Segmentation & portfolio
The Donor Pyramid in 2026: Only the Base Is Shrinking
In the first quarter of 2026, donor counts and dollars grew in every FEP giving tier except the $1 to $100 Micro tier, which was also the only tier whose retention improved. This article explains why that pattern points to too few new small donors rather than too many leaving, and what it means for a 2027 budget.
By Donor Insights · Published October 24, 2026 · Updated September 25, 2026 · 7 min read
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Key takeaways
- In Q1 2026, donor counts and dollars grew in the Small, Midsize, Major, and Supersize tiers and declined only among Micro donors, those giving $1 to $100 (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, July 2026).
- Micro was also the only tier where donor retention improved in Q1 2026, while retention fell in every larger tier (FEP), so the base of the donor pyramid is not losing donors faster.
- The number of Micro donors fell 2.5% year over year in Q1 2026, as reported by NonProfit Times. Read with the retention gain, that suggests fewer small donors are arriving or returning to replace the ones who leave.
- Across the whole sector, dollars grew 4.3% in Q1 2026 while donor counts fell 0.8% (FEP), and on GivingTuesday 2025 dollars also grew faster than the number of givers, 13% against 3% (GivingTuesday Data Commons).
- On an illustrative 1,000-donor base, raising retention from 35% to 40% cuts the number of new donors needed to hold the base flat from 650 to 600, so a small-donor acquisition line still belongs in the 2027 budget.
The donor pyramid is the standard picture of a donor file: many small donors at the base, fewer mid-level donors in the middle, and a handful of major donors at the top. In early 2026, only the base shrank. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project's Q1 2026 release, published July 29, 2026, reports that donor counts and dollars grew among Small, Midsize, Major, and Supersize donors, "with only Micro donors ($1-$100) still in decline." The same release reports that Micro was the only tier where retention improved. Put those two facts together and the base of the pyramid is not losing donors faster than before. It is not being refilled. The decision that follows is about acquiring new small donors, not only about keeping the ones you have.
What is the donor pyramid, and how does FEP divide it?
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project, or FEP, is a project of the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday that pools gift data from participating nonprofits' donor databases. It sorts donors into five tiers by how much they gave. FEP's release defines Micro as $1 to $100. As reported by NonProfit Times, the other tiers are Small ($101 to $500), Midsize ($501 to $5,000), Major (between $5,000 and $50,000), and Supersize (over $50,000). Those five tiers are the layers of the donor pyramid. The base is wide in headcount and narrow in dollars, and the top is the reverse.
| Tier | Gift range | Donor count and dollars | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | $1 to $100 | Declined (count down 2.5%) | Improved |
| Small | $101 to $500 | Grew | Fell |
| Midsize | $501 to $5,000 | Grew | Fell |
| Major | $5,000 to $50,000 | Grew | Fell |
| Supersize | Over $50,000 | Grew | Fell |
Across all tiers, FEP estimates that dollars rose 4.3% and donor counts fell 0.8% in Q1 2026 compared with Q1 2025, an improvement on the 2.3% donor decline a year earlier. The total fell while four of five tiers grew because the Micro tier is the largest: Micro donors make up 57% of all donors, as reported by NonProfit Times, so their 2.5% drop outweighed the gains in the other four tiers. Two cautions apply. First, this release introduced FEP's first major methodology update in five years, changing how the panel is built, weighted, and adjusted for late data, so comparisons with older quarters are looser than usual. Second, FEP's quarterly retention figure is a year-to-date measure and should never be set against annual retention rates.
If Micro retention improved, why is the base of the pyramid shrinking?
A tier's headcount moves for three reasons: donors who stay, donors who leave, and donors who arrive, either brand new or returning after a lapse. Retention measures only the first two. When retention improves and the count still falls, the arrivals are the part that shrank. Our reading of the Q1 2026 numbers, which is an inference from FEP's published pattern rather than a figure FEP reports, is that fewer small donors are entering the file to replace the ones who leave each year.
One other explanation deserves a fair hearing. A donor who gives $150 this year after giving $75 last year moves from Micro to Small, which lowers the Micro count and raises the Small count without anyone leaving. FEP's release does not separate upgrades from arrivals, so some of the Micro decline could be donors moving up the pyramid. That would be good news, and it would still leave the base needing new donors to stay the same size.
The top of the pyramid tells the opposite story. FEP's dashboard commentary notes that the Q4 2025 annual report found growth came almost entirely from Major and Supersize donors. In Q1 2026 growth spread to the Small and Midsize tiers as well, but retention fell in all four of those tiers. Our reading is that the larger tiers grew by adding and upgrading donors while keeping a smaller share of the ones they had.
Does other 2025 data show the same pattern?
Two other 2025 datasets show dollars growing faster than the number of people giving. On GivingTuesday 2025, U.S. donations reached $4.0 billion, up 13% from 2024, while the number of people who gave rose 3% to 19.1 million, according to the GivingTuesday Data Commons. And in the Blackbaud Institute's 2025 Trends in Giving, which draws on Blackbaud customer data from more than 7,500 nonprofits, gifts of $1,000 or more grew about 4.7% in 2025 while gifts under $1,000 fell about 1.1%. Each dataset uses its own sample and definitions, so none of them confirms the FEP tier pattern on its own. Together they describe the same shape: money concentrating in larger gifts while the count of small givers stalls.
How many new donors does the base of the pyramid need each year?
The arithmetic is simple, and working it on paper shows why better retention alone cannot hold the base. Picture a fictional organization, Riverbend Literacy Council, with 1,000 donors in its $1 to $100 tier. The retention rates below are illustrative round numbers chosen to show the shape of the math, not benchmarks.
| Base-tier retention | Donors kept | Donors lost | New or returning donors needed to stay at 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35% | 350 | 650 | 650 |
| 40% | 400 | 600 | 600 |
A five-point improvement in retention is hard to win and worth having: it saves Riverbend 50 replacement donors a year. The base still needs 600 new or returning donors every year just to stay the same size. If acquisition slips below that number, the base shrinks even while retention improves, which is the pattern FEP reported for Micro donors in Q1 2026. What each of those new donors costs is covered in our guide to donor acquisition cost.
What should a 2027 budget do about the base of the pyramid?
The base carries few dollars, so it is tempting to let it shrink and chase larger gifts. Two reasons argue against that. The base is where donors who may later give more first enter the file, so a base that is not refilled leaves fewer donors to upgrade in later years. And a file that depends on a few large donors is fragile, which our guide to donor concentration risk works through. FEP's own recommendation for Q1 2026 is to "keep investing in Micro donor engagement despite the segment's small dollar share", because it is the only tier where retention improved.
- 1.Count arrivals separately from retention. On your own file, split last year's $1 to $100 donors into kept, lost, upgraded, and new, so you can see which of the four moved.
- 2.Set a replacement target. Multiply the number of base donors lost last year by one to get the number of arrivals needed to hold the base flat, as in the Riverbend table.
- 3.Give small-donor acquisition its own budget line for 2027, sized to that target and to your cost per new donor, instead of folding it into general marketing.
- 4.Keep the retention work that is paying off in the base tier, and track upgrades from Micro to Small as a success, not a loss.
- 5.Watch the top tiers' retention too. Growth in the Major and Supersize tiers with falling retention means those tiers depend on constant new and upgraded donors as well.
The balance between breadth and depth is the subject of our guide to grassroots versus major donors. The first step in the list above needs your own records, not a sector report. Donor Insights reads your contacts and gifts and sorts every donor into giving tiers, so you can see how many base donors you kept, lost, upgraded, and added last year. The methodology starts from your own giving records, and the platform shows each layer of your pyramid as it changes through the year.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a donor pyramid?
- A donor pyramid is a picture of a donor file sorted by gift size: many small donors at the base, fewer mid-level donors in the middle, and a few major donors at the top. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project uses five tiers, from Micro ($1 to $100) to Supersize (over $50,000).
- Which donors declined in early 2026?
- Only Micro donors, those giving $1 to $100. In FEP's Q1 2026 report, donor counts and dollars grew in the Small, Midsize, Major, and Supersize tiers and declined only in Micro, where the donor count fell 2.5% year over year as reported by NonProfit Times.
- How can retention improve while the number of donors falls?
- Retention measures how many existing donors give again. The count also depends on how many new or returning donors arrive. If fewer arrive than leave, the count falls even when retention improves, and donors who upgrade to a higher tier also lower the count in the tier they left.
- Can I compare FEP's quarterly retention with annual retention?
- No. FEP's quarterly retention figure is year-to-date, so it runs far below annual rates by design. FEP also changed its methodology in the Q1 2026 report, so comparisons with older quarters are looser than usual.
- How many new small donors does my organization need?
- At minimum, as many as you lost from the base tier last year, to keep it the same size. In the illustrative example, a 1,000-donor base retained at 40% loses 600 donors and needs 600 new or returning donors a year to stay flat.
Sources
- Fundraising Effectiveness Project (2026). Fundraising Effectiveness Project Reports Easing Donor Losses in Q1 2026, But New Data Shows Growth Isn't Sticking. Press release via PR.com, July 29, 2026 (Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025).
- Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Quarterly FEP Report dashboard, Q1 2026 strategic insights.
- NonProfit Times (2026). Fewer Donors, More Dollars, and Methodology Changes at FEP. July 30, 2026 (secondary report of FEP tier figures).
- GivingTuesday Data Commons (2025). GivingTuesday 2025 results. December 3, 2025 (GivingTuesday, December 2, 2025).
- Blackbaud Institute (2026). 2025 Trends in Giving data release. March 18, 2026 (2025 data, 7,500+ nonprofits).
Related articles
Grassroots vs Major Donors: What a Healthy Mix Looks Like
Breadth and depth pull against each other. The health of a file is in the balance, not either end.
Donor Concentration Risk: If One Major Donor Walks, What Breaks?
Most of your budget may depend on a handful of people. The fix starts with measuring exactly how few.
What Does It Cost to Acquire a New Donor?
The first gift rarely covers what it cost to win. The payback comes from the years that follow.
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