Perennial GivingWhat Is a Good Donor Retention Rate? 2026 Benchmarks
The average donor retention rate was 43.3% in 2025. Here's what counts as good for a small nonprofit, broken down by new, repeat, and monthly donors.
Perennial Giving Editorial · 7 min read ·
Every executive director eventually asks some version of this: "Is our donor retention any good?" Usually it's right after a board member reads an article, or right after you notice that some familiar names didn't show up in this year's giving.
The direct answer: the average donor retention rate was 43.3% in 2025, so a good donor retention rate for a small nonprofit is anything above about 45%, and above 50% is strong. But the average hides more than it shows. Your new donors and your repeat donors behave completely differently, and the most useful benchmark is your own number from last year. Here's how to read all of it.
What is a donor retention rate?
Donor retention rate is the percentage of donors who gave last year and gave again this year. The formula:
Retention rate = donors who gave in both years ÷ donors who gave last year × 100
If 300 people gave in 2025 and 135 of them also gave in 2026, your retention rate is 45%. New donors who gave for the first time in 2026 don't count in this calculation. They'll count next year.
A few notes that trip people up:
- Count donors, not dollars. Dollar retention is a separate (also useful) measure.
- Use the same time window both years. Calendar year or fiscal year, either works, just be consistent.
- Merge duplicates first. If "Bob Smith" and "Robert Smith" are the same person, counting them twice will make your retention look worse than it is. Our step-by-step guide to calculating donor retention rate walks through a simple sheet.
What is the average donor retention rate?
The best source for sector-wide numbers is the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP), which analyzes giving data from more than 15,000 US nonprofits. Its 2025 full-year report found:
- Overall donor retention: 43.3%, up slightly from 43.1% in 2024.
- New donor retention: 18.9%.
- Repeat donor retention: 59.3%.
- Lapsed donors recaptured: 3.0%.
So in a typical year, a typical nonprofit loses well over half of its donors. That isn't a sign that your organization is uniquely failing. It's the sector norm, and it's exactly why small improvements matter.
One caution if you go looking: FEP has started publishing 2026 figures on a new methodology, and partial-year numbers look much lower than annual ones. Compare annual figures to annual figures.
What counts as a good donor retention rate?
There's no official grade, but here's a practical scale for overall retention, based on the 2025 averages:
| Overall retention | What it means |
|---|---|
| Below 35% | Donors are leaving much faster than average. Look hard at what new donors hear after their first gift. |
| 35% to 45% | Around the sector average. Plenty of room to improve, and you're not alone. |
| 45% to 55% | Good. Your donors are hearing from you in ways that work. |
| Above 55% | Strong. Usually a sign of a loyal repeat-donor base and real stewardship habits. |
Your mix of donors affects where you land. An organization that brought in a big wave of first-time donors last year (from a giving day, an event, or a viral moment) will often see overall retention dip, because new donors retain at much lower rates. That's not necessarily bad news. It's a signal about where to focus.
Why you should split new and repeat donor retention
A single retention number can hide the real story. Imagine two organizations, both at 45% overall:
- Organization A keeps 65% of repeat donors but only 12% of new donors. Its loyal base is great; its first-time donors are walking out the door.
- Organization B keeps 50% of repeat donors and 30% of new donors. Its loyal base is softer, but its new donor experience is working.
Same number, completely different problems. So calculate both:
- New donor retention: of the people who gave for the first time last year, what share gave again this year? The 2025 average was 18.9%. Getting above 25% is a real accomplishment.
- Repeat donor retention: of the people who had given before last year and gave again last year, what share gave this year? The 2025 average was 59.3%. Above 65% is strong.
If your new donor number is the weak spot (it is for most organizations), the single highest-impact fix is getting a second gift from first-time donors.
Retention by number of gifts
FEP also breaks retention down by how many gifts a donor made in the prior year. In 2025:
| Gifts in the prior year | Gave again the next year |
|---|---|
| 1 | 31.9% |
| 2 | 51.9% |
| 3 to 6 | 70.0% |
| 7 or more | 87.4% |
The jump from one gift to two is the biggest in the table. Each additional gift is a moment in the donor journey where the relationship deepens, and the data shows it.
What about monthly donor retention?
Monthly donors play by different rules. Because their gift renews automatically, they retain far better than one-time donors. M+R Benchmarks found that 71% of monthly sustainers were still active after 12 months in 2025.
That's encouraging, but it creates its own risk. Because the money keeps arriving, it's easy to stop talking to monthly donors altogether. And when their card expires or gets replaced, many lapse without ever deciding to leave. If you have monthly donors, track their retention separately, and pay attention to failed payments.
Retention by gift size
Smaller donors retain at lower rates. FEP's 2025 data showed donors giving $1 to $100 in a year were retained at 31.3%, while those giving $101 to $500 were retained at 49.7%.
For most small nonprofits, that's most of your list. It's tempting to focus stewardship on larger donors, and they do deserve attention. But your small donors are where the leak is biggest, and they're the ones least likely to get a personal note. A short, specific progress update costs the same whether someone gave $25 or $2,500.
The benchmark that actually matters: your own trend
Industry averages are useful context. But the most useful comparison is with yourself:
- What was your overall retention last year? This year?
- What was your new donor retention? Is it moving?
- How many donors who gave two years ago have now lapsed?
If you move from 38% to 43% in a year, that's a meaningful change, even though 43% is "average." Remember the math from our guide to donor retention for small nonprofits: recruiting a donor typically costs two to three times their first gift, so every donor you keep is money you don't have to spend replacing them.
How to improve your donor retention rate
The habits that move retention are mostly simple:
- Thank every donor promptly and personally. Here's how soon you should thank a donor and what to say.
- Report specific progress before the next ask. Donors who know what their gift did are far more likely to give again.
- Focus on the second gift. It's the biggest jump in the data.
- Notice drift. When a donor misses their usual pattern, reach out before they lapse. Recapturing lapsed donors is hard; the 2025 rate was 3.0%.
Where Perennial fits
Perennial Giving puts your retention rate on one screen, live, against the sector average, and splits it so you can see where donors are slipping. More importantly, it acts on it: it flags who's drifting with a plain reason ("Gave every March for three years. No gift this March.") and drafts the note to send. You can calculate all of this in a spreadsheet too. The important part is looking at it more than once a year.
A number worth watching
Your donor retention rate is one of the few numbers that tells you whether your relationships are working. Don't panic if it's near the average; that's where most organizations are. Split it into new and repeat donors, find the weak spot, and work on that. A few points of improvement, held over a few years, adds up to real money for your mission.