Win Them Back: The Fundraiser's Guide to Re-Engaging Lapsed Donors
Introduction
You are never going to achieve 100% donor retention. Even with the best, most personalized stewardship, every nonprofit loses donors. Donors have life changes you will never hear about. Some will want to give only once. Some will pass away. Some will go through financial hardship.
But some donors who have stopped giving can come back.
Maybe they moved away and lost touch — but they are not out of reach. Maybe they did not get something from you they expected — and it is not too late. Maybe the relationship has gone quiet — but the passion for your mission is still there.
The challenge is real and growing. On average, just 9.8% of lapsed donors are reactivated annually. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project reports that reactivation rates for lapsed donors can be as low as 4% and have been steadily declining. Recaptured donors decreased 7.3% year-over-year in 2025.
Those numbers are not a reason to give up. They are a reason to get strategic.
This guide covers how to save resources on efforts that will not work — and how to increase revenue by bringing the right donors back.
What Is a Lapsed Donor?
From an organizational standpoint, a lapsed donor is typically defined by time — however long since their last gift. One year, two years, five years. The definition varies by organization.
From the donor's standpoint, the concept does not exist at all.
No donor thinks of themselves as lapsed. They did not fail to give. Life got in the way — or your organization did. The word should never appear externally: not in an email, not in a phone call, not in a survey. But it is worth being careful with it internally too. Donors who have stepped back from giving have not done anything wrong. Treating them as defaulters rather than relationships worth restoring is a losing strategy.
Practically, two years without giving is a useful threshold. It allows a full calendar year since their last donation, and it has not been long enough that reaching out would feel presumptuous. The window of opportunity is still open. Bloomerang's analysis of thousands of nonprofit databases found that if a donor has not given in two years, the likelihood they will give again drops to approximately 2.2%. Two years is when the clock starts working against you. That is when you need a plan.
Why Donors Lapse
Professor Adrian Sargeant — co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy and the most widely cited researcher in fundraising science — has studied donor attrition across thousands of organizations. His findings on why donors stop giving are the foundation of everything that follows.
His research identified the following reasons donors leave:
54% could no longer afford to give
36% believed another charity was more deserving
18% cited poor service or communication
13% were never thanked for their donation
9% had no memory of ever supporting the organization
8% received no information on how their money was used
5% thought the organization did not need them
16% had passed away
The number that should stop you: when you subtract death, financial hardship, and donors who intended to give only once, more than 50% of lapsed donors were lost because of poor communication. The nonprofit is responsible.
Sargeant put it plainly: "If nonprofits are to succeed in retaining donors, it seems clear that they need to secure a higher proportion of an individual's giving, improve satisfaction with the quality of service provided, and deepen the bonds that exist between them and their supporters."
That is not an operational challenge. It is a relationship challenge.
Why Donors Stay Loyal
In a landmark study, DonorVoice collaborated with 250 nonprofits and surveyed the loyal donors who had stayed for many years. They asked them to rank 32 drivers of commitment. The top seven:
The donor perceives the organization as effective in pursuing its mission.
The donor knows what to expect from the organization with each interaction.
The donor receives a timely thank you.
The donor has opportunities to make their views known.
The donor feels like part of an important cause.
The donor feels their involvement is appreciated.
The donor receives information showing who is being helped.
A subsequent study asked subscription donors what content they most wanted to receive:
52% wanted stories and experiences shared by people their gifts had helped
32% wanted frequent updates about programs and services
32% wanted emails showing their donation's impact, with a heartfelt thank you
25% wanted educational content related to the organization's mission
The pattern is clear. Donors stay when they feel seen, informed, and connected to impact. They leave when they feel like a number on a mailing list.
Prevention is the best strategy. But no matter how good your stewardship is, you will always have a pool of lapsed donors. That is where the three-step approach below comes in.
A 3-Step Approach to Re-Engaging Lapsed Donors
Step 1: Investigate What Led Up to the Lapse
Start by identifying two things: the recency and frequency of their previous giving, and the channel through which they first gave.
Segment your lapsed donors by giving pattern before lapsing:
Did they give once and never again?
Did they give annually for several years and then stop?
Were they a monthly donor who canceled their recurring gift?
Each pattern calls for a different re-engagement approach. First-time donors deserve the most attention — dig into how that gift was acquired and how (or whether) they were thanked. A donor who gave once through a peer-to-peer campaign may have given because of a friend, not because of a connection to your mission. That is a different conversation than the one you would have with a loyal multi-year donor who quietly stopped.
Giving channels to examine include: website, online day of giving, peer-to-peer, GivingTuesday, events, direct mail, in-person solicitation, and memorial or tribute gifts.
Step 2: Verify Their Contact Information
Your donors may still care about your mission. They may have simply moved — and stopped receiving anything from you.
Two processes to run annually, without exception:
NCOA (National Change of Address) — Roughly 40 million Americans change their address each year. An NCOA update keeps your database current and ensures your outreach actually reaches the people you are trying to reach. Even if you do not run mass mailings, address accuracy matters for wealth screening and identity verification.
Deceased Suppression Processing — Few things damage a donor relationship more than sending mail addressed to someone who has passed away. A deceased suppression service flags these records before the mailing goes out, protects the family from an unwanted reminder, and sometimes creates an opening for stewardship with surviving loved ones.
A third investment worth considering: an email and phone number append. If you have a lapsed donor's postal address but not a current email or phone number, an append service can close that gap and open new channels for re-engagement.
Step 3: Steward Them — Differently
The worst thing you can do is leave lapsed donors in your bulk mailing list, sending them the same appeals that go to your active donors. They are not in the same relationship with you. They need a different approach.
Three moves that work:
Call them. A phone call that asks for nothing — that simply says thank you for what their past support accomplished — is rare enough to be memorable. Voicemails count.
Send a special mailing or email. Not an appeal. A piece that tells the story of what their giving made possible. Impact, not ask. The ask can come later. This piece should also thank them again.
Send a re-engagement survey. A short survey — "Did we do something wrong? We want to know." — signals that you value the relationship enough to ask. It also generates information you can use.
Never use the word "lapsed" in any of these communications. They did not fail you. You are reaching out because the relationship matters.
On Downgrades
If a donor tells you they can no longer give at their previous level, do not let the conversation end there. A smaller gift is not a defeat — it is a continuation of the relationship.
The approach: start from gratitude. Acknowledge what their past gifts accomplished. Then offer a lower amount explicitly: "Even if you cannot come back at your previous level, a gift of $20 would still accomplish X. Would that fit your situation?"
Donors cut line items from tight budgets. It may be your job to suggest a smaller one instead.
The Two Hardest-to-Retain Donor Channels
Retention rates are not uniform across giving channels. Lower gift amounts generally mean lower retention. And channels that make giving almost effortless — where a third party drives the gift — tend to produce the lowest renewal rates of all.
Memorial and Tribute Donors give because someone they love chose your organization on their behalf. Their connection is to the individual, not necessarily to your mission. When your organization begins sending them appeals as if they were fully engaged supporters, they are often confused — they may not even connect your organization's name to the gift they made weeks earlier.
Peer-to-Peer Donors give because a friend asked them to. The runner is engaged with your mission. The donor is engaged with the runner. When the event is over, your organization is a stranger.
The Solution
In both cases, the original fundraiser — the friend, the peer-to-peer participant — is your best re-engagement asset. Rather than sending a standard thank-you letter, consider sending one that appears to come from the participant herself. She could explain why she chose your organization, share what the fundraising accomplished, and make the case for future support. This may be the first time the donor has ever truly been introduced to your mission.
For memorial donors, this approach is not always possible. Segmentation becomes more important: treat these donors as a distinct group with a carefully crafted cultivation sequence rather than slotting them into your general appeals.
The trade-off with both channels is manageable: while retention rates are low, acquisition costs are also low. By segmenting them out and reducing direct mail spend on donors unlikely to respond, you protect your ROI even when re-engagement does not work.
When Some Don't Come Back
They won't all return. That is not failure — it is the reality of fundraising.
What you do with inactive records matters. The answer, in most cases, is not to delete them.
Keep telling impact stories to this group. Keep making asks — but in a voice and with content tailored specifically to people who have stepped back. Always position the donor as the agent of change.
Many donor management platforms charge by record count, which creates pressure to prune inactive constituents. Resist that pressure. You lose historical data that may prove valuable later. Your re-engagement efforts may pay off on the donor's timeline, not yours. And some research suggests a meaningful share of bequests come from past donors who had not been in active contact for years.
One exception: if a name was purchased or acquired from a list and has never shown any genuine engagement with your organization — no giving history, no event attendance, no response of any kind — those records are reasonable candidates for removal, particularly if doing so moves you to a lower pricing bracket.
The goal is to have a smaller, more loyal, more cultivated donor base — grown organically rather than inflated by cold names.
Look Beyond Lapsed Donors
If re-engagement efforts have run their course, there are often better prospects closer to home than lapsed donors:
Current and past board members who have never given
Current and past committee members who have never given
Current volunteers who have never given — volunteers are ten times more likely to give than non-volunteers
Past volunteers who have never given
Current and past employees who have never given
Friends and family of the above
Employees of current long-term sponsors and vendors
Employers of current donors (matching gifts)
These groups have already demonstrated commitment to your cause. They are the lowest-hanging fruit in your portfolio — and often the most overlooked.
Conclusion
A donor who has given to your mission in the past is a logical person to stay in relationship with. The connection exists. The question is whether you have done the work to maintain it.
Adrian Sargeant's research found that a 10% improvement in attrition can yield up to a 200% increase in the projected value of a donor database. That is not a marginal gain. It is a transformation.
The path to getting there is not complicated: segment thoughtfully, verify contact information, steward differently, and stay patient. Donors operate on their own timelines. Your job is to make sure the door is open when they are ready to walk back through it.
What re-engagement strategies have worked for your organization? Share your experience in the comments section of the website.
A Note on Use
This white paper is offered freely for educational purposes. Please share it with colleagues who may find it useful — provided the author's byline remains intact: By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA. Reproduction in publications, training programs, or institutional materials requires attribution. To request permission or discuss reprint rights, please reach out through the contact page.
