For every $100 gained in giving in 2016, $95 was lost through the absence of repeat donors, according to the 2017 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey conducted by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Donor retention has hovered around 50 percent for the past decade, but that dropped a bit to 45 percent in 2016, according to the survey of 797 American charities. Of those charities that showed healthy gains of 15 percent or more in the past year, ... more