Welcome to this edition of the Click and Pledge's Fundraising Command Center Podcast where we talk the why, the what, and the how in the Click and Pledge ecosystem. This is the why series.
Speaker 2:And you know, today we have to go fast because we are doing a highly concentrated deep dive into our own internal data.
Speaker 1:Right. And we're looking at something that honestly contradicts everything you see in the news. I mean, you see these headlines screaming that charitable giving hit a record $617,000,000,000
Speaker 2:Yeah, which sounds amazing, right? Like, you imagine local food pantries just completely flourishing.
Speaker 1:Exactly. But when you look at our data, that rising tide of cash is, well, it's just nowhere to be found on the ground level. Okay, let's unpack this. We have this massive dataset from our platform.
Speaker 2:Right, tracking over a thousand community nonprofits in our system. We looked at their performance from 2019 all the way through August 2026.
Speaker 1:What we found is that the middle is just quietly starving. I mean, the typical community nonprofit in our cohort is getting roughly 30% fewer gifts today than they did back in 2019.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's before you even factor in inflation, which has been what, about 25%?
Speaker 1:So in real purchasing power, they've plummeted by like 35 to 40% since before the pandemic.
Speaker 2:It's a massive drop. All that record, $617,000,000,000, is basically flowing straight to the top. Massive universities and huge hospital systems.
Speaker 1:Right. But wait, I have to ask, didn't COVID cause a massive surge in local giving? Did people just suddenly stop caring?
Speaker 2:Well, no, they didn't stop caring. Our data shows that the pandemic surge was just an interruption. It was crisis empathy.
Speaker 1:So it was temporary.
Speaker 2:Exactly. As soon as the emergency faded, the drop off just resumed right where it left off.
Speaker 1:Okay. So revenue is way down, which brings us to the real question here. What exactly is missing? Like are people just feeling squeezed at the grocery store and deciding to give, I don't know, $25 instead of 50?
Speaker 2:You would completely assume that, but no. The median online gift hasn't changed in a decade.
Speaker 1:Wait, really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was $50 in 2015 and in our data it is still exactly $50 today.
Speaker 1:That is wild. Through all this inflation and economic whiplash, the gift amount is just frozen.
Speaker 2:Totally frozen. And the share of gifts under a $100 hasn't dropped either. The collapse is entirely in the count of gifts.
Speaker 1:So the people who are giving are giving the same amount, but they're just fewer people giving.
Speaker 2:Exactly. One time donors actually fell by 12 to 17% in just a single year between August 2025 and August 2026.
Speaker 1:Wow. But wait, didn't you say monthly recurring gifts went up over that same period?
Speaker 2:Yes, they actually rose by 4%, which highlights a huge flaw in how non profits are taught to fundraise.
Speaker 1:Well, because the conventional advice is always like ask for a bigger check, right? Upgrade your donors.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Which if conventional advice is to ask for more money from existing donors, that's like trying to squeeze double the juice from a single lemon, when your actual problem is that someone stole half the lemons from your basket.
Speaker 2:That is the perfect way to put it. What's fascinating here is that trying to upgrade donors completely misses the core issue. You can't upgrade someone who stopped giving. The $50 household is basically being forced out of the philanthropic market entirely.
Speaker 1:Because of the economy. Right. We're talking about that k shaped economy the Federal Reserve monitors.
Speaker 2:Exactly. High income earners, the upper arm of the k are fine. They're driving the national records. But the lower arm, the middle class donor, is under incredible financial stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Our deep dive points to a really brutal four pronged squeeze on them.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, you start with interest rates. Mortgages are hovering near 7%.
Speaker 1:And credit card debt is at a record $1,250,000,000,000 with rates on those cards sitting over 22%.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then you add gas prices at like $4.50 a gallon.
Speaker 1:Which is huge. If you're a two car family, that extra cost at the pump is an extra thousand dollars a year. That instantly wipes out $20.50 dollar charitable gifts before you even buy groceries.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And because of all that, the personal saving rate has fallen to 2.5%. Real disposable income is just vanishing.
Speaker 1:So when you realize all that, you see how vulnerable One-Time Gift is. Yeah. I mean, it requires a discretionary decision in the exact moment the email appeal arrives.
Speaker 2:And that email usually arrives right when they're stressing over a massive utility bill. For a family with no savings, a discretionary charitable gift is naturally the first thing cut.
Speaker 1:Right. It's not a lack of empathy, it's just basic arithmetic. So the one time $50 gift is collapsing. Yeah. But we need a solution.
Speaker 2:Yes. And our data strongly points to the antidote. It's a total shift in strategy. Ask small, ask once, keep them.
Speaker 1:The $5 monthly sustainer.
Speaker 2:Exactly. $5 a month is $60 year, which already beats the median $50 one time gift.
Speaker 1:Here's where it gets really interesting though. The psychology of that $5 is what matters.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. $5 sits below the threshold of financial anxiety. It doesn't trigger a kitchen table debate about the family budget.
Speaker 1:Right. You don't have to make a fresh decision every single month. It's like a streaming subscription. You will agonize over buying a $50 movie, but you totally ignore the $5 subscription hitting your card.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You remove the decision fatigue. A one time gift goes silent by default. A recurring gift survives by default.
Speaker 1:And the retention data backs this up in a huge way.
Speaker 2:It's undeniable. Consecutive recurring donors in our system are retained at 91.7%.
Speaker 1:Wow. And what about lapsed one time donors?
Speaker 2:They only come back at 15.1%.
Speaker 1:That's a massive difference. And we found that small organizations are actually reacting to this crisis by relying heavily on huge thousand dollar gifts.
Speaker 2:Which is incredibly dangerous. If you rely on three wealthy families, losing just two of those donors can completely ruin your year. You need a broad base of $5 sustainers to build a resilient floor.
Speaker 1:Okay, I am completely sold. But let's talk mechanics. What happens when that credit card inevitably expires or declines? I mean, doesn't the whole subscription model just fall apart?
Speaker 2:That is the fatal flaw if you don't have the right tech in place. The biggest source of recurring attrition isn't a donor actively canceling, it's mechanical card failure.
Speaker 1:Right. Because our clients maintain their own direct Stripe merchant accounts, the funds flow directly to them, but they need our system working in the background to plug those mechanical leaks.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And that brings us to the technical safeguards we've built. First, is our automated retries.
Speaker 1:How does that work?
Speaker 2:When a card declines, maybe due to a temporary limit or a bank glitch, our system doesn't just cancel the pledge, it automatically retries the card three times, spaced seven days apart.
Speaker 1:Why seven days?
Speaker 2:It gives the donor time to clear a billing cycle or receive a paycheck, and it works. We see a massive 30% success rate on just the second try alone.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. So you save a third of your lost revenue without ever bothering or embarrassing the donor.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's completely silent. But what
Speaker 1:if the card actually expires? Like a background retry can't fix a physically expired card.
Speaker 2:Right. And that's our second major safeguard. The secure card updater process.
Speaker 1:This is crucial because we do not use passwords for this. Passwords create friction and friction kills conversions.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no passwords. When a card must be updated, the donor gets a secure link, they click it, and they request a secure one time passcode authenticate.
Speaker 1:Just a one time pass code sent to their phone or email?
Speaker 2:Yes. It makes the whole update process incredibly seamless and highly secure with zero cognitive effort.
Speaker 1:Okay. So they use their one time pass code, they log in to update their card, and then we have the third feature which is Intellibooster, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Intellibooster automatically redraws the suggested donation amounts on the screen based on their specific giving profile.
Speaker 1:So a $5 donor wouldn't just see the $5 button again.
Speaker 2:Right, they might see options tailored to them starting at say $20
Speaker 1:But wait, isn't it a bit bold to ask people to increase their gift at the exact moment they are just trying to update a declined card?
Speaker 2:It sounds aggressive, but behavioral psychology shows they are actually highly engaged in that exact moment. They've requested the passcode. They are on the form, wallet in hand.
Speaker 1:So they're in a very philanthropic mindset.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And because the options are algorithmically tailored to them, it doesn't feel like a demanding squeeze. It just feels like a natural growth path.
Speaker 1:And it works. Our data shows that this natural prompt increases the average recurring gift by about 15%.
Speaker 2:Yes. It's incredibly efficient. Lower the barrier entry with a $5 ask, remove friction with automated retries and one time passcodes, and naturally grow the gift with Intellibooster.
Speaker 1:So what does this all mean for you? Whether you're running a nonprofit or just managing your own giving budget, the middle class donor is getting squeezed. The $50 one time check is basically collapsing under inflation and debt.
Speaker 2:Right. Relying on those discretionary one time decisions is a losing game today.
Speaker 1:But the $5 monthly sustainer, small, consistent, and automated, is the survival toolkit.
Speaker 2:It really is. Though, you know, I do wanna leave you with a slightly provocative thought to mull over.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 2:Well, if community nonprofits increasingly rely on automated low dollar subscriptions to survive, if they use the same our streaming services to bypass our active decision making, how is that gonna change your emotional relationship with charity?
Speaker 1:Oh wow. Like, if
Speaker 2:the friction is gone, does the passion go with it? Will donating to a local shelter eventually feel less like a passionate act of philanthropy and more like, I don't know, just paying a utility bill on auto pay?
Speaker 1:That is a fascinating concept to leave on. I mean, it might be the price of survival, but it really makes you wonder about the human spirit of giving. Thank you for joining us on this rapid fire deep dive into our data. For more information about this and all Click and Pledge products, make sure to visit clickandpledge.com. If you wish to brainstorm about your organization, just contact us and one of our specialists will call you for a chat.
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