For years, the fundraising landscape has been talking about the strength of recurring, or monthly, donors. After years of these programs being seen as an “add-on” to the real engine of fundraising, recurring donors are finally getting the attention they deserve.
The data from this year’s Rescue Mission Benchmark Report shows that not only has our industry’s attention shifted toward talking more about them, but we are also seeing an increased number of them on donor files. And for many organizations, these monthly donors are now a primary source of their gift growth.
Across the almost 200 rescue missions included in this year’s benchmark study, the total number of gifts made increased by 3.7% in 2025.
But underneath that number is a much more important shift.
Non-recurring gifts actually declined by 2.65%, representing roughly 45,000 fewer one-time gifts.
At the same time, recurring gifts increased by 26.7%, an increase of more than 125,000 gifts year-over-year.
In other words, the gift growth came exclusively from recurring donors.
Recurring Giving Is Changing the Economics of Fundraising
One of the challenges nonprofits have faced for years across the sector is declining donor participation.
Many organizations are seeing:
- Fewer new donors
- Rising acquisition costs
- Lower long-term retention
- Increased dependence on higher-value donors
Rescue missions are not immune to those pressures. In fact, more organizations in the benchmark saw active donor counts decline in 2025 than grow.
But recurring giving appears to be acting as a stabilizing force inside many of these donor files. The average number of recurring donors per organization grew 28% year-over-year. That is a meaningful shift in donor behavior in a relatively short period of time.
And unlike many one-time gifts, recurring donations do more than generate revenue. They also build a longer-term relationship between the donor and the organization that can lead to deeper participation over time.
What Comes Next
The most important takeaway from this year’s benchmark may not simply be that recurring giving grew. It is that recurring giving is increasingly offsetting weakness elsewhere in the donor file.
The organizations that thrive over the next decade will likely not be the ones with the largest donor files. They will be the ones most effective at turning occasional generosity into ongoing commitment.
And increasingly, recurring giving appears to be where that transformation happens.
Recurring giving is only one piece of what we found in this year’s data. If you want to explore the full benchmark findings and see how your organization compares across retention, donor growth, recurring revenue, and long-term value, you can download the full Rescue Mission Benchmark Report here.
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