{"id":74999,"date":"2026-04-22T11:11:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/?post_type=article&#038;p=74999"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:11:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:11:54","slug":"median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/article\/median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously\/","title":{"rendered":"Median Gift Up 20% as Donors Who Stay Give More Often and More Generously"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Virtuous, a responsive fundraising platform for nonprofits, released its 2026 Nonprofit Fundraising Benchmark Report. The annual report analyzes giving data from 771 mid-sized and large US-based nonprofits, up from 571 the prior year, and points to a clear shift in how the nonprofit sector is growing: not by acquiring more donors, but by building deeper relationships with the ones they have.<\/p>\n<p>The report tracks seven key fundraising metrics across multiple nonprofit verticals, including human services, faith, healthcare, and education, with benchmarks segmented by revenue band.<\/p>\n<p>Key Findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Donor lifetime value grew nearly 18%, the strongest signal in the report.<\/li>\n<li>Retention held steady at 54.73%, despite a drop in first-to-second gift conversion.<\/li>\n<li>Median gift increased approximately 20%, reflecting growth across the broad middle of the donor base.<\/li>\n<li>Recurring giving accounts for nearly 21% of total revenue sector-wide.<\/li>\n<li>Top-quartile organizations retain nearly 7 out of 10 donors.<\/li>\n<li>Gift frequency, a new metric this year, averaged 4.15 gifts per donor per year, with top performers averaging 6.62.<\/li>\n<li>Three out of four first-time donors never make a second gift, with conversion at 25.84%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;The data is pretty clear on where giving is headed,&#8221; said Gabe Cooper, CEO of Virtuous. &#8220;Fewer new donors are making it past that first gift. But the donors who do stick around are giving more, giving more consistently, and are more engaged than we&#8217;ve seen in years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cooper added, &#8220;The organizations winning right now aren&#8217;t trying to grow by adding more names to a list. They&#8217;re going deeper with the donors they have. Actually listening, building real relationships, staying personal. Not more transactions. More trust.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report introduces gift frequency as a new metric and includes updated methodology for several existing benchmarks, including gross donor retention, first-to-second gift conversion, donor expansion, recurring giving, portfolio balance, and donor lifetime value, designed to provide even more precise year-over-year comparisons as the dataset has grown.<\/p>\n<p>Each metric includes benchmarks, breakdowns by revenue band and vertical, connections to other metrics, and recommended next steps. A companion health check tool is also available for organizations to benchmark their own performance against the data.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/resource\/nonprofit-benchmark-report-2026\/\">Access the &#8220;2026 Nonprofit Fundraising Benchmark Report&#8221; here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/\"><em>Source: Virtuous<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with<\/em> NonProfit PRO. <em>The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of<\/em> NonProfit PRO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donor lifetime value has grown nearly 18% and median gifts are up 20%, while recurring giving approaches 21% of revenue, new data shows. At the same time, first-to-second gift conversion remains a key challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":71538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","coauthors":[92378],"class_list":["post-74999","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-individual-giving","category-retention","tag-donor-retention-and-lifetime-value-trends","tag-fundraising-performance-metrics-report","tag-nonprofit-fundraising-benchmarks-2026","tag-nonprofit-recurring-giving-statistics","editorial_type-press-release","company-virtuous-software"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nonprofit Data Reveals Shift to Higher-Value Donors - NonProfit PRO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Donor lifetime value, median gifts, and recurring revenue are growing, even as first-time donor conversion declines, new data shows.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/article\/median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Donor Value and Giving Frequency Continue to Rise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Donor lifetime value, median gifts, and recurring revenue are growing, even as first-time donor conversion declines, new data shows.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/article\/median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NonProfit PRO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nonprofitpromag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/02\/NPP25_Trends_DonorEngagement_GI2185791653.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2120\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1414\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Donor Value and Giving Frequency Continue to Rise\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@non_profit_pro\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/article\/median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nonprofitpro.com\/article\/median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously\/\",\"name\":\"Nonprofit Data Reveals Shift to Higher-Value Donors - 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