Stop Blaming Donors. The 2026 Data Tells a Different Story.
Every few months, a new headline lands in your inbox telling you donors are pulling back. That trust in nonprofits is eroding. That generosity is declining and the sector needs to brace for impact.
I’m pushing back on that narrative — and I have data to back it up. Bloomerang, a proud sponsor of the Purpose & Profit Club® Podcast and one of my partners, just released their 2026 Giving Signals Report. They surveyed more than 1,000 active donors and 400 fundraising decision-makers to find out what’s actually happening with giving right now.
What came back wasn’t a story of decline. It was a story of misalignment.
Donors are still giving. They still trust the nonprofits they support. They still care deeply about the communities and causes they believe in. What’s changed isn’t the impulse to give — it’s the way donors are signaling what makes them say yes. And a lot of nonprofits are missing those signals entirely.
Here are the 5 that matter most.
1. Donors want you to show your math — not your mission statement
94% of donors say they are motivated to give when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go. Not your vision. Not your values. Not your impact statement written by committee.
Where. The. Money. Goes.
The report illustrates this with a before and after that should make every fundraiser uncomfortable:
BEFORE: “Your gift today helps us continue our vital work serving families in need throughout the community. Every dollar makes a difference.”
AFTER: “$50 buys a week of groceries for a family in our pantry program. $200 keeps the lights on at our family resource center for a day. Where would you like your gift to go?”
Donors chose the second version by 88 percentage points.
This is not donors saying they don’t want to fund overhead. This is donors asking for a story, not a spreadsheet. The nurse’s salary is overhead. The nurse’s salary is also mission. The development director is overhead. The development director is also how you raise the money that allows thousands more people to be served.
Donors don’t fund line items. They fund results.
When you translate your budget into outcomes, you don’t have to apologize for infrastructure. You just connect it to impact.
2. Belonging converts — especially for first-time donors
87% of donors say they’re motivated by nonprofits that make them feel like they’re part
of something. But here’s the number that stopped me: for first-time donors, belonging is a top-three motivator for 46% of them. For repeat donors, that number drops to 28%.
Belonging matters more for acquisition than for retention. Which means if your new donor welcome sequence sounds like a transaction — you just gave, here’s your receipt, goodbye — you are leaving your single most powerful conversion tool on the table.
Your copy needs to say: you’re not alone in this. Others care about what you care about. Welcome to something bigger than a one-time gift.
3. Email is still your primary fundraising channel — full stop
“69% of donors say email is their preferred fundraising communication channel. Across every generation. ”
Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials — all of them ranked email first.
Meanwhile, the report found that many nonprofits are leading with social media. I’ve been saying this for years: social is a rented audience. Email is an owned one. On social, you’re at the mercy of an algorithm, a platform change, a reach drop you didn’t even see coming. In someone’s inbox, you have their attention because they gave it to you.
Email converts. Email retains. Email is where campaigns close.
If you are not actively building your email list right now — as a strategic priority, not an afterthought — this data is your wake-up call.
4. Your checkout is losing gifts you already earned
A significant percentage of donors say they reconsider giving because of what happens after they decide to give. Not before. After. They were in — and something in the experience pulled them back out. That’s not a messaging problem. That’s a design problem.
The report includes a 30-second test. Pull up your donation page on your phone and ask: can a brand-new visitor answer these three questions in half a minute?
What does this nonprofit do? Plain language. No jargon.
Where does my money go? One sentence. On the page.
Has giving worked before? One stat. One story.
If the answer to any of those is no — you are losing gifts at the exact moment of highest intent. That is fixable. This week.
5. Millennials are your NOW donors — not your future donors
75% of Millennials plan to give more this year than last. 80% plan to give to at least one new nonprofit this year. These are not donors you’re cultivating for a decade from now. They are actively looking for organizations to fund today. The organizations that build for this donor right now will have a significant advantage as the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history continues to unfold.
The bottom line
The 2026 Giving Signals Report is not a story about donor fatigue. It’s a story about communication gaps — most of them small, most of them fixable, none of them requiring you to rebuild your mission from scratch. Donors aren’t asking for a new nonprofit. They’re asking for sharper execution on the one you already have.
Download the 2026 Giving Signals Report free here.
And if you want help writing the emails that actually convert those donors once you’ve read it — that’s exactly what Easy Emails for Impact™ is built for. Click Here for details.
Christina Tzavaras Edwards is the founder of Splendid Consulting® and host of the Purpose & Profit Club® Podcast. She has trained thousands of nonprofit professionals across 20+ countries in modern fundraising strategy, donor engagement, and campaign execution.