Does Fundraising Slow Down in the Summer — And What Should You Do About It?

A reader asked, "Doesn't giving slowdown in the summer?" Here are my thoughts.

It does. Nonprofits bring in less than 5% of their annual fundraising revenue in each of July and August. Fewer donations are made during these two months than any other period of the year. Summer is, by any measure, the off season.

But here is what most fundraisers miss: the off season is exactly when the groundwork for year-end gets laid. The organizations that finish strong in November and December are almost always the ones that used the summer well.

The sector's current numbers make that work more urgent, not less. Donor numbers have declined for four consecutive years. The 2024 Fundraising Effectiveness Project report shows a 4.5% decline in donors compared to 2023. New donors and newly retained donors posted the largest drops, underscoring persistent challenges in bringing new supporters into the pipeline and keeping them engaged beyond their first gift. In that environment, every relationship touch matters. Summer gives you the time to make them.

Five Immediate Summertime Actions

1. Increase Donor Cultivation and Stewardship

Pick up the phone. Call your major donors — even if the actual meeting has to wait until after Labor Day. Send a brief, informative newsletter, two to four pages. Share a news article or impact story. Make contact in a way that asks nothing in return.

Fundraising expert Penelope Burk, whose research on donor behavior is among the most rigorous in the field, has documented that 67% of donors attending a cultivation event credited it as the reason they made their gift. The same principle applies to every cultivation touch, not just events. When your fall appeal arrives, the donors who heard from you in July are already warm.

One organization I support personally sent me a newspaper article about their work last July. I read every word. When their fall appeal arrived, they received my largest gift. That is cultivation working exactly as it should.

2. Coordinate Your Mail and Email Appeals

Summer is the right moment to rethink how your postal and email appeals work together. Donors are three times more likely to give online in response to a direct mail appeal than to an email appeal alone. Sending a postal appeal in coordination with your email outreach is not redundant — it is reinforcing.

Campaigns that use direct mail and at least one type of digital media experience an 118% lift in response rate. A former client I worked with integrated their email and postal appeals and saw a 23% boost in annual appeal return rate. The coordination is what did it. Think carefully this summer about how your fall and year-end appeals will work across both channels.

3. Improve Donor Database Hygiene

Review your donor database now, before the year-end rush makes it impossible. Look for missing information — contact updates, dates of birth, spouse names, communication preferences, program interests, giving to other organizations.

A short donor survey — five questions is enough — sent in the summer tends to get strong response rates because donors have more breathing room. One organization I work with included five questions inside their gift acknowledgment letter with a postage-paid return envelope. The reply rate was remarkable, and the data they gathered shaped every appeal they sent for the next two years.

Nonprofits with integrated data systems achieve 20–30% higher donor retention rates than those with siloed data, according to a 2024 Forrester study. Clean data is the foundation that makes everything else work.

4. Review and Optimize Your Online Donation Form

If your online donation form is hard to find, slow to load, or not optimized for mobile, you are losing donors — and you may not know it. Monthly giving surged 5% in 2024, comprising 31% of online revenue. If your form does not make it easy to set up a recurring gift, that growth is going elsewhere.

The standard to aim for: minimal fields, mobile-first design, fast load time. Ask only for what is essential — full name, address, email for receipt, phone number, and an opt-in for future communications. Every extra field is a dropout risk.

The time you spend on your donation form in August will pay back in December.

5. Invite Lapsed Donors to Return

Lapsed donors need particular attention, and summer is the right time to plan your re-engagement strategy before the year-end calendar fills up.

One year-end appeal letter is not enough. Eight meaningful touches is the standard baseline before a non-responder should be considered truly lapsed. Plan to re-mail non-responders within two to three weeks of your first drop. Acknowledge that their silence and your reminder may have crossed in the mail. Tell them, plainly, that if it were not important you would not be asking again.

This step is almost always overlooked. Including it consistently raises return rates.

The Exceptions

Some nonprofits do raise significant funds in the summer. A client I once worked with ran a summer camp and secured last-minute "camperships" from donors every July without fail. Their donors were simply conditioned to give at that time of year — and that conditioning had been built deliberately over years of consistent outreach.

Your context governs. If your mission has a natural summer connection — camps, outdoor programs, back-to-school initiatives — lean into it. The principle is the same: use the season intentionally rather than waiting it out.

A Note on the Bigger Picture

The summer slowdown is real, but it is not the problem. The problem is treating the off season as dead time. The macro trend of fewer donors is not inevitable — that is the direct assessment from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project's own researchers. Organizations that hold their donor base, and grow it, are the ones investing in relationships year-round, not just when the calendar says it is time to ask.

Summer is when that investment happens. Use it.

A Word on Sharing This Post

This post is offered freely for educational purposes. You are welcome to share it, forward it, and use it in your professional development work — provided it is shared with the author's byline intact: By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA. Please do not reproduce it in publications or training materials without attribution. The ideas here belong to the field. The writing belongs to the author.

What summertime fundraising strategies have worked for your organization? Share your experience in the comments.