 to $5000 make a second gift
- 37.75% of donors who give over $5000 make a second gift
Yet another reason to focus on major donors is that, not only do they provide the great majority of your revenue, they’re also more like to give repeatedly and become loyal donors.
But recurring donors at all levels make a much greater impact on your ability to succeed in your mission. This is why donor retention should be a major priority for your fundraising team.
Donor Retention Rates Year to Year
Now, let’s compare combined donor retention rates across all giving levels year to year.
- In 2021, the donor retention rate was 37.81%
- In 2022, the donor retention rate was 39.32%
- In 2023, the donor retention rate was 34.89%
This is certainly worrisome. This means that not only is the average donation amount declining, as you saw earlier, but the retention rate is too. Both saw significant declines in 2023. So far in 2024, the data doesn’t seem to be improving, as of this writing halfway through the year. But, the biggest giving moments of the year are still to come.
Average Lifetime Value for Major Donors
For our last three fundraising statistics, let’s consider the lifetime value, starting with major donors. One gift is great. But with repeat gifts, each donor’s lifetime value can add up to a very substantial contribution to your mission.
As of June 2024, the average lifetime value of donors who give over $5000 is $77,672.69.
Average Lifetime Value for Donors Giving Under $100
In comparison, the average lifetime value of donors who give under $100 is $46.02.
You can see why, combined with lower donor retention rates, lower dollar donors do not justify a large marketing investment. Yes, you should be pursuing them. But considering how much they give over their lifetime, make sure you aren’t over-investing in this group of donors.
Average Lifetime Value for Donors at Other Giving Levels
To round out the picture, here are the averages for the other three groups.
- Average lifetime value for donors giving $100 to $250 is $214.56.
- Average lifetime value for donors giving $250 to $1000 is $773.83.
- Average lifetime value for donors giving $1000 to $5000 is $3225.97.
As you can see, the major donors are giving at levels incomparable to all the other donors, in terms of the average donation amounts, lifetime giving, and percentage of your budget.
To get help identifying, qualifying, getting to know, making outreach, and winning more major donors, our parent company MarketSmart exists for this entire purpose.
It uses AI-fueled email automation and other tools to greatly improve your donor engagement process so you can find far more major donor prospects, and not scare them away.
Want to Compare Your Fundraising Statistics to These?
Maybe your organization’s fundraising metrics differ from what you’ve seen here.
Wouldn’t you like to know?
All you have to do is upload three categories of data to the Fundraising Report Card, and you can see these and numerous other fundraising KPIs and data points for your nonprofit.