Grassroots Donors Are Pulling Back. Fundraisers Say There’s a Fix

Donation-processing platforms like ActBlue saw massive spikes in grassroots contributions in 2025. Not all fundraisers are reaping the rewards. 

With the cost of living remaining persistently high and survey data showing that Americans feel financially strained, some political fundraisers say that they’ve seen a slump in small-dollar donations. It’s not that money has stopped flowing into politics, they say, but rather that more of that money is coming from wealthier donors.

“I think it’s definitely gotten a bit harder to convince people to chip in 10, 20, 50 bucks,” said one Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the fundraising landscape. “The truth is, life is expensive. Do I think things are moving in the right direction? Yeah, of course. But we’re not all the way there. Folks are still kind of buckled down, financially.”

That phenomenon isn’t unique to the current political environment. Fundraisers generally expect grassroots giving to ebb and flow with the larger economic changes. 

Inflation has remained stubbornly elevated for years. And while there are some signs that it may be starting to ease, polling shows that many Americans still feel pinched by the cost of living. A recent New York Times/Siena University poll found that 54 percent of registered voters said that housing is unaffordable. Seventy-seven percent said that achieving a middle-class lifestyle is more difficult than it was a generation ago.

But the small-dollar fundraising struggles aren’t being felt across the board. ActBlue, for example, said that it processed $482 million in contributions in the third quarter of 2025 – a 55 percent increase compared to the same quarter in 2021. Nonprofits similarly saw an increase in contributions on Giving Tuesday in November compared to 2024. 

Overcoming the Slump

Josh Nelson, the CEO of the progressive-aligned ad platform Civic Shout, said that his firm hasn’t seen a drop in small-dollar fundraising, but acknowledged that others are having a harder time. 

He said that part of the reason some campaigns and causes are succeeding where others aren’t lies in their fundraising tactics; donors are more willing to give when they’re treated with respect. 

“Some campaigns and causes are raising more than ever before, while others are struggling,” Nelson said. “The ones seeing continued grassroots fundraising success tend to be those that treat supporters with respect, engage with people authentically and focus on real issues over doom and gloom hyperbole.”

Nelson said that fundraising operations that are struggling need to reevaluate how they’re communicating with grassroots donors.

“Campaign staff and consultants seeing a drop in fundraising results should take a hard look at how they’re engaging with grassroots supporters and ask themselves a simple question: ‘Would I contribute to a campaign that treated me this way?’ ” Nelson said. “In most cases, the answer will be a resounding no.”

Likewise, Mike Hahn, the president of digital strategy and operations at GOP-aligned Frontline Strategies, said that small-dollar contributions still account for 30-plus percent of all donations to campaigns that his firm serviced in 2025. That doesn’t mean there’s not a problem within the broader ecosystem, he said.

“I think the problem, on the right, is the amount of inexperienced vendors that have arrived on the scene that overpromise, underdeliver and flood the market with poor tactics,” Hahn said.

Becky Pittman, the co-founder of GoodChange, said that there are real factors that affect donor behavior: the high cost of living, distrust in politics, donor burnout. 

But, she added, fundraising slumps aren’t purely driven by macro factors. 

“Small-dollar fundraising is facing real headwinds – but declines aren’t inevitable,” Pittman wrote in an email. “The difference is execution: donors who feel respected, informed, and connected vs. spammed and treated like ATMs, especially in a landscape polluted by tragedy-chasing and fake ‘matches.’ ”