Your donation page is costing you recurring revenue

Recurring donors are worth more over a donor's lifetime and cost less to retain than one-time donors — a fact nonprofit fundraising has understood for years. M+R Benchmarks' 2025 report, based on data from 216 nonprofits, found that despite this, 64% of nonprofits still default their donation pages to a one-time gift, making recurring the option a donor has to actively choose rather than the path of least resistance.

That default matters more than it sounds like it should, because most people take the path that requires the least effort — a well-documented pattern in how defaults shape behavior generally. A donation page that defaults to one-time is quietly steering a share of donors away from recurring giving who might otherwise have opted in, simply because opting in requires an extra click most people won't make.

Why this matters more given where online giving actually stands

The same M+R report found average online revenue for nonprofits grew just 2% in 2024, after a 1% decline in 2023 — close to flat across the sector. In a growth environment, a suboptimal default is a missed opportunity. In a flat one, it's one of the more direct levers a nonprofit actually has, since it doesn't require finding new donors — it requires converting more of the traffic already arriving.

What to actually change

1. 01Set the donation form's default to recurring, with one-time available as a clear, easy alternative — not the reverse.
2. 02Test the donation flow specifically on mobile, given it's now the majority of both traffic and transactions.
3. 03Track the one-time-to-recurring split over time — see what metrics a business dashboard should actually track for the general version of this discipline, applied to giving instead of sales.

See also the matching-gift money most nonprofits never collect for another lever that sits mostly untouched on the same donation page.