Nonprofits Head Into Giving Season With Fewer Donors and a Mobile Checkout to Win

Nonprofit marketers are entering the most concentrated seven weeks of their year with a familiar problem and a newer one. The familiar problem is that the donor base keeps shrinking even as dollars grow, so every campaign has to raise more from fewer people. The newer one is where those people now give. More than half of US online gifts are made on a phone, and the payment methods donors reach for there are changing quickly enough that a donation page built two seasons ago may be quietly turning supporters away.

More Dollars, Fewer Donors

The latest read from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, summarised by Neon One, shows total giving up 4.3% year over year in the first quarter of 2026. That is slower than the 5.4% gain a year earlier and the 10.4% the year before that. Donor counts fell again, by 0.8%, a smaller drop than the 2.3% decline in the first quarter of 2025 but a drop all the same. Retention held flat at 18.0%, just below its 2024 high of 18.2%.

The losses are concentrated among the smallest givers. Donors of $1 to $100 make up 57% of all supporters and were the only tier whose numbers declined, while small, midsize, major and supersize donor counts all grew. The project's own verdict, as Neon One reports it, is “a plateau, not yet a turnaround.”

It is the same pattern our look at Giving USA's annual figures traced across the whole sector in September. What has changed since is the season itself, which is now close enough that the question is no longer why the base is shrinking but how to stop losing the donors who do arrive ready to give.

December Leaves No Room for a Leaky Page

That narrow base meets an equally narrow calendar. The 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study, built on data from 180 nonprofits, found that average online revenue rose 15% in 2025, with one-time revenue up 17% and monthly revenue up 12%. Nonprofits received 37% of their annual online revenue in December. The final week of the year delivered 10%, and the last day alone accounted for 4%.

When that much of a year's income arrives in a few days, small conversion losses compound fast. A donation form that does not offer the wallet a donor uses, or that is awkward to complete with one thumb, costs the organisation at the exact moment its email, social and paid media are working hardest to drive traffic.

The Gift Now Happens on a Phone

The Fundraise Up Q1 2026 Pulse Check, covering 1,000 organisations in the US, UK, Canada and Australia and more than $150 million in donations, shows how fast that shift is moving. Mobile's share of US donations rose from 48% to 53% in a year, and the US mobile conversion rate climbed from 20.6% to 22.7%.

The payment mix is moving with it. Apple Pay's share of US transactions grew 38% year over year, while the credit card's share fell 11%, and card share is now declining in all four markets the report tracks. Wallet donors are not giving less, either. The average US one-time gift through Apple Pay was $157.40, up 16%, against $143.93 by credit card. Google Pay averaged $112.47, and its share grew fastest in paid ads and search traffic, up 86% and 76% respectively.

Fundraise Up cites M+R data showing that only 57% of nonprofits have wallet payments enabled at all. Its own figures suggest donors notice: 99.7% of iOS checkout sessions took place at organisations with Apple Pay switched on. The report also links express checkout to a 1.5 percentage point lift in one-time conversion and AI-suggested gift amounts to an average revenue lift of 10% to 15%.

Every Channel Now Lands on the Same Screen

The channel data shows why the checkout matters more than any single appeal. In the US, Fundraise Up found conversion from social traffic grew 21.4% on LinkedIn, 14.8% on Instagram and 10.1% on Facebook year over year, while YouTube fell 4.4%. Google Pay's share grew fastest in paid ads and search. Whichever channel a team invests in this season, the visitor finishes on the same donation form, and increasingly on a phone.

Recurring giving is moving through that form too. Monthly giving makes up 27% of online revenue in the M+R data and is the best defence against an 18% retention rate. Fundraise Up reports that a recurring offer shown before the donation converts at 2.4% in the US, up 20% year over year, and that the average US monthly gift rose 6.6%. For video and social teams, that means the clip that earns the tap is only half the job: the page it opens has to make a monthly gift as quick as a one-time one, in the wallet the donor already uses.

A Giving Season Playbook for Nonprofit Marketers

• Turn on every major wallet before November. With Apple Pay's share up 38% and card share falling, a form without wallet checkout is losing donors who have already decided to give.
• Test the full gift on a phone. Mobile is now 53% of US donations, so run every December appeal through the donation flow on iOS and Android before it sends.
• Protect the last week. With 10% of annual online revenue arriving in the final week of December, freeze form and payment changes before it and monitor conversion daily through December 31.
• Make the monthly offer before the gift. Monthly giving is 27% of online revenue, and a pre-donation recurring offer now converts at 2.4% in the US, up 20% in a year, so show it before the one-time amount, not after.
• Personalise the ask. AI-suggested gift amounts lifted revenue by 10% to 15% in Fundraise Up's analysis; at minimum, base each appeal's ask on the donor's last gift.
• Measure donors, not just dollars. With donor counts down 0.8% and retention at 18%, report new and retained donors alongside revenue so a strong December does not hide a shrinking base.

GivingTuesday falls on December 1 this year, and the busiest stretch of the calendar follows it straight to New Year's Eve. The organisations that grow in that window will not necessarily be the ones with the loudest appeals. They will be the ones whose donate button works the way their supporters already pay everywhere else.