By Brendan Manson / President of Fellowship Development
We know that finding long-term supporters is one of the biggest challenges that nonprofits face. Enter the donor funnel, a clear roadmap that shows you how to move people from first hearing about your mission to more ongoing investment in it.
In this blog, we’ll break down the four stages of a donor funnel and offer practical strategies to refine your approach at each step. Keep reading to learn more about how to grow a more reliable and committed donor base.
What Is a Donor Funnel and Why It Matters for Fundraising
A donor funnel typically has five stages, all with the goal of donor recruitment and retention.
You may also hear a donor funnel referred to as a nonprofit marketing funnel. The terms may be different, but they both refer to the same process. The goal of the donor funnel is simple: move your audience through all the stages (we’ll outline them below).
Every community we work with uses different strategies and tactics within their donor funnel, and that’s okay. The important part is to not skip any stages of the funnel. You don’t want to meet someone for the first time and start asking for money right away. There’s so much value in building relationships along the way.
Think of it like this: The donor funnel process is similar to a new student joining a school.
First, their parents may decide to move to a new community. Maybe they hear about schools from a realtor, who happens to know the principal of one, or because they drive by and see a sign.
Then they visit for a tour and get more interested, followed by formally registering. After a while, the family gets involved by joining PTA and after school clubs. Eventually, they make friends and become important and committed members of the school community. They give back by volunteering and donating because they have strong connections and want to show their support.
In a similar way, a donor funnel is simply the path you guide people on, encouraging them at each step to become more engaged.
Hopefully you can see now how a donor funnel could benefit your fundraising efforts. Now let’s get more into the specifics of each stage.
The Key Stages of a Donor Funnel
Awareness
The top of the funnel is when potential donors, or prospects, first learn about you. You build awareness through being present on social media, sharing blog posts on your website, mailing postcards, hosting events, sponsoring community activities and through many other marketing tactics.
Our advice here is to get more strategic about your various communications efforts. The best way to do that is to refine – and then more deeply research and understand – your target audience. Then, you can use insights about those audience(s) to customize your message (what you say and where) based on what works for them.
Interest and Involvement
Throughout both of these next two stages, people move beyond initial awareness and start to interact with your organization. This could mean subscribing to your newsletter, buying a ticket to your event, dropping off material goods or attending Sunday service. Ideally, the experience provided at this part of the funnel piques interest to learn more. How can your church, school or ministry do this? Engaging and two-way communications are key here. Some questions to guide your strategy:
- Do you utilize video, polls and webinars in addition to more traditional marketing mediums?
- How can you create value for people through educational resources that position you as a trusted voice?
- Are you collecting email addresses to grow your list?
The goal here is to start communicating more directly and start a more personal connection. That’s different from the broad awareness phase.
So how can you know if your donor funnel is working? Signs of success include:
- Good open and click through rates for your emails.
- Increased response to your specific call to action (event attendance, volunteers, donations to a campaign, etc).
- Social media shares.
In this part of the funnel, people are not typically giving financially yet. That’s okay – your priority is still the relationship. Continue engaging and sharing your impact before asking for financial support. As you begin to narrow down the pool of those ready to contribute, you want people to feel curious about what you do and how to help.
Pro tip: No matter how a person first chooses to engage with and support your organization, thank them. Be sure their first impression is a positive one, showing them their support makes a difference.
Investment/Conversion
Congrats, your donor has reached the investment stage. This is where individuals in the funnel officially turn into financial supporters. This is the payoff for all your work, drawing in people from the top of the funnel through each of the stages of engagement.
Not all prospective donors will make it to this stage. To convert prospects into donors, you have to be direct in your ask. By this stage, everyone should be informed about your work and feel good about how you’re helping others. Here, we want to make sure supporters know the impact of their generosity in specific terms – how exactly their money helps. The more you can get donors to understand the urgency of their donation also, the better.
Perhaps the best thing you can do is make your donation process quick and simple. Online, that looks like a secure donation form with minimal fields and offering multiple ways to give. In person, that may mean a pre-paid envelope in an appeal mailer or a QR code to scan directly to your online form.
Post-donation, personalize your notes of gratitude as much as possible.
Retention/Stewardship
Once a donor runs all the way through the funnel and makes their first gift, their journey isn’t over. Now the stewardship work begins. Successful nonprofits have a separate stewardship plan to care for the donor relationship after their gift. In the stewardship stage, trust deepens and a one-time donor can become a long-term partner.
Here are some of the best stewardship strategies we’ve seen:
- Timely and thoughtful follow up: It sounds simple enough, but a prompt and personal thank you (either handwritten or via email) goes a long way in making a donor feel seen.
- Consistent communication: Providing donors with ongoing updates on how their support makes a tangible impact is a must. Over time, you can equip them to become ambassadors and advocates who spread the word to others.
- Invitations for further engagement: Between your asks for additional dollars, be sure your donors know how else they can get involved with your mission. Volunteer, join a small group, etc.
Donor Funnel vs. the Donor Journey and Other Fundraising Frameworks
Earlier in the blog, we said donor funnels often go by other names. That’s true, but we also want to emphasize that a donor funnel is not the same as a donor journey.
A donor funnel is your big picture map. It is the plan for how every supporter goes from first learning about your mission to becoming a donor.
A donor journey is more of a specific route that someone can take within your map. Consider it an outline of how an individual donor (or segment of donors) will move through the funnel.
One person could discover you through a LinkedIn post about the success of your most recent food drive. Another may be attending your event as the guest of one of your finance committee members. That person may make a gift sooner because of that connection. Either way, same funnel. Different path.
Both can help you build strong, lasting donor relationships.
You may also be familiar with other tools such as a donor pyramid or donor life cycle. Similarly, these models don’t replace the donor funnel – they complement it. Each gives you a different way to plan, analyze and understand your donor base.
Technology That Helps Strengthen Your Donor Funnel
Speaking of analyzing your donors, there are many digital tools that can help your nonprofit be more effective.
- CRM system: use your donor software to track donor data, so you can easily see a donor’s history and giving patterns.
- Consider adding prospects to your database early on, so you can see how effective your efforts are in the middle stages of the funnel.
- Marketing automation tools: If your donor software or preferred email platform can help you personalize emails, give it a try. Personalized and more targeted communications can help nurture prospects through each stage of the funnel.
Bottomline: leverage your available data and communications channels to speak to your audience in a strategic way.
How to Measure Success and Strengthen Your Donor Funnel Over Time
There are so many different pieces of information you can track that it can easily get overwhelming. And you’re trying to get it done with limited staffing and hours in the day. We understand.
Fellowship Development has worked with fundraising teams of all sizes. We’ve found there are a few key metrics nonprofits should track related to the donor funnel. These metrics include: donor acquisition rate, donor retention rate, average gift size and conversion rate between funnel stages.
Each of these data points will tell you how effective your fundraising efforts are. Let’s dive more into each one.
Donor acquisition rate: Calculate the number of new donors acquired (the conversions, or number of people who finished in the investment stage of your funnel). It’s interesting to compare it to prior years (or compare quarterly) to identify what is working and what isn’t in the top part of your funnel. This is a great number to help leaders set budgets and future goals.
Note: donor acquisition is different from your total number of donors. Both are important to know. For example, if your ministry gained 150 new donors last year, that’s your total number of new donors. If you had 1,000 donors to the ministry in general, with 150 being new, your acquisition rate is 15%. You can use that to set goals for how many donors you need to enter your funnel each year.
Donor retention rate: This is the percentage of donors who repeat their gift annually. As you know, repeatable income is vital for sustainability. And keeping donors is much more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. (Think about how much money you might need in a marketing budget to continuously reach new prospects in your community).
Donor stewardship has a direct tie to donor retention. Don’t underestimate the influence your relationship with someone can have on their propensity to give. Growing this number every year is a great goal. If you do notice a low retention rate, what strategies can you try to re-engage lapsed donors or those who have made a one-time gift?
Average gift size: The average donation amount received from donors can help you understand whether your marketing and outreach efforts need a boost. Remember, donors tend to give more when they understand their impact. Could you incorporate more storytelling and reporting to see an increase here?
If possible, another good category to track is referral source. You can do this via Google Analytics from your website, QR codes for specific campaigns, or the old-fashioned way, asking donors, “how did you hear about us?” This can help your team uncover where you should invest more time.
Having a system to track these and/or other metrics helps make more informed and strategic decisions.
Conclusion: Using the Donor Funnel to Build Stronger Donor Relationships
A well-structured donor funnel is one of the most valuable tools a nonprofit can build. Donor funnels do more than bring in eventual gifts. Donor funnels help you build quality relationships with your audience over time. That leads to more donations, which leads to more impact that you’re able to make in serving others.
Sources
Bishop, K. (2024). 10 Fundraising Metrics Every Nonprofit Team Should Track. In GoFundMe Pro. https://pro.gofundme.com/c/blog/fundraising-metrics/
Capital Campaign Planning for Successful Fundraising. (n.d.). In Fellowship Development. Retrieved March 25, 2026, from https://www.fellowshipdevelopment.com/services/campaign-planning/
Church Client Stories. (n.d.). In Fellowship Development. Retrieved March 25, 2026, from https://www.fellowshipdevelopment.com/client-stories/church-client-stories/
Moore, M. (2023). Nonprofit Marketing Funnels 101: How to Use Every Stage Like a Pro! In WildApricot. https://www.wildapricot.com/blog/nonprofit-marketing-funnels
