Reactivating lapsed donors with a timely email

What we tested

Winning a new donor is hard. Losing one is easy.

When supporters stop giving and go more than a year without making a donation, they often become disconnected from an organization entirely.

We wanted to understand whether a simple, well-timed email could bring those supporters back.

Rather than having nonprofits manually identify and contact inactive supporters, we tested an automated email sent as soon as a donor crossed the one-year inactivity threshold.

The email invited supporters to give again through a pre-opened Checkout experience in the Donor Portal, making it easy to return and support the organization.

The goal was simple: recover donors who might otherwise have been lost.

Hypothesis

If we send a reactivation email when donors become lapsed, conversion to a new donation will increase by roughly 16% compared to natural reactivation, because a timely reminder gives supporters an easy opportunity to reconnect with a cause they previously cared about.

Test setup

Key results

The reactivation email delivered a significant improvement across both donor conversion and revenue metrics.

• +30.47% increase in conversion to a new donation
• +31.50% increase in ARPU
• No statistically significant impact on recurring giving
• Bounce rates remained stable at approximately 1–2%

Most of the lift came from one-time donations, demonstrating that many lapsed donors were willing to give again when presented with a timely opportunity.

Segment insights

The reactivation effect was consistent across devices, but mobile supporters responded particularly well to the email:

• +48.22% increase in donation conversion on mobile
• +17.70% increase in donation conversion on desktop

Conclusion

The hypothesis was confirmed.

A single, well-timed reactivation email increased donation conversion by more than 30% and delivered a meaningful increase in revenue from supporters who might otherwise have remained inactive.

Importantly, the additional outreach did not increase email unsubscribe risk, harm recurring giving, or negatively affect email deliverability.

Based on these results, we're rolling out this optimization to help nonprofits automatically recover more lapsed donors.

What this means for you

Donor retention is one of the most important drivers of long-term fundraising growth. That's why we continuously invest in helping supporters stay connected to your organization and making it easier for them to keep giving.

From the Donor Portal, where supporters can update payment information and avoid failed recurring gifts, to reactivation campaigns like this one, we're continuously investing in the donor retention journey.

This test is a great example. A single email helped bring lapsed donors back, generating new donations and increasing revenue without adding to your team's workload.

And it's just one of many giving optimizations we're building to help nonprofits retain more donors, deepen supporter engagement, and raise more over time.

→ Explore other effective ways to reactivate lapsed donors with Fundraise Up