The email hit your inbox at 6:47 a.m. It was another long-time donor writing to say they're "scaling back their giving this year." You pour your coffee and think about the donation reports you reviewed the day before. There's no getting around it — giving is down. Again.
You're not alone in this. Across the nonprofit sector, conversations that once centered on growth and expansion now focus on sustainability and survival. The landscape is shifting, and many organizations are grappling with a reality they didn't see coming. The supporters who seemed so reliable are pulling back, and new donors aren't exactly knocking down your door to make a gift.
If this feels familiar, take a breath. What you're experiencing isn't a reflection of your organization's impact or your team's efforts. It's a moment that calls for both honesty and resilience, qualities that have always defined the best of the nonprofit sector.
When Everything You've Been Doing Stops Working
Let's start with what we know. Donor fatigue is real. And the past few years have stretched everyone's capacity for giving. Between global crises, economic uncertainty and competing demands for their time and money, even your most committed supporters are feeling overwhelmed.
Do donors still care deeply about the work you're doing? Of course they do. The challenge isn't that they've stopped believing in your mission. It's that they're being more intentional about where and how they engage.
When giving starts to drop, doing more of what used to work won't be enough. If your tried-and-true approaches aren't delivering the results you need, doubling down on them rarely turns things around.
Instead, this is the moment to step back and ask: What has changed about our donors' lives and how can we meet them where they are now?
Maybe the generous retiree who used to write substantial checks is facing the prospect of a shrinking portfolio. Perhaps your young professional donors are dealing with mortgage payments that consume a much larger share of their overall income. Or your corporate partners are facing their own budget pressures and need to see different kinds of value from their philanthropic investments.
Understanding these shifts doesn't mean giving up on what you're trying to achieve. It means adapting your approach to reflect both your organization's needs and your donors' current reality.
Where to Start When You're Stuck
When the fundraising strategies you once counted on no longer seem to work, these questions can help clarify your next steps:
1. What are you actually asking your donors to do?
Sometimes we get so focused on the dollar amount that we forget to consider the full experience we're creating for our donors. Are you asking them to simply give money, or are you inviting them into meaningful partnership? Are you treating them like ATMs or like allies in the important work you're doing?
2. How are you making your donors feel?
Pay attention to the emotional tone of your communications. Are your appeals creating urgency through guilt or fear? While these tactics might generate a response in the short-term, they often lead to donor fatigue and disengagement over time. Consider whether your messaging makes people feel hopeful, empowered and connected to something larger than themselves.
3. What would happen if you focused more on retention than acquisition?
When giving is down, the temptation is to cast a wider net for new donors. But it's worth asking: How much energy are you putting into stewarding the supporters you already have? Depending on the size of your staff and budget, the most effective path forward involves deepening relationships with existing donors rather than constantly seeking new ones.
What Seasons of Scarcity Can Teach Us
When familiar fundraising approaches are no longer working, it's tempting to see that as a failure, like you've done something wrong. But these moments often carry important information about what needs to shift, not just in your strategies but in how you think about the work itself.
If you're open to what's being revealed, this might be the season that shows you which programs create the strongest connections with your donors. Or you might discover where your organization needs to focus its energy so that it can be better prepared for what's ahead. That kind of clarity and depth of insight can be harder to uncover when your numbers are trending up and to the right.
Every nonprofit, from the smallest to the largest, goes through hard times. The organizations that emerge stronger are the ones that leverage difficult periods to build something better — deeper donor relationships, clearer priorities, more sustainable funding models.
Your mission hasn't changed, even if the fundraising landscape has. The people and communities you serve are still counting on your organization. And you have everything you need to figure out how to sustain that important work, just maybe not in the way you had originally planned.
