Donor economics
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.
By Donor Insights · Published August 27, 2026 · 8 min read
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Key takeaways
- A healthy donor file needs both a broad grassroots base and major-donor depth, and the mix between them, not either end alone, is what to manage.
- The sector has drifted into a barbell: donors giving $5,000 or more supply 78.6% of dollars while making up 3.4% of donors, and the smallest donors are just under half of all donors but 1.4% of dollars (Fundraising Effectiveness Project, 2025).
- The base is eroding. The number of donors fell 3.6% in 2025, a fifth straight year, and small donors giving $1 to $100 fell 7.9% (Fundraising Effectiveness Project).
- A broad base still matters because it feeds the pipeline: today's small and mid-level donors are where tomorrow's major donors come from.
- Donor Insights reads your own giving records to show your grassroots-to-major mix and whether the base beneath your top donors is thinning, all from your file.
A healthy donor file needs both a broad grassroots base and a few major donors, and the two pull in opposite directions: breadth spreads risk across many small gifts, while depth concentrates dollars in a few large ones. Neither end is healthy alone, so the thing to manage is the mix. Across the sector that mix has drifted into a barbell, heavy at the top in dollars and heavy at the bottom in headcount, with a thin middle between. Donors giving $5,000 or more supplied 78.6% of all dollars in 2025 while making up just 3.4% of donors, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project.
What is the grassroots-versus-major tradeoff?
It is breadth against depth. A grassroots base is many donors giving small amounts, which spreads revenue across so many people that no single loss hurts, but it is expensive to acquire and each gift is modest. Major donors are the reverse: a few relationships carrying most of the dollars, efficient to raise but fragile, because the departure of one reshapes the year. The tradeoff is that the strengths of each end are the weaknesses of the other, which is why a file leaning too far in either direction is exposed.
How far your own file leans toward the major end is a question of donor concentration risk, which measures how much of your budget rides on your largest few donors. The mix question here is the same coin from the other side: not just how concentrated the top is, but how strong the base beneath it remains.
What does the sector's mix actually look like?
Like a barbell. The dollars sit in a narrow top tier and the headcount sits in a wide bottom tier, with little in between. The smallest donors, those giving about $100 or less, are just under half of all donors yet supply only 1.4% of dollars, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. The same file that depends on a few big donors for its budget depends on a huge base of small donors for its numbers.
| Donor tier | Share of donors | Share of dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Gave $5,000 or more | 3.4% | 78.6% |
| Gave about $100 or less | 49.3% | 1.4% |
Two numbers capture the drift. In 2025, gifts of $1,000 or more grew 4.7% while gifts under $1,000 fell 1.1%, according to the Blackbaud Institute, and large organizations grew 11.7% while small ones shrank 6.4%. Bigger gifts growing alongside a shrinking donor count is the barbell tightening, more dollars from fewer people, which is efficient right up until one of those people leaves.
Why is a broad base still worth it?
Because the base is where major donors come from. No one arrives as a major donor; they start small and climb, so a thinning base today is a thinning major-gift pipeline in a decade. That is why the erosion at the bottom is a real loss, not a rounding error. The number of donors fell 3.6% in 2025, a fifth straight year of decline, and small donors giving $1 to $100, just under half of all donors, fell 7.9% in the same year, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project.
The base also holds better than its gift size suggests once donors give more than once. Retention climbs steeply with gift frequency, from 31.9% after a single gift to 87.4% after seven or more, and first-time donors of any size come back at only 18.9%, so a grassroots donor who becomes a repeat giver is far more durable than a first-time major donor who gave once. Breadth spreads risk, and it also grows the relationships that later become depth.
| Gifts in the prior year | Retained to the next year |
|---|---|
| One | 31.9% |
| Two | 51.9% |
| Three to six | 70.0% |
| Seven or more | 87.4% |
| Donor type | Retained to the next year |
|---|---|
| First-time donors | 18.9% |
| Repeat donors | 59.3% |
The bridge between the two ends is the middle, which is why a mid-level donor program and a major-gift pipeline are how a broad base turns into lasting depth over time.
What does a healthy mix look like?
There is no single correct ratio, and any one number would mislead, because a community food bank and an organization built around a founding gift have honestly different shapes. A healthy mix is less about hitting a target split than about three things being true at once: the top is deep enough to fund the work, the base is wide enough to feed the future, and the middle is real rather than the hollow gap the sector barbell has become.
The metrics that track this over time are your fundraising KPIs: the share of revenue from your top donors, the count of active donors in the base, and how many donors are moving up through the middle each year. Read together, they tell you whether your mix is getting healthier or more fragile.
“Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.”
Donors are not customers, and the parallel is imperfect, but it points at the same truth for both ends of the file: keeping the donors you have, at every level, is what steadies the mix. A base that retains and a top that stays are worth more together than either chased alone.
A worked example: reading a file's mix
Picture a fictional organization, Two Rivers Trust, that raised $1,000,000 last year. Sorting its donors into tiers shows a barbell with a thin middle, the same shape the sector data describes. The numbers below are illustrative.
| Tier | Donors | Share of dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Major (gave $5,000+) | 40 | 70% |
| Mid-level ($1,000 to $4,999) | 120 | 18% |
| Grassroots (under $1,000) | 3,000 | 12% |
Read as a loss, the risk is plain: if a few of Two Rivers' 40 major donors leave, most of the budget goes with them, and only 120 mid-level donors stand between the top and a base of small gifts. The healthy move is not to abandon the major donors who fund the work, but to thicken that middle row and defend the base that feeds it. Donor Insights reads your contacts and gifts to show your own version of this table, and whether the base beneath your top donors is thinning, all from your giving records. The platform names the tiers and the trend; your team does the fundraising in its own tools. The methodology behind those readings starts from your file, not a sector average.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between grassroots and major donors?
- Grassroots donors are many people giving small amounts, which spreads revenue and risk across a wide base. Major donors are a few people carrying most of the dollars, which is efficient but fragile. A healthy file needs both, and the mix between them is what determines its resilience.
- What is a donor barbell?
- A barbell is a file heavy at both ends and thin in the middle: most dollars from a narrow top tier and most donors in a wide bottom tier. Across the sector in 2025, donors giving $5,000 or more supplied 78.6% of dollars while the smallest donors, just under half of all donors, gave 1.4% (Fundraising Effectiveness Project).
- Is a broad grassroots base still worth the cost?
- Yes, because the base feeds the future. No one starts as a major donor; they begin small and climb. A shrinking base today is a shrinking major-gift pipeline later, which is why the 7.9% decline in small donors and the 3.6% drop in donor count in 2025 matter (Fundraising Effectiveness Project).
- What is a healthy donor mix?
- There is no single correct ratio. A healthy mix means the top is deep enough to fund the work, the base is wide enough to feed the future, and the middle is real rather than hollow. The useful reading is your own file over time, watching whether it is drifting toward a barbell.
Sources
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