Donor Communications in Transition: Why Good Communication Today Requires More Than Reach

From Reach to Relevance

Digital communication has made it easier to reach people quickly. At the same time, attention has become harder to earn. Organizations are competing not only with other causes, but with everything people encounter every day: news, work-related communication, social media, entertainment, advertising, and personal messages.

For fundraising communications, this means reach remains important, but reach alone is no longer enough. What matters increasingly is whether a message feels relevant at the right moment. This is particularly true for people who have already donated or have shown an interest in a specific cause or project.

The FundraisingBox study illustrates this shift clearly: growth in fundraising is increasingly less dependent on an expanding overall market. Instead, the way organizations develop existing potential, maintain relationships, and encourage recurring support is becoming more important. In the data analyzed for 2025, 75 percent of recorded transactions were already made through online payments. Digital channels therefore shape not only the donation itself, but also expectations surrounding communication before and after it.

What Digital Giving Tells Us About Communication

The 2026 RaiseNow study highlights another notable shift: digital donation volume remains stable even as average donation amounts decline. At the same time, the number of donations is increasing. This creates a more complex communications environment for organizations. More transactions mean more touchpoints, but they do not automatically translate into stronger donor relationships.

Mobile is another important factor. According to RaiseNow, the majority of digital donations are made on mobile devices. For donations under CHF 30, the mobile share reaches 97 percent.

This is not simply a technical consideration for donation forms. It also has implications for content and communication. Messages need to be understood more quickly, calls to action need to be clearer, and impact needs to be tangible even on a small screen.

Smaller digital donations in particular can become valuable starting points for a longer-term relationship. But what happens after the transaction matters. An automated confirmation alone does little to explain what the support is making possible, what happens next, or how donors can remain connected in a way that feels appropriate.

Donor Retention Begins After the Donation Form

Donor retention rarely develops through a single touchpoint. More often, it grows through a series of small, consistent signals: a timely thank-you, a meaningful project update, an honest account of progress, or a relevant invitation to take the next step.

FundraisingBox data for 2025 continues to show a high proportion of one-time donations online: 71 percent of online donations were one-time gifts, 26 percent were recurring donations, and 3 percent represented newly initiated recurring gifts. At the same time, RaiseNow reports that recurring giving as a share of digital donation volume is under pressure and varies considerably depending on the size of the organization.

Both observations lead to a similar question: How can communication help turn individual donations into longer-term relationships without creating pressure, overcommunicating, or diminishing the fundraising work organizations already do well?

One possible approach is to think more deliberately about the donor journey. A first donation might be followed by a short thank-you. A few days later, communication can establish a clearer connection to the supported project. After several weeks, an update might show what has happened so far. Only then may a next step feel appropriate: a newsletter, a project page, another donation, recurring giving, or an invitation to take part in a community initiative.

Why Generic Communications Are Easier to Tune Out

Impersonal communication rarely fails because people have no interest at all. More often, it disappears into the background because it is not recognized as relevant in everyday life.

Supporters encounter a large number of messages every day. Many are categorized within seconds: relevant to me, not relevant to me, later, delete. These relevance filters are not a rejection of an organization. They are a natural response to information overload.

Personalized donor communications therefore do not have to mean tailoring every interaction down to the individual level. Often, recognizable relevance is enough: an update about the project someone supported, different messaging for first-time donors and long-standing supporters, a CTA that reflects previous engagement, or information connected to a specific occasion.

This is also where sensitivity matters. Personalization should not feel like surveillance. It should not demonstrate how much an organization knows about an individual. It should show that the organization understands and respects the context in which that person chose to provide support.

Personalization With a Sense of Proportion

Personalized communication has long been part of everyday life. Streaming services recommend relevant content, online retailers respond to purchasing behavior, and platforms organize information based on individual interests.

Nonprofit organizations naturally operate in a very different context from consumer brands. Motivation, relationships, and responsibility are different. Even so, these everyday experiences influence what people have come to perceive as relevant communication.

For fundraising, this does not mean maximizing personalization at any cost. A more useful question is: Which information actually helps this group of donors?

That could mean different content for new and long-standing supporters, project-specific updates, differentiated thank-you communications, relevant donation options, different calls to action, or a dedicated area where supporters can follow developments related to the topics they care about.

Newsletters can also be differentiated more clearly according to project interests, occasion, or donor relationship without making the communication feel artificially personal.

Showing Impact Without Overstaging It

Impact communication is about more than confirming that a donation has been received. It answers a broader question: What has this support made possible, and what remains to be done?

This is where organizations can make their expertise visible. That does not require overstated success stories. Concrete insights are often more effective: Which phase of a project has been completed? Which people or structures are benefiting? What challenges have arisen? Why does continued support matter?

Credible transparency often develops when impact is shown not simply as an outcome, but as an ongoing process. This can be communicated through a short project report, a newsletter update, a personal message, a landing page, or an additional video format.

Balance remains important. Communication that is too abstract can be difficult to connect with. Communication that is overly emotional can quickly feel manipulative. Effective donor communications find a middle ground: factual enough to remain credible and concrete enough to make impact understandable.

Seasonal Giving Moments Are More Than Donation Peaks

Christmas, Ramadan, Giving Tuesday, and personal occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries are not simply moments for donation appeals. They are also important communications opportunities.

FundraisingBox reports that around 27 percent of annual online transactions in 2025 took place in December. Around 10 percent occurred during Ramadan. On Giving Tuesday 2025, online donation volume also increased significantly compared with the previous year.

For donor communications, the more interesting question is not simply the peak itself, but what happens before and after it.

A year-end campaign can go beyond the donation appeal by showing the impact achieved over the past year, recognizing long-standing supporters, explaining gift donations, or communicating corporate giving transparently. It may also provide a suitable opportunity to share an annual report.

Corporate donations in place of holiday gifts show just how differentiated this communication can become. A company supports a project and wants to tell employees, customers, or suppliers about it. For the nonprofit, this creates an additional touchpoint with people who may not yet be familiar with the organization.

The communication does not need to become louder. It needs to become clearer: Why was the donation made? What is being supported? How can interested people learn more or get involved themselves?

From Donor to Community

Many people today want to do more than make a donation. They also want to experience a sense of connection and understand the impact of their involvement.

This is particularly visible in community fundraising. RaiseNow reports that the number of organizations using community fundraising in the DACH region has tripled over the past three years.

Community fundraising can take many forms: peer-to-peer initiatives, birthday fundraisers, running or club-based campaigns, corporate and employee engagement, crowdfunding, or personal recommendations.

For organizations, these approaches do not replace established fundraising activities. They provide an additional opportunity to involve existing supporters as advocates and multipliers.

Younger supporter groups in particular often make their engagement more visible and social. They want to show what they stand for, invite others to participate, and make involvement easier.

Communication needs to support that behavior. It should be easy to share, easy to understand, mobile-friendly, and credible. In this context, a simple message such as “Take a look at what I’m supporting” may be more effective than a traditional campaign slogan.

Video in Fundraising: An Addition to the Communications Mix

Video can be a useful addition to donor communications when impact, personal connection, or appreciation is difficult to convey through text alone.

This is particularly relevant for project updates, personal thank-you messages, community initiatives, or donation occasions where supporters may want to share their involvement with others.

The goal does not have to be maximum production value. For many organizations, a simple and authentic format may be more credible: a short greeting from the project team, a thank-you message for a particular group of supporters, an update on a year-end campaign, or a personal video connected to a gift donation.

Video does not replace existing formats. Newsletters, direct mail, phone calls, events, personal conversations, and project reports remain central elements of donor relationship management.

Video adds a visual layer to the communications mix that can be particularly effective when connected to specific occasions, target groups, or project interests.

One way to combine video with existing data and individualized content is Charity:up for personalized video communications in fundraising.

Where Charity:up Video Can Add Value

This is where Charity:up Video can serve as an additional technology component.

The solution enables organizations to integrate hyper-personalized or segmented video communications into existing fundraising processes, for example for thank-you communications, project updates, community activation, or communications surrounding recurring giving.

Whether this approach is appropriate always depends on the communications objective, the audience, and the specific occasion.

Charity:up does not replace existing activities, nor is it a universal answer to every fundraising challenge. It becomes relevant where video can make existing donor communications more relevant, personal, or tangible and where follow-up actions can be initiated directly from the video without interrupting the user journey.

One example is a gift donation. Instead of receiving only a standard confirmation, the recipient can also receive a short video that reflects the occasion, explains the supported project, and offers discreet next steps at the end, such as visiting the project page, subscribing to a newsletter, or choosing to provide recurring support.

The existing communication remains in place. The video adds a personal and easily shareable touchpoint.

Our whitepaper “Rethinking Digital Donor Communications” takes a closer look at how personalized video communications can be used in fundraising, which use cases are suitable, and how data, video, and interaction can work together.

Conclusion: Relevance Is Becoming a Relationship Factor

The requirements surrounding donor communications are changing, not because established fundraising practices are losing their value, but because digital donation processes, mobile use, seasonal campaigns, community fundraising, and rising expectations around transparency are creating new touchpoints.

For nonprofit organizations, the challenge is not to introduce new formats everywhere. The more important question is which existing activities already work well and where additional elements can meaningfully deepen relationships with supporters.

Personal relevance does not mean individualization at any cost.

It means taking people's motivations seriously and designing communication in a way that feels relevant, understandable, and appreciative.

That is where an increasingly important distinction lies: not more communication, but communication that fits better.

Rethinking Donor Communications

Our whitepaper “Rethinking Digital Donor Communications – How Personalized Videos Are Changing Fundraising and Donor Retention” explores how data, video content, and interaction can be combined to create personalized donor communications.