Deep dives
DonorsChoose Turned Classroom Requests Into a Giving Marketplace. What Do the Public Numbers Say?
An independent read of DonorsChoose's public filings, and the donor questions only its own file can answer.
By Donor Insights · Published September 4, 2026 · 8 min read
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Key takeaways
- DonorsChoose's total revenue moved from $187.3M in FY2022 to $153.6M in FY2023, up to a $194.0M peak in FY2024, then down to $150.8M in FY2025, with FY2025 expenses of about $159.8M running ahead of revenue (IRS Form 990, via ProPublica; fiscal years end in June).
- Its transparent, digital-native marketplace, where anyone can fund a specific classroom project for as little as a dollar and see exactly where the money went, is the publicly visible strength, and corporate match offers extend every gift.
- Most of that revenue is directed to specific classroom projects, so gross giving on the platform is not the same as an operating donor base, and a project-backer is not yet a repeat donor to the organization.
- Public filings cannot show repeat giving, project-donor retention, donor concentration, or which acquisition sources pay back, so every read of the donor base here is an inference.
- Donor Insights turns an organization's own giving records into the repeat-giving and retention picture, while the team runs the outreach in its own tools.
DonorsChoose is the organization that showed the sector what a transparent giving marketplace looks like: a teacher posts a classroom request, anyone can fund part of it for as little as a dollar, and the donor later sees exactly what the money bought. Its total revenue moved from $187.3M in FY2022 to $153.6M in FY2023, climbed to a $194.0M peak in FY2024, then eased to $150.8M in FY2025, according to its IRS Form 990, as published by ProPublica (fiscal years end in June). This is a constructive read of what those public numbers show about its donor base, and an honest account of what they cannot show. No donor-level figures here are private; where a number would require the donor file, we say so.
What is DonorsChoose doing well?
The whole model is a well-built online donation flow, and that is rare. A donor browses real classroom projects, funds one directly, and receives a thank-you note and a spending report showing where every dollar went. That closed loop of give, see the result, and hear back is exactly the trust device that earns a second gift. On top of it sit corporate match offers, where a company doubles gifts to a category of projects, so a donor's dollar reaches further and a partner's brand rides along. The organization reports more than two million classroom projects funded and over sixteen million students reached since it began, which is real scale built one project at a time.
A transparent marketplace and a match mechanic are precisely the assets that keep a giving base engaged. They are also assets a public filing can describe but never measure. The 990 shows the money that arrived each year. It does not show how many donors came back, how many gave once and never again, or how many were first brought in by a match offer that has since ended.
What does the revenue path show?
A year that swings, more than a steady line. The four years in the recent public record run $187.3M, $153.6M, $194.0M, and $150.8M. FY2024 was the high point, and FY2025 came in about 22% lower, with reported expenses that year of roughly $159.8M running about $9M ahead of reported revenue. The public totals are consistent with a modest reserve draw, though a filing alone cannot confirm it.
| Fiscal year | Total revenue | Total expenses | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | $187.3M | $175.6M | Baseline |
| FY2023 | $153.6M | $155.4M | Down; expenses ran slightly ahead |
| FY2024 | $194.0M | $182.3M | Up (peak) |
| FY2025 | $150.8M | $159.8M | Down; expenses ~$9M ahead of revenue |
What the table does not say is why the line swings. For a project marketplace this shape is expected: a single large corporate match campaign that runs one year and not the next moves the total by tens of millions, and a wave of one-time backers drawn in by a viral project or a disaster response arrives and then may never give again. Those are very different dynamics with very different fixes, and no public document can separate them. Only the donor file can.
Why gross giving is not the same as a donor base
Because most of the money is passing through to a specific classroom, not to the organization as a general supporter. When a donor funds Ms. Rivera's reading corner, they are backing that project, and the gift is fulfilled the moment the books ship. That is a clean, honest transaction, and it is the heart of what makes the model work. It also means the donor has not yet decided anything about DonorsChoose itself. A project-backer is a wonderful first gift and an open question about the second.
This is where the value actually lives. A backer who funds one project is worth their one gift; a backer who returns to fund a project every semester, or who moves to a monthly commitment, is worth many times that. That is the logic behind donor lifetime value: the value is in the returning, not the first click. The constructive question for a marketplace this large is not how to raise more gross giving in a peak year. It is how to convert a project-backer into a repeat donor to the mission, and a public filing reports nothing about whether that conversion is happening.
What public data cannot reveal here
The 990 is an annual snapshot of totals. It is silent on every donor-level question that actually decides whether a base grows or leaks. For DonorsChoose, as for any organization, the public record cannot show:
- Repeat giving: what share of a year's project-backers ever fund a second project, and how quickly. See the second gift.
- Project-donor retention: whether backers brought in by one campaign or match offer are still giving twelve and twenty-four months later. See donor cohort analysis.
- Donor concentration: how much of a peak year rides on a handful of large corporate match campaigns, and what happens to the total when one does not repeat. See donor concentration risk.
- Recurring health: how many backers have moved to a standing monthly commitment, and how many of those quietly lapse to a failed card rather than a real decision to stop.
- Acquisition payback: which channels and match partners bring backers who return long enough to justify the cost, and which deliver a spike of one-time gifts and nothing after.
How would you rank and bucket the base?
The same way any organization should, before deciding where outreach goes. Rank donors by recency, frequency, and value, then place each in the lifecycle stage that sets the next action. Four buckets carry most of the work for a project marketplace:
| Bucket | Who is in it | The next action |
|---|---|---|
| Acquire | First-time project-backers, including one-time and match-driven givers | A prompt thank-you and one clear invitation to fund a second project |
| Convert | Backers who funded a second project or started a monthly commitment | Steward the relationship and invite the move to recurring giving |
| Retain | Repeat backers and active monthly donors | Protect against failed payments; deepen the connection to the mission |
| Reactivate | Lapsed backers who gave once and went quiet | A win-back sequence sized by recency and prior value |
This is the readable version of a fuller model that adds value tiers, small backers through major and corporate partners, on top of the lifecycle. The guide to RFM segmentation walks through the scoring, and donor cohort analysis shows how to read each join-year group of backers as it ages.
The action plan any organization on this curve can run now
None of this requires a new platform to begin. In order of return, and all of it aimed at turning project-backers into retained donors:
- 1.Build a real second-project path, so a first-time backer receives their spending report and then one clear, warm invitation to fund the next classroom, rather than being left to drift after a single gift.
- 2.Cohort backers by the month and the campaign that first brought them in, and read how each group's repeat giving holds as it ages. This is the clearest picture of whether the marketplace is building a base of returning donors or drawing mostly one-time backers.
- 3.Offer the monthly move to your most engaged repeat backers, then separate involuntary churn from real cancellations and recover the failed cards before spending a dollar on new acquisition.
- 4.Measure each acquisition source and match partner against the value its backers return over two years, not against the count of gifts it delivers in the launch month.
- 5.Watch concentration: know what share of a peak year rests on the largest match campaigns, so a single non-repeating partner never reads as a trend.
“It is far less expensive to keep an existing donor than to acquire a new one.”
So what would you do next?
Public data got this analysis to the edge of the interesting questions and no further. The repeat-giving rate of a project-backer, the retention of a match-driven cohort, the concentration of a peak year, the payback of each acquisition source: all of it lives in an organization's own giving records, not in any filing. Donor Insights reads those records and returns a prioritized action file: the backers ready for a second project, the cohorts that are leaking, the failed cards worth recovering this month, and the repeat givers close to a monthly commitment. Each one comes with the next best action and the donors it applies to, so the work is a list your team can pick up rather than a report to interpret.
From there the loop is steady work you already know how to do. You make each ask in your own tools, watch the retained base hold and grow, and send the gifts that would have quietly leaked back toward the mission itself, more classroom projects funded for more students and a fairer shot at the resources every classroom needs. A donor base that stays is what lets a mission keep going and keep growing. To see this analysis built on your own data, start with your own file.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this analysis based on DonorsChoose's private data?
- No. Every figure is drawn from DonorsChoose's public IRS Form 990 as published by ProPublica, and from the organization's own published descriptions of its programs. No donor-level or private data is used, and each donor-base observation is labeled as an inference from public totals.
- Why does DonorsChoose revenue swing year to year?
- The public record shows revenue moving from $187.3M in FY2022 to $153.6M in FY2023, up to a $194.0M peak in FY2024, then down to $150.8M in FY2025, but it cannot say why. For a project marketplace, a large corporate match campaign that runs one year and not the next, or a wave of one-time backers drawn by a single project, can move the total by tens of millions. Only the donor file can tell those apart.
- What is the difference between gross giving and a donor base?
- Gross giving is the total money that arrived, much of it directed to specific classroom projects and fulfilled when the items ship. A donor base is the set of people who come back and give again. A public filing reports the first and is silent on the second, which is why converting a one-time project-backer into a repeat donor is the question that matters most.
Sources
Related articles
The Second Gift: Why It Decides Whether a Donor Stays
The gift after the first one is where a donor relationship is kept or lost.
How to Calculate Donor Lifetime Value (and Why the Simple Formula Lies)
The three-number formula is easy. It also overstates what a donor is worth, because it assumes retention never changes.
Donor Cohort Analysis: Read Your File the Way a Fund Reads a Portfolio
Group donors by when they joined, then watch each group age. The average never told you this.
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