What if your next major donor is already giving you $50 a month, and you just can't see them yet?
Dave sits down with two of the sharpest data minds in fundraising—Jaclyn Jones, Chief Philanthropic Economist at Masterworks, and Carly Berna, VP of Marketing and Fundraiser in Residence at Virtuous—to unpack the 3rd Annual Rescue Mission Benchmark Report. Five years of real performance data across nearly 200 rescue missions surfaces a fascinating tension: revenue is climbing, but it's coming from fewer donors giving more. Meanwhile, recurring giving is quietly taking off.
It's a candid, geeky, genuinely hopeful conversation about building fundraising that can actually sustain itself and why the social services sector may be sitting on its biggest opportunity yet.
Key Topics They Talk About:
Growth by value, not volume: Revenue is up, but it's driven by existing donors giving more, not new donors coming in. Jaclyn and Carly ask the uncomfortable question: is "more money from fewer donors" healthy growth, or a warning sign about where the future major donors come from?
The year-one cliff: Second-gift conversion sits around 17% and second-year retention lands at just 25–35%, but donors who reach year three become dramatically more durable. The problem isn't only acquisition. It's the first-year relationship.
Recurring giving is surging: Recurring gifts grew 26.7% year over year while non-recurring giving actually declined ~2.65%, meaning all the growth came from sustainers. Yet recurring donors are still only ~9% of active donors. Encouraging, or a giant untapped opportunity? (Both.)
Your next major donor is already in your file: 97% of a recurring donor's value comes after the first gift. Every donor cohort—small, mid, and major—increases in value after switching to recurring. That $50/month sustainer may be a mid-level donor in disguise.
So what do you actually do about it? Jaclyn on strategy (find your drop-off moments, build first-year relationships) and Carly on technology (one-to-one personalization, giving forms that know who's on them). Practical, not preachy.
Also In This Episode, They Talk About:
The best time to ask for a recurring gift is the first year—often the first three months—not year three.
Why a retention budget deserves to be as big as your acquisition budget.
The 10-month drop-off and how pre-cancellation "cultivation" touches lifted retention ~10%.
Why regional, "come-see-the-work" charities have a hidden advantage in the age of AI.
Indirect attribution: Jaclyn's surprisingly hopeful pick for the future of giving.
If you recognized your own organization somewhere in these numbers, where would you start first?
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