Two acronyms do most of the work in small-charity retention, and both describe the same underlying idea: somebody already decided to trust you, and then stopped.
What the acronyms mean
LYBUNT — Last Year But Unfortunately Not This. A donor who gave in the previous fiscal year and has not given in the current one.
SYBUNT — Some Year But Unfortunately Not This. A donor who has given at some point in their history but not in the current year. A wider net that includes the LYBUNT group.
The names are clumsy, and the sector has been trying to replace them for twenty years. They persist because the concept is genuinely useful.
Why this matters more than acquisition
Acquiring a new donor costs several times more than retaining an existing one, and a lapsed donor is not a stranger. They have already made the decision that is hardest to get: that your organization is worth supporting.
For an organization with one fundraiser and no acquisition budget, the lapsed list is the single most productive thing to work. It is also the thing most likely to be neglected, because nothing forces you to look at it.
The three reports you should be able to produce
- Lapsed donors — anyone who gave in a defined earlier period and has not given since. Sortable by amount, so you can start with the largest.
- Retention rate — of the donors who gave last year, what proportion gave again this year. One number, tracked over time.
- Donors at risk — people whose giving pattern has changed. A monthly donor whose gift failed, an annual donor two months past their usual date.
If producing any of these takes more than a minute, it will not happen consistently, and it is the consistency that matters.
What to do with the list
Not a mass email. The reason a lapsed list is valuable is that it is small enough to treat individually.
Start with the largest gifts and work down. Ask what changed rather than asking for money. A meaningful share of lapsed giving is administrative — a card expired, an address changed, an email went to spam — and finding that out costs one phone call.
The system problem underneath
Most small charities can produce a lapsed list eventually, with an afternoon and a spreadsheet. Very few can produce it this morning, which means it happens once a year at best.
The fix is not a better report. It is a system that tells you without being asked — that surfaces the donor who has gone quiet as a task rather than waiting for someone to think of running the query.