How (and Why) to Track Your Donor Retention Rate

Do you know your donor retention rate? It’s one of the most important metrics you can track—it can teach you so much! On top of helping you understand how well you engage donors after their first gift, your donor retention rate can guide you as you plan future fundraising campaigns, messaging, and community outreach.

Let’s take a look at how (and why) to track your donor retention rate.

What is a Donor Retention Rate?

Donor retention rate is the percentage of donors who continue to give to your nonprofit year over year. It is one of the most important metrics you can track to understand how well you engage supporters after their first gift. While the nonprofit industry often struggles with donor churn, maintaining a strong retention rate is critical because acquiring a new donor is significantly more expensive than keeping an existing one.

What is a good donor retention rate? The average retention rate for non-recurring donors currently sits at 34%. However, nonprofits that focus heavily on recurring giving programs see average retention rates skyrocket to 77%.

Here’s a key disctinction: Tracking retention isn’t just a post-campaign reporting task; it is a year-round relationship strategy. Your donor retention rate should directly guide how you plan future fundraising campaigns, messaging, and community outreach.

The Donor Retention Rate Formula

If you’re just looking for the formula, here you go:

How to Calculate Your Donor Retention Rate

This is a fairly straightforward formula: You’ll divide the number of donors who gave last year and this year by the total number of donors who gave to you last year. Multiply the resulting number by 100 to find your donor retention rate.

Just as a note: You can do this for time periods other than a year, and a powerful donor management platform will make this really easy for you! Try calculating a donor retention rate for campaigns, events, or other periods. Take GivingTuesday as an example: You could always use this formula to find the percentage of donors who gave to both this year and last year’s campaigns.

Example Donor Retention Rate Calculation

Here’s what this looks like in real life. Say you had 3,400 total donors last year. 750 of them gave again this year.

When you plug these numbers into the formula, you get:

(750 / 3,400) X 100 = 22.05%

Your donor retention rate is 22%.

Why Track Your Donor Retention Rate?

Understanding your donor retention is important for a ton of reasons, but we’ll try to keep it to three:

• Retaining donors is more cost effective than acquiring new ones, and tracking your donor retention rate helps you understand how effectively you’re keeping your supporters engaged.
• Retaining donors results in a broad base of individual supporters, which means your organization’s revenue is relatively stable.
• Understanding your donor retention rate gives you insight into your engagement strategy, messaging, appeals, and other important elements.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these points.

Retaining Donors Is Cost-Effective

Let’s get really practical for a second.

Reaching new people, getting them excited about supporting your work, and inspiring them to make their first donation takes a ton of time and resources—including money. When those donors give repeatedly, you get a better return on that investment.

Retaining your existing donors is much more cost-effective than constantly working to acquire new ones.

Say you spend $15 to reach a new donor. They make a $20 donation, and you never hear from them again.

You’ve netted $5. 

Now say you spend $15 to reach a new donor. They make a $20 donation, and you follow their gift with a great thank-you letter. Maybe you send them a new donor welcome email. Because you’ve made a great impression on them, they decide to give another $20 a month later.

You’ve netted $25.

Now let’s be clear: While this example focuses on the financial benefits of donor retention, there’s much more to it than simply dollars and cents. A good donor retention plan will prioritize building relationships between you, your donors, and the community they help when they give. 

Prioritizing that relationship will lead to future gifts—but you have to lead with that personal connection.

Retaining Donors Builds Stability

Building a stable, resilient fundraising program isn’t just about growing your donor base—it’s about keeping the donors you already have.

Here’s why that matters: Imagine your nonprofit relies on five major donors who account for 40% of your revenue. If just one of them shifts priorities or cuts their gift in half, you’re left scrambling to fill a serious funding gap.

Now imagine those same five donors make up just 20% of your revenue, with the remaining 80% coming from a diverse base of small, recurring donors. If one major gift shrinks, it’s still a hit—but it’s not a crisis.

That kind of stability doesn’t come from chasing one-time gifts. It comes from cultivating consistent, long-term relationships.

According to Neon One’s recent Generosity Report, everyday donors who gave for five consecutive years contributed a staggering 1,519% more than single-year donors—and accounted for 45% of total revenue despite making up less than 12% of total givers surveyed.

In other words, this isn’t just a nice-to-have strategy—it’s the financial backbone of thriving nonprofits. Retention gives you a deeper bench of support, reduces reliance on a handful of major givers, and helps you weather inevitable fundraising ups and downs.

When you track your donor retention rate regularly, you can spot trends early, reactivate lapsed donors, and build the kind of durable, engaged community your mission needs.

Want to learn more about how to engage and retain your donors? Download the 2025 Generosity Report today. This study looked at generous behaviors for almost 100,00 everyday donors over five years. The results, and what they have to say about the many, many ways nonprofit supporters give back to their favorite organizations, may surprise you.

Get the Generosity Report

Your Donor Retention Rate Is Versatile

How did this year’s annual campaign compare to last year? Was your GivingTuesday appeal compelling to the people who donated to you last year? Is your new messaging strategy resonating with your donors, or are they losing interest?

Your donor retention rate can help you answer all of these questions.

Was your donor retention rate at 19% last year and 22% this year? Congratulations! Your annual campaign (and your donor retention strategy) were really effective.

Did you inspire 5% of last year’s GivingTuesday donors to make another gift this year? You have tons of room to launch a re-engagement campaign before the end-of-year fundraising season concludes.

Has your donor retention rate gone up since you implemented your new communications plan? That’s a clear sign that your donor base appreciates your new messaging—keep it up!

Does your donor retention rate reveal that year-end donors are more likely to stick around than donors you engage during the rest of the year? You can look at the different ways you’ve engaged that group of supporters and apply the same concepts to your broader community.

Your donor retention rate can give you deep insight into your donors’ preferences, passions, and behaviors. It’s a valuable metric for tracking your organization’s overall health, but it’s useful in so many other ways!

What’s Your Donor Retention Rate?

Do you know what your donor retention rate is? If you don’t, now’s the perfect time to begin tracking this important number—you’ll use it in so many ways!

While we’d argue that your donor retention rate is one of the most important metrics to keep an eye on, it’s most helpful when it’s used alongside other performance indicators.

For a handy guide to important metrics you should be tracking, download our (free!) Fundraiser’s KPI Worksheet: