Only 36% ask one-time donors to go monthly

NextAfter recently released their 2025 Recurring Giving Benchmark Study, and the email data is wild.

Over three months, they tracked every email sent to recurring donors across 138 organizations.

This persona received 1,567 emails.

But despite all that volume, most organizations are fumbling the emails that matter most. Here’s what we learned:

The emails you're not sending
For the study, NextAfter used two donor personas: one who gave monthly from the start, and another who made a one-time gift then upgraded to monthly a month later.

When the persona started as a recurring donor, 81% of organizations sent both a receipt and a thank you email.

But when the one-time donor upgraded to monthly? Only 49% sent both. The donors making the biggest commitment got the weakest acknowledgment.

And it gets worse over time. By month two, only 64% of organizations sent receipt emails when recurring gifts processed. By month three, that dropped to 47%.

Nearly half of recurring donors stopped hearing from you after their second gift went through.

That's not just missed stewardship — it's a red flag for donors wondering if their payment even processed.

The emails you're sending instead
So what are organizations emailing recurring donors about?

NextAfter found that 68% sent cultivation emails during the three-month window, but 80% of those were informational — newsletters, impact stories, videos. Only 20% included asks or calls to action.

Most organizations assume recurring donors are "set it and forget it" supporters who just want updates.

Meanwhile, single-gift donors face the opposite problem: they're 1.5x more likely to get another one-time appeal than an invitation to give monthly in their first 30 days. Only 36% of organizations sent an email asking single donors to upgrade to recurring in that first month.

The biggest missed opportunity
Only 27% of organizations asked current recurring donors to increase their monthly amount in the first 90 days.

That's leaving serious money on the table.

Upgraded recurring donors have 36% higher lifetime value ($810 vs. $594) and an 83% retention rate compared to 44% for one-time donors.

An email asking your $25/month donor to move to $30/month is one of the highest-value sends you can make. But most organizations never hit send.

The conversation no one's having
NextAfter also tracked how many emails invited a response. Only 35% of organizations asked recurring donors to reply during the three-month period.

The organizations that did were opening the door to real dialogue: Why do you give? What impact do you want to see?

But 65% of organizations are running a one-way broadcast to their most committed supporters

What to do about it
If you're running recurring donor communications, here's what to prioritize:

The bottom line
Recurring donors are your most stable, predictable revenue. They give more, stay longer, and cost less to retain.

But the email programs supporting them are full of holes: missing receipts, generic messaging, one-way communication, and almost no conversion strategy.

The good news? These are all fixable. You don't always need a new platform. You need better triggers, sharper segmentation, and the willingness to ask.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

'Til next time!
Sara

P.S. How did Giving Tuesday go for you? We’d love to hear about your results. Reply to this email if you’d like to share.