Your organization deserves congratulations each time it acquires a new donor. You inspired someone to take action and join your community of passionate supporters, which is no small feat! But the next moments are critical—since nonprofits retain only 13.5% of new donors on average, you must make these donors feel welcome and appreciated if you want to see their support again.
Right after you receive a first-time donation, take action to cement the new connection and begin the stewardship process. Use this post-donation stewardship checklist to start relationships off strong and increase the potential for new donors to turn into recurring supporters.
1. Thank donors promptly and personally.
When you order a product online, you get an immediate email confirming that the purchase went through and your new item is on the way. Without this email, you may wonder if the transaction was successful or worry that the business didn’t actually receive your order. New donors often feel the same way.
If someone has never given to your organization before, they don’t know what comes next. Did your nonprofit receive the donation? Do you appreciate it? Does their gift even matter?
Thanking and reassuring first-time donors promptly is essential to making a good first impression. Whether you send a standard email, a quick text, or even a formal donor thank-you letter, your thank-you messages to new donors should:
- Arrive within 24-48 hours. The sooner, the better. If your organization has the resources, use software to make the donation acknowledgment process automatic and immediate.
- Address the new donor by name. Personalized thank-you messages make donors feel uniquely valued by your organization. Start by including their preferred name. Once you learn more about them, you can add more personalization to future messages.
- Include the exact gift amount and campaign it will support. Even if you send a donation receipt separately, thank the donor for the specific gift they made. For example: “Florencio, thank you for your $200 donation to the Miami Scholarship Fund. Your gift will help local students access the education they deserve.”
- Welcome them into your nonprofit’s community. The best thank-you messages extend beyond appreciation for a one-time gift. Thank first-time donors for not only giving, but also for joining your nonprofit’s support base.
You might send a separate welcome email or even a full new donor email series afterward (in fact, we recommend it!), but the thank-you should always come first. This ensures that the new donor feels respected and valued from the very beginning of your relationship with them.
2. Share brief campaign updates.
Let’s say that a first-time donor received your thank-you email and a few messages welcoming them to your nonprofit’s community. It’s now been over a month since they donated, but they haven’t heard anything else. They may start to wonder what happened to your campaign, or your organization might slip their mind altogether.
Instead of finding yourself in this situation, use the months after a first-time donation to strengthen your connections with new donors.
Share quick updates about the campaign’s fundraising progress (“We’re only $3,000 away from our goal!”) and how you’ve used donations so far (“With your help, we’ve already distributed 750 meals to hurricane victims.”). These messages will remind new donors of their contributions, showcase more of your work, and make them feel like part of your community.
To understand what this looks like, let’s take a look at a few sample messages you might send during a capital campaign to update new donors:
- Fundraising update: “Sherry, we’re so excited to let you know that we’ve reached a major milestone in our #RenovateElkTheater campaign. Thanks to you and over 300 other donors, we’re officially 90% of the way to our goal!”
- Impact update: “Claude, construction on the theater is officially underway! Check out a video of this week’s progress, or read about what this project means to our community here. Again, we can’t thank you enough for your contribution, and we’re so excited to welcome you into our newly renovated theater in 2026!”
Encourage new donors to stay in the loop and get more involved with your organization by adding links to your social media pages and website at the bottom of these emails. Don’t ask for another donation yet—just focus on updating the donor and giving them the chance to engage more if they’re interested.
3. Recognize donors based on their giving level.
While every new donor should receive a personalized donation acknowledgment email, try to align additional appreciation efforts with each person’s giving level. Naturally, a donor who gave $2,000 warrants more specialized recognition than someone who donated $20.
To map out your new donors, Double the Donation recommends creating a donor pyramid, a simple tool that helps you arrange and visualize donors based on giving level. If you use a basic donor pyramid, here’s what different appreciation tactics could look like at each level:
- Micro donors: Thank-you eCards, standard thank-you video
- Minor donors: Mailed thank-you cards, branded stickers, early access to event sign-ups
- Mid-level donors: Social media shoutouts, interviews for your newsletter, small gifts of branded merchandise
- Major donors: Recognition on your donor wall, invitations to celebratory VIP galas, personalized thank-you videos featuring staff and beneficiaries
Some strategies might be more feasible for your organization than others, so create a plan or stewardship matrix that outlines the concrete ways you’ll recognize new donors at each level.
Having these donor segments on hand will be useful in the future, too. You can use them to send more relevant engagement opportunities, tailor fundraising appeals, and more to deepen relationships and increase retention.
4. Welcome their feedback.
Finally, empower your new donors right away by giving them opportunities to provide feedback. Donorly’s donor retention guide explains that sending surveys and asking for donors’ thoughts “will make your supporters feel heard and show them that you value their opinions.”
The sooner you show new donors that you respect their voices and want to hear them, the more likely they are to feel included and personally invested in your mission. You could send out surveys that ask about the giving experience and how easy it was to donate. Or, write text messages that encourage direct responses, and record their replies in your database.
To solicit feedback and learn more about first-time donors’ interests at the same time, consider sharing a welcome survey that asks questions about how the donor found your organization, why they donated, how they want to be involved, and which aspects of your cause they care about most. Then, use these answers to inform your future stewardship efforts.
This checklist should be just the beginning of your efforts to build relationships with first-time donors. Over time, you’ll ideally create a full-blown stewardship plan for keeping new donors involved, using sophisticated strategies like predictive modeling and data analysis to discover what works best for your specific donor base. But remember, it all starts with what you do after that first donation.