# Impact Reports for Faith-Based Nonprofits: The Page Your Donor Communication Plan Needs

In a 2026 survey, 94% of active donors said knowing exactly where their money will go motivates them to give. This article shows how a faith-based nonprofit can answer that with a one-page impact report sent before the year-end appeal, section by section.

## Key takeaways
- In Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals survey of 1,000+ active U.S. donors, 94% said they are motivated to give when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go, and 90% said the same about impact reporting.
- Those are stated intentions, not measured behavior, so treat them as what donors say they want, and test the effect on your own file.
- Human service organizations were the most trusted type of nonprofit in Independent Sector's April 2026 survey of 3,000 adults, at 67%, against 56% for nonprofits overall, and many faith-based nonprofits run human services.
- In Hung, Berrett and Ma's survey experiment (NVSQ, 2025), donors gave less to human-service nonprofits when overhead reached 35%, and the drop worked through lost trust, and our reading is that an honest account of where money went speaks to that trust.
- A one-page impact report with six sections, sent by email in early November before the year-end appeal, answers the question 94% of surveyed donors say motivates them to give.

A donor communication plan that goes straight from the thank-you letter to the next appeal skips the message donors say they want most: a plain account of where their last gift went. In [Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals Report](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report), a survey with The Harris Poll of more than 1,000 active U.S. donors fielded in March 2026, 94% said they are motivated to give when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go, and 90% said the same about impact reporting. A donor communication plan is the calendar of what an organization sends its donors, by channel and by month, across the year. For a faith-based nonprofit, the most useful addition to that plan this fall is a one-page impact report sent before the year-end appeal, so the donor hears what their gift did before they are asked for the next one.

## What do donors say they want to know before they give again?

The Bloomerang survey points in one direction across several questions. Besides the 94% and 90% figures, donors comparing a generic appeal ("every dollar makes a difference") with one that specified what $50 or $200 buys chose the specific version by 88 percentage points. And 69% said transparency in financial and program reporting is the top signal they use to judge whether a nonprofit is effective.

**94%** — of active U.S. donors surveyed in March 2026 said they are motivated to give when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go ([Bloomerang, 2026 Giving Signals Report (with The Harris Poll)](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report))

> **How to read these numbers**
>
> The Bloomerang figures are what donors say, not what they later do, and no figure here measures how much more donors give after receiving a report. Bloomerang is a donor-software company reporting on its own survey. The survey also covers active donors only, so its figures should not be compared with general-public surveys. Read the 94% as a clear statement of what donors want to hear, and measure the effect of an impact report on your own donors.

## Why does an impact report matter more for a faith-based nonprofit that runs human services?

Many faith-based nonprofits run shelters, food programs, recovery programs, and family services, and human services is the category the public trusts most. In [Independent Sector's July 2026 trust survey](https://independentsector.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Trust-in-Nonprofits-and-Philanthropy-Report-July-2026.pdf) with Edelman Data and Intelligence, an online survey of 3,000 U.S. adults fielded April 3 to 20, 2026, 67% trusted human service organizations to do what is right (the share rating their trust 7 to 9 on a 9-point scale), the highest of any nonprofit type, against 56% for nonprofits overall (asked as a separate question) (pages 6 and 9). An organization starts that conversation with an advantage, and an impact report is how it keeps it.

Trust also shapes how donors read cost. In a survey experiment published in [Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly](https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640241254079) (2025), ChiaKo Hung, Jessica Berrett, and Ji Ma found that gifts to human-service nonprofits fell substantially once overhead reached 35%, and that the drop worked through donors losing trust. A report that shows plainly where money went, including what fundraising and management cost, speaks to the trust mechanism the experiment identified. Our guide to [cost per dollar raised](https://donorinsights.com/articles/cost-per-dollar-raised) covers how to present that cost.

**67% vs 56%** — of U.S. adults trusted human service organizations, versus nonprofits overall, to do what is right in April 2026 ([Independent Sector & Edelman, Trust in Nonprofits and Philanthropy (July 2026)](https://independentsector.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Trust-in-Nonprofits-and-Philanthropy-Report-July-2026.pdf))

## Where does an impact report fit in a donor communication plan?

Timing and channel are the two decisions. On timing, our recommendation is to send the report two to four weeks before the year-end appeal, so the report arrives as news and not as a preface to an ask. For most organizations that means early November. On channel, email first: in the same [Bloomerang survey](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report), 69% of donors named email as their preferred channel, and email was the top choice in every generation. A printed copy for donors who give by mail, and a version posted on the website, cover everyone else. The [Fundraising Effectiveness Project's Q1 2026 release](https://www.pr.com/press-release/975003) says the more urgent priority is "converting new donors into repeat givers," because "aggregate retention gains won't offset a persistently weak first-to-second-gift conversion rate." A report on what a first gift did is one way to speak to that second gift.

The report also changes what the appeal can say. An appeal that follows a report can refer to it ("In November we told you what your gifts did this year") and ask for a specific next result, which is the specific framing donors preferred by 88 points. Donors who stay are the ones worth this effort. In the [Virtuous 2026 benchmark report](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/virtuous-releases-2026-nonprofit-fundraising-benchmark-report-median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously-302748571.html), covering 771 mid-sized and large nonprofits including faith-based ones, median gift increased approximately 20% in its 2026 benchmark, which Virtuous describes as donors who stay giving more often and more generously. The same report puts donor retention at 54.73% and notes "a drop in first-to-second gift conversion." That is a vendor benchmark of its own customers, so read it as context for your file rather than a forecast.

## What goes in a one-page impact report?

Six sections fit on one page and answer the questions the surveys raise. The table shows each section with an illustrative example for a fictional organization, Northgate Family Shelter. Every number in the example is hypothetical.

Illustrative one-page impact report for a fictional faith-based shelter (hypothetical figures)

| Section | What it answers | Northgate example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1. Why we serve | The organization's reason, in its own words | "Our faith is why our doors open every night of the year." |
| 2. What your gifts did | Three concrete results for the year | 4,200 nights of safe shelter, 11,600 meals, 38 families moved into their own housing |
| 3. One person's story | What the results mean for one life, told with permission | A mother and two children, names changed, from the first night to their own apartment |
| 4. Where each dollar went | Program, fundraising, and management costs, plainly | 81 cents to shelter and meals, 11 cents to fundraising, 8 cents to management and general costs |
| 5. What comes next | A specific result the next gift will fund | "$60 gives one family a safe room, dinner, and breakfast before school." |
| 6. Thank you, from a person | Gratitude with a name and a way to reply | Signed by the director, with a direct email address and phone number |

Three of the sections rest on published work. For section 3, one person's story, a [2025 meta-analysis by Chapman and colleagues](https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640251317403) in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, pooling 109 effect sizes from 89,570 participants, found that identifying with a charity's beneficiaries correlates with giving at r = .24. It is correlational, and r runs from -1 to 1, so .24 is a modest positive association. For section 4, Part IX of the Form 990 splits expenses into program services, management and general, and fundraising, and the [IRS instructions](https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990) define fundraising expenses as "the expenses incurred in soliciting cash and noncash contributions, gifts, and grants." For reference, the [BBB Wise Giving Alliance's Standard 8](https://give.org/donor-landing-page/bbb-standards-for-charity-accountability) asks a charity to "spend at least 65% of its total expenses on program activities."

> 94% of donors say they're motivated to give when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go. 90% say the same about impact reporting. — Bloomerang, 2026 Giving Signals Report

## How can a small team build the report this fall?

1. Pick three results you already count, such as people served, meals, or nights of shelter, and pull the 2026 totals through October.
2. Ask one person you served for permission to tell their story, change the names, and keep the story to one paragraph.
3. Take the cost split from your last Form 990 or your year-to-date books, and state it in cents per dollar.
4. Write one sentence in section 1 on why you serve, in your organization's own words, without scripture or appeal language.
5. Send it by email in early November, mail a printed copy to donors who give by mail, and post it on your website.
6. Hold the year-end appeal until two to four weeks later, and refer back to the report in its first paragraph.

A report is one half of the conversation. The other half is asking donors how they feel about your communication, which our guide to [donor satisfaction surveys](https://donorinsights.com/articles/donor-satisfaction-surveys) covers, and the trust question has its own guide to [donor trust](https://donorinsights.com/articles/donor-trust-economics). On your own file, the test is simple: did donors who received the report give again at a higher rate than donors who gave last year before you sent one? Donor Insights reads your contacts and gifts so you can compare those two groups directly. The [methodology](https://donorinsights.com/methodology) starts from your own giving records, and the [platform](https://donorinsights.com/platform) follows each group into the next year.

## FAQ

**What is a donor communication plan?**

It is the calendar of what an organization sends its donors across the year: thank-yous, updates, impact reports, appeals, and invitations, with a channel and a month for each. A good plan puts news about what gifts did ahead of the next request.

**When should a faith-based nonprofit send its impact report?**

Two to four weeks before the year-end appeal, which for most organizations means early November. The report then arrives as news, and the appeal that follows can refer back to it.

**How long should an impact report be?**

One page is enough for most donors. Six sections fit: why you serve, three results, one person's story, where each dollar went, what comes next, and a thank-you signed by a person.

**Should an impact report include overhead costs?**

Yes, stated plainly in cents per dollar. In Bloomerang's 2026 survey, 69% of donors named transparency in financial and program reporting as their top signal of effectiveness, and in Hung, Berrett and Ma's experiment, high overhead lowered gifts through lost trust.

**Do impact reports actually raise giving?**

Donors say they do: 90% of active donors in Bloomerang's 2026 survey said impact reporting motivates them to give. That is stated intent, not measured behavior, so compare donors who received your report with those who did not on your own file.

## Sources
- [Bloomerang with The Harris Poll (2026). 2026 Giving Signals Report. May 19, 2026 (survey of 1,000+ active U.S. donors and 400 fundraising leaders, March 13-24, 2026).](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report)
- [Independent Sector & Edelman Data and Intelligence (2026). Trust in Nonprofits and Philanthropy, July 2026. Online survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, April 3-20, 2026.](https://independentsector.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Trust-in-Nonprofits-and-Philanthropy-Report-July-2026.pdf)
- [Hung, C., Berrett, J. L., & Ma, J. (2025). How High Is Too High? An Experimental Analysis of Donors' Aversion to Nonprofit Overhead. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 54(2), 302-326. DOI 10.1177/08997640241254079 (published online May 29, 2024).](https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640241254079)
- [Virtuous (2026). 2026 Nonprofit Fundraising Benchmark Report. Press release, April 21, 2026 (771 mid-sized and large nonprofits, including faith-based ones).](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/virtuous-releases-2026-nonprofit-fundraising-benchmark-report-median-gift-up-20-as-donors-who-stay-give-more-often-and-more-generously-302748571.html)
- [Fundraising Effectiveness Project (2026). Q1 2026 press release via PR.com, July 29, 2026 (Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025).](https://www.pr.com/press-release/975003)
- [Chapman, C. M., Spence, J. L., Hornsey, M. J., & Dixon, L. (2025). Social Identification and Charitable Giving: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 54(6), 1308-1341. DOI 10.1177/08997640251317403 (meta-analysis of correlational studies).](https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640251317403)
- [Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 990, Part IX, Statement of Functional Expenses. IRS.gov.](https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990)
- [BBB Wise Giving Alliance. Standards for Charity Accountability (Standard 8). Give.org.](https://give.org/donor-landing-page/bbb-standards-for-charity-accountability)

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