A friend of mine, Susan, recently told me a story about the $50 monthly gift she had been giving to her alma mater for two decades. This year, after reading that the university’s endowment had crossed $12 billion, she figured they no longer needed her gift and stopped her ACH payment.
That’s when things got interesting.
Months later, Susan received an email that opened with a familiar line: “It is because of donors like you that ABC University is an international leader in research, education, and health.” A nice sentiment, and one she’s read dozens of times before.
As she kept reading, she grew more confused.
“I am writing to provide you with a consolidated statement of your open gift commitments to ABC University. Your total anticipated payment scheduled for June 2026 is $xxx.”
Huh?
Susan began her monthly gift two decades ago and couldn’t remember ever making an open pledge…certainly not one that continues forever.
Attached to the email was a Consolidated Statement of Open Pledges to ABC University. It indicated her last monthly gift was made five months prior. It billed her for the months she had missed and projected her “anticipated” payments for the remainder of their fiscal year. At the bottom were the words:
TOTAL BALANCE.
It felt like a utility bill she hadn’t paid.
Stop Thinking Like Major Gift Officers; Start Thinking Like Donors
This situation isn’t fiction. I was just as surprised as Susan was when she showed me the letter she received. I’ve spent 25 years in nonprofit fundraising, and stories like Susan’s land hard because I know exactly what’s happening on the other end. The university sees her gift as a given. And when it stops, no one asks why. They just treat her like an account receivable.
What are we doing to our donors?
If a top-tier university with hundreds of gift officers can’t get it right, is there hope for philanthropy?
I believe there is, but we need to stop thinking like major gift officers and start thinking like donors.
Had the letter acknowledged Susan’s many years of giving or reflected any understanding of her relationship to the university, she may have felt differently. Instead, the email defaulted to compliance language: “If your records and ours do not agree, I hope you will let us know.”
The email and the attachment made the donor-fundraiser relationship painfully clear. Her gift was a transaction to them.
Solving the Generosity Crisis
As fundraisers, our job is to foster generosity, not enforce compliance. We are meant to build relationships, make a compelling case for impact, and invite people to join us in solving our community’s problems. We should not act like collection agencies.
To solve America’s Generosity Crisis and reverse the steady erosion of donor trust, we can’t send invoices disguised as stewardship and expect lapsed donors to return. Retention is not accidental, and remember: it’s far easier to keep a donor than it is to find a new one.
This is especially true of recurring donors.
Recurring donors are among the most valuable donor segments. They are more likely than one-time donors to become major donors or give to a capital campaign. Over time, they tend to increase their contributions and provide dependable, growable revenue. When nurtured well, they become partners.
5 Ways to Use a Lapsed Donor Letter as a Relationship-Deepening Tool
So how do we stop fracturing these recurring donor relationships? Here are five ways to reframe a lapsed donor letter as a relationship-deepening tool:
- Never send an invoice, or anything that looks like one. A lapsed donor letter is not a pledge reminder. If it resembles a billing statement, you’ve already lost. And pay attention to email subject lines. In Susan’s case, the invoice came with the subject line, “Gift Statement,” which set a cold tone before she even opened the email.
- Don’t ask for a specific amount. The goal is reengagement, period. Once the relationship is restored, the ask can grow.
- Consider not asking for a gift at all. Invite them to a campus event, virtual tour, or town hall. The first goal is reconnection.
- Lead with gratitude, not guilt. Open by honoring what their past generosity has made possible. Shaming a lapsed donor into giving again might result in a check, but it will permanently damage trust.
- Pick up the phone and ask: “What would make you want to get involved again?” For long-standing or higher-capacity donors, something likely went wrong: a crediting issue, an expired card, or a moment when they don’t feel appreciated. Give the donor the benefit of the doubt.
When you treat a lapse as an interruption rather than a severed relationship, donors are far more likely to return. And often, they’re grateful you cared enough to ask.
Before They Lapse: How to Keep Recurring Donors Engaged
Preventing a lapse is even more powerful than correcting one.
Donor retention has long been a challenge and a contributing factor to the Generosity Crisis. According to the Virtuous 2026 Nonprofit Benchmark Report, donor retention rates hover around 55%. For new donors, the second-year retention rate is only 26%. These statistics underline the fact that recurring donors should be thanked frequently and shown the impact their gifts are making.
For example, I know a donor who makes a monthly gift to his church, and each quarter he receives a giving statement. It includes a polite thank-you, but it misses an opportunity. Imagine if it included images from the food drive or stories from the recovery groups meeting in the church basement. That simple shift would connect his gift to real change, and he has told me he would be more inclined to increase his support.
The same is true elsewhere.
Another donor I know has given a modest monthly gift to an animal shelter for 15 years. They have never once asked her to increase it. She has said that if they had, and told her what her greater impact would be, she would have likely tripled her contribution.
The Bottom Line
Lapsed recurring donors are not problems to be corrected. Instead, they are partners whose generosity has been interrupted. When organizations treat a missed gift as an AR issue instead of a relationship signal, they erode the trust that is at the core of their giving. Donor retention does not fail because people stop caring; it fails when institutions stop listening, stop acknowledging history, and stop showing donors that their presence still matters.
If we want recurring donors to stay and to deepen their commitment, we must resist the instinct to manage lapses through billing language and automated processes alone. Instead, we have to lead with gratitude, curiosity, and respect. Retention is not a function of persistence or pressure; it is the outcome of donors who feel like their gift matters.
If your organization is still treating missed gifts like unpaid invoices, it may be time to look at the tools behind your stewardship.
Virtuous CRM+ gives fundraising teams a full view of donor history and the workflows to support real relationships, not collections. Schedule a CRM+ demo.
Virtuous Insights helps you spot at-risk recurring donors before they go quiet, so your team can reach out with gratitude and impact while the relationship is still warm. Schedule an Insights demo.
Written by Jessica Browning, Principal and Executive Vice President of the Winkler Group, a national consulting firm specializing in capital campaigns and strategic plans.
