Donors boosted their financial support of charities by 4.3% during the first quarter of 2026 when compared to the same period of 2025, a rate that barely outstripped inflation and decelerated from the 5.4% growth seen between first-quarter 2024 and first-quarter 2025.
At the same time, the number of first-quarter 2026 contributors slipped by 0.8%, according to new data from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP).
The first-quarter 2026 data showed the recent trend of more money coming from fewer donors continued. But while the number of donors declined, the downward trend slowed a bit. In the previous year-over-year comparison, between first-quarter 2024 and first-quarter 2025, donor counts dropped by 2.3%
“Over the past year, the Fundraising Effectiveness Project data has consistently pointed to the need for nonprofits to expand their donor base and strengthen engagement beyond their largest supporters,” Ann Hale, executive vice president of the AFP Foundations for Philanthropy, said in a statement. The AFP collaborates with GivingTuesday on the FEP.
Hale’s statement continued: “This quarter’s findings suggest encouraging signs in retention and stewardship, even as new donor acquisition remains a challenge. The opportunity now is to build on that momentum during the year-end giving season by focusing not only on acquiring donors, but on strengthening donor stewardship and creating clear pathways for deeper, long-term engagement.”
The latest report did feature at least one substantial shift. The FEP implemented its first major methodology update in five years. Changes include the frequency with which organizations are added or deleted to the panel of those surveyed during the course of the year; the method by which late-in-the-quarter donations are accounted for; and, the “weight” given to each organization in the panel or nonprofits surveyed, best on whether the organization’s size or focus was over- or underrated in the sample, when compared to the nonprofit community as a whole.
Furthermore, under the new methodology, focus has shifted from considering the size of each organization in favor of increased emphasis on cause area, based on the organization’s mission.
These were not the only changes. Under the new methodology, reporting on the quarterly and annual results shifted from “size” categories in favor of prior-year fundraising volume. The new methodology also features median growth within each grouping as opposed to aggregate growth, allowing for a more nuanced snapshot of changes in results across all organizations and moderating the impact of disproportionate activity within a single, or a few, surveyed organizations.
The new report gives actual topline retention rates, in addition to providing the year-over-year changes in each category. And under the new methodology, changes are reported as percentage point differences, as opposed to percentage changes. In doing so, the report now provides what readers previous had to calculate: change relative to a given baseline.
“We know a [methodology] change like this means it may take a moment to get used to comparing quarter over quarter, but this is us listening to the sector and investing in the accuracy and coverage our data needs to serve it well,” Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer of GivingTuesday, said via a statement. “A firmer methodological foundation now is what lets us build the sharper, more useful tools the sector deserves in the years ahead, in line with our goal to equip organizations to build a more resilient fundraising future.”
Among the report’s other findings:
* The number of donors in the “micro” category, those who gave less than $100, slipped by 2.5% year over year, and now make up 57% of all donors. Every other category increased, including “small” (those giving between $101 and $500, which was up 1.3% to 28.9% of all donors); midsized, (giving between $501 and $5,000, up 1.8% to11.8% of all donors); major (giving between $5,000 and $50,000, up 4.2% to2% of all donors); and supersize (giving in excess of $50,000, up 3.4% to 0.3% of all donors.
* Separate from the raw numbers of donors, the report offered trends in the aggregate amount of dollars each donor size category contributed. Micro donors contributed 2.4% of all donors, a 2.5% year-over-year decline. Small donor contributions made up 6.1% of donations, a 0.8% increase. Midsize donors, giving 17.1% of all contributions, saw their change increase by 2.6%. The two highest-dollar donor levels saw the biggest percentage increases, with major donors, who contributed 27.5% of total donors, boosting their contributions by 4.3% year over year, and supersize donors, who ponied up 46.9% of donations, upping their donations by 5.8%/
* Donor retention percentages held steady year over year, at 18%. Nonprofits have their work cut out for them, however, in terms of converting new donors into repeat givers, whether through encouraging regular sustainer contributions or successfully resoliciting the donors. New donor-to-repeat donor conversion stood at 7.1% for the quarter, down 0.1% from the year-ago first quarter. Nonprofits were more successful at retaining donors, with the 25.8% retention rate slightly (up 0.2%) above that of first-quarter 2025.
