Donor Fatigue: The Most Misdiagnosed Problem in Nonprofit Fundraising

Sometimes when an organization isn’t raising as much as they used to, or they’re sending out a bunch of fundraising and it’s not working as well as they hoped, the specter of “donor fatigue” creeps out like a layer of cold air at everyone’s feet.

Everyone suddenly feels a little less comfortable.

“We may be experiencing donor fatigue,” the nonprofit tells itself.  And there’s this kind of unsaid belief that “well, we raised as much as we could from them, but we did our best.”

This would be like a chef who loves his own cooking, and then if most of the restaurant’s tables are empty, blames the customers.  That’s what “donor fatigue” often is: an assumption that the fundraising itself is great, so the donors must be the problem.

But we have to remember that there are two parties involved in every fundraising interaction: the people receiving the fundraising and the fundraising itself. 

Unless an organization also gives its fundraising a critical look, allegations of “donor fatigue” are effectively blaming the donors while letting the fundraising off the hook. 

Don’t get me wrong, “Are our donors fatigued?” is a perfectly good question.  But it should always be accompanied by another question: “What if the problem was something about our fundraising materials?”

In my experience, a good amount of poor performance gets misdiagnosed as “donor fatigue.”  I say this from experience because Better Fundraising is regularly hired by organizations that want to grow but are fearful of donor fatigue, or have declining results and are blaming donor fatigue.  And what generally happens is that we help the organization immediately start raising more money from the same group of donors. 

You can’t change your donors.  But you can change your fundraising.

We try to have an attitude/approach that goes something like this: we can’t control our donors, but we can control our fundraising.  So if a piece of fundraising doesn’t work, assume it is the fundraising and go to work on that.

This takes real strength for a nonprofit to do.  Not every organization is willing to say, “Hey, hold on, maybe the problem is what we’re saying.”

But when you do, you start working on what you can control.  And when you’re working on what you can control, it gives you more agency, responsibility and power.