By Van Mylar for PHILANTHROPY DAILY
For the last thirty years, faith-based fundraising operated on a dependable formula: direct mail, television, and radio drove donor acquisition while loyal supporters kept giving year after year. That era is now ending faster than many nonprofit and faith-based organizations realize. Two of those engines are under pressure, and the third is no longer enough on its own. Leaders who do not reckon with that math this year may spend 2027 explaining a budget shortfall.
If there’s one thing I cannot stress enough to ministries and nonprofits, it’s that audiences have moved, but most fundraising systems have not.
The sixty-five-and-older household remains the most loyal linear television audience in America. But even that audience is changing. Streaming is no longer a youth behavior; it is a household behavior. Nielsen reported that streaming surpassed the combined share of broadcast and cable viewing for the first time in May 2025, and by December 2025, streaming had climbed to 47.5 percent of total TV usage. That is not a trend line; it is a structural reset.
Direct mail is under the same pressure. Mail still works, especially for cultivation, stewardship, renewal, and planned giving. But acquisition mail no longer behaves the way it did twenty years ago. Postage, paper, list quality, printing, and response friction have changed the economics. A ministry can still raise money through the mailbox, but it cannot build tomorrow’s donor file with yesterday’s assumptions.
