Donor Retention Analyst
Finds the supporters you lost while income looked flat
70% of 2024 donors gave again in 2025; only 40% of first-year donors did.
65 donors gave in 2025 ($5,490) against 50 in 2024 ($4,700): 35 retained, 15 lapsed, 20 new and 10 reactivated.
Dollar retention is 76.4%: donors who gave in 2024 gave 76.4% as much in 2025. 16 gave more and 19 gave less.
Donors who had given before were retained at 90%; first-year donors at 40%. $1,210 of 2024 giving lapsed.
Why donors stopped giving is not in the data; retention is measured year on year from the gifts you entered.
Donor retention by year (%)
Donors in 2025
- Retained54%
- New31%
- Reactivated15%
Still giving in 2025, by first-gift year (%)
- 202374%
- 202440%
- 2025100%
Largest lapsed donors
| Donor | Gave last year |
|---|---|
| D010 | $130 |
| D030 | $130 |
| D020 | $90 |
| D52 | $90 |
| D57 | $90 |
| D62 | $90 |
What to do this week
- Build a second-gift plan for first-time donors: only 40% give again against 90% of repeat donors.
- Contact the 15 lapsed donors, starting with the largest (D010, $130), within the next quarter.
- Thank and ask 19 donors who gave less than last year before the year-end appeal.
Do
- Send a personal thank-you within a week of the first gift, and ask for the second within six months.
Don't
- Don't judge acquisition on income alone: a high-income year with weak retention costs more later.
How to improve
- Add the campaign or channel of each gift so the next report can see where retained donors come from.
- Add gift dates so the next report can measure the gap between a first and second gift.
Demo
Overview
Fundraising is reported as income against target, and income can hold steady while the base underneath collapses — new donors replace lapsed ones and the total does not move. A charity can lose half its supporters over three years and read a flat income line the whole way down.
This matters more than commercial retention because acquiring a donor costs several times their first gift. A supporter who gives once and lapses loses money; the organisation only makes anything on the second, third and tenth gift. Retention is not a nice-to-have, it is the entire economics.
The failure point is consistent and early. Most lapsed donors are lost after their first gift, in the first year, and usually because of what did not happen: no thank-you within days, no word about what the money did, then a second ask arriving before either. That is a stewardship failure, not a generosity failure.
And there is almost always a quieter finding: regular gifts that stopped for a mechanical reason — an expired card, a failed instruction — where nobody decided to leave and nobody followed up.
This agent reports retention by cohort, the experience that preceded each lapse, and what each fix is worth. It contacts nobody and builds no wealth or capacity score for any individual.
Benefits
The loss becomes visible
Before three years of flat income turn into a cliff.
Stewardship fixed where it fails
Usually in the first fortnight after a first gift.
Payments recovered without a campaign
These supporters never chose to leave.
What it does
Retention behind the income line
Income holds flat while the base collapses, because new donors replace lapsed ones and the total does not move.
Finds where the loss happens
Almost always after the first gift, in the first year. That is a different fix from mid-life attrition.
Reads the experience before the lapse
Whether a thank-you went out, whether anyone said what the money did, and whether the next ask came before either.
Separates failed payments from decisions
An expired card is not a lapsed supporter. Nobody decided anything, and nobody followed up.
Values the second gift
Acquisition costs several times the first gift. The economics are entirely in the gifts after it.
Scores no individual
It builds no wealth or capacity rating. Ranking supporters by what they might be persuaded to give is a different product with its own ethics.
What this changes
What this changes about your week
- It takes over
- Measuring donor retention behind the income line.
- Done today by
- Income against target, which can hold flat while the base collapses.
- How often
- Reported monthly as income; retention rarely at all.
- Typical manual effort
- Cohort analysis plus the stewardship record before each lapse.
Why Nonprofit & NGOs in particular. Acquisition costs several times a first gift, so the economics live entirely in the second and tenth. Most loss happens in year one because of what did not happen — no thank-you, no impact, then another ask.
Runs unattended
Started by you or by an event, and it finishes on its own. Nothing waits for someone to be at a desk.
The same standard every time
The two-hundredth item is held to the bar the first one was. Consistency is the part people cannot sustain.
It cannot act on its own
Donor Retention Analyst has no path to sending, spending or committing. That limit is why its output is safe to act on.
How it runs
This agent runs server-side through the PROMIVO runtime. Each run is logged step by step and every tool call is permission-checked before it executes.
- 1InputValidated against the agent input schema
- 2Modelclaude-sonnet-5 with automatic fallback
- 3Toolsextract_structured_data
- 4PermissionsRuns READ actions automatically; anything higher waits for approval
- 5OutputStructured result matching the output schema
- 6LoggingTokens, duration and every step recorded
Requirements
Integrations
No integrations required.
Before you start
- Gift history by supporter with dates and amounts
- Acquisition source and date
- Stewardship contact records: thank-yous, impact updates, asks
- Failed or cancelled regular gifts with reasons
- Requires the All-Access plan or higher
Use cases
Annual fundraising review
Retention by cohort, behind the income total.
Flat income, rising acquisition spend
The classic sign the base is shrinking.
After a campaign
Whether the donors it brought stayed.
Trustee reporting
The health of the supporter base, not just the income.
Pricing
All-Access
Billed monthly through your PROMIVO subscription. Cancel at any time.
Runs consume your plan allowance for agent executions and tokens. See plan limits
FAQ
Does it score donors by wealth or capacity?
No, and it will not. Ranking supporters by what they might be persuaded to give is a different product with its own ethical questions. This reports retention patterns and stewardship gaps.
Does it contact supporters?
No. It sends nothing and drafts nothing for sending. Fundraising communication carries consent and preference rules, and it belongs to your team.
What if we do not record stewardship contact?
Then it reports retention by cohort and says the stewardship analysis could not be performed. That gap is itself worth knowing, because it is the part that usually explains the loss.
Reviews
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