The Donor Journey Is Changing. Building Relationships Is Even More Critical.

Leaders at mission-driven and nonprofit organizations already know the cultural landscape is evolving rapidly. Growing politicization is changing priorities and how people engage with causes. The affordability crisis is putting pressure on available dollars, while institutional trust is harder to earn. Increasing polarization is also making it more difficult for people to escape echo chambers. And the rise of AI is changing how people discover, evaluate and make decisions about the organizations they support.  

These disruptions are changing the ways donors find, engage with and support mission-driven organizations. When this rapid change collides with typical development strategic planning cycles, messaging strategies run the risk of becoming outdated and stale by the end-of-year giving period. 

At the same time, organizations are struggling to retain donors and build lifelong relationships. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project found that nonprofit donor retention has decreased by 4.6% year-over-year, with declines across every donor segment, from micro donors to super-size donors. Most critically, nonprofits are only retaining, on average, 13.7% of new donors.  

That is a clear and disconcerting signal for all nonprofit leaders, and it points to a fundamental challenge: acquiring a donor is not the same as building a donor relationship. As the ways people discover and choose organizations change, nonprofits need to think beyond the moment of acquisition and consider the relationship they want to build from that first interaction forward. 

To stay relevant and meet their development goals, organizations must clearly understand how macro trends are shaping audience behavior. Organizations that reorient their acquisition and retention strategies to adapt to AI-mediated brand discovery and shifting, non-linear donor journeys can build stronger, more durable relationships at every stage of the donor lifecycle.  

AI & AEO Are Disrupting Discovery 

AI has moved upstream in donors’ decision process, sometimes bypassing organizations’ own brand channels entirely. Research, comparison and evaluation — key stages where brands historically built real influence — can now be compressed into a single, synthesized answer.  

Yet visibility and SEO rankings no longer equal influence. Nonprofits can show up at the top of search results while still losing opportunities to shape decisions because a prospective donor may rely on the AI-generated answer without ever visiting the organization’s website. 

Potentially most concerning for organization leaders: AI is already shaping your narrative, whether you participate or not. Without deliberate work to influence how AI systems interpret and present an organization, generative systems will rely on external signals to fill the gaps. Poorly positioned organizations run the risk of being excluded from AI discovery moments entirely, losing the opportunity to get in front of donors, make an impression and start building a lifelong relationship. 

Growing Donor Expectations and Fluidity Are Impacting Retention 

Counterintuitively, declines in donor retention are happening against a backdrop of increased giving. The Giving Block reported that U.S. charitable giving in 2025 rose 5.7% in current dollars and 3.0% after inflation. It also increased across all major sources of giving, including individuals, bequests, foundations and corporations.  

So, poor retention trends can’t be blamed on an inherent lack of willing donors. The challenge is turning that willingness to give into an ongoing relationship. With the steepest retention cliff happening between the first and second donation, how organizations show up in those initial interactions with new donors becomes especially important. First-time givers need thoughtful onboarding that begins turning a one-time transaction into a shared mission. 

These audiences expect more from the organizations they support than just a thank-you and a never-ending sequence of emails asking them to donate again. Donors invest more than just their money — in our research, we found that 92% of donors give because they have a deep personal interest in the cause. That personal connection creates an expectation that they be brought into the mission, shown the impact of their support and treated as a partner in the cause rather than simply a source of revenue.  

And with the number of nonprofit organizations steadily increasing, hitting 1.9 million in the U.S. alone in 2025, donors have a growing number of alternatives for where they direct their support, attention and passion. That fluidity cuts both ways: it creates opportunities to attract new donors, but it also makes existing relationships more important to nurture and easier to lose if expectations aren’t met. 

To Adapt, Think Relationally, Not Transactionally 

As landscape changes accelerate and the stakes grow higher, nonprofit and mission-driven leaders face very real pressure to deliver against near-term fundraising goals. Are we on track to hit our targets? Will we raise what we need to fund our mission and operating expenses? Those questions matter — but they can’t be the only measure of success. 

The challenge is balancing those near-term needs with the longer-term relationship. If every interaction is centered on the next donation, organizations risk missing opportunities to deepen engagement, demonstrate impact and give donors meaningful reasons to stay connected beyond the initial gift. 

Instead, sustainable growth comes from anchoring every layer of the giving lifecycle — from strategic planning to outreach planning and campaign execution — around establishing and maintaining authentic donor relationships. Aligning near-term goals with long-term stewardship strengthens the organization’s financial bedrock, replacing cycles of reactive, high-stress fundraising crises with a durable model for scalable impact. 

First Steps to Future-Proof Donor Discovery and Engagement 

Audit your content ecosystem 

In generative search and discovery, it’s crucial to review every way your organization appears online to ensure it meets the needs of both human viewers and AI systems. Is your content positioned to influence outcomes at decision-making moments throughout the AI-mediated discovery process? If it’s not, then it’s just noise that doesn’t drive impact. 

Consider a recent example. Material partnered with UNICEF to audit and optimize its massive digital ecosystem. Together, we reorganized and restructured 500,000 pages across 180 websites in 190+ countries to help AI systems more accurately interpret, surface and cite its data as the trusted source behind the generated answers. As donor discovery continues to evolve, this type of work is crucial for organizations to maintain a position of authority in the “age of answers,” rather than just a passive technical presence that doesn’t influence decisions and drive impact. 

Unpack your donors’ shifting expectations 

Critically, relational thinking demands a deep understanding of your donors. Your audience is not monolithic; donors are motivated to engage and support causes for a broad spectrum of reasons, from their sense of personal identity to their affinity for specific communities or cultural markers.  

Material’s donor segmentation report is a good place to start. It offers a lens for fundraisers and nonprofit leaders to think about that spectrum of motivation. And our segmentation experts can help you go deeper into your specific audience of current and prospective donors to understand what moves them, connect with their sense of identity and translate those insights into more relevant engagement strategies that build lifelong relationships beyond isolated, transactional giving moments. 

As the donor journey continues to evolve, discovery and engagement can’t be treated as separate challenges. How donors find your organization shapes the relationship that follows, and what you understand about them should shape how that relationship matures. 

Want to learn more about how Material can provide growth intelligence for your mission-driven organization? Start the conversation today.