Skip to content Skip to footer
Get Consultation
Back to Index
News

Early Trends in 2025 Year-End and Giving Tuesday Fundraising

What We’re Seeing Across 60+ Newsrooms

 

As end-of-year fundraising enters its final stretch, the News Revenue Hub is taking a closer look at national giving trends to understand how our partner newsrooms are performing – and most importantly, where the biggest opportunities remain. While donor behavior is shifting, newsrooms working closely with the Hub are finding new ways to grow, adapt and finish the year in a strong position. We’ll release another analysis like this in early January for the entire end-of-year (11/1-12/31) period. 

How We Analyzed the Data

 

We analyzed Giving Tuesday in isolation, as well as Nov. 1 – Dec. 3, year-over-year trends, across 61 newsrooms and 3 journalism support organizations. For our analysis, we looked at performance network-wide (analyzing all organizations that fundraised in both 2024 and 2025) by market cohort, and by business stage, a new classification that reflects the maturity of a newsroom’s audience and revenue development programs. 

This dataset gives us one of the clearest pictures in the industry of how donor behavior is evolving and where newsrooms have the strongest opportunities to pivot. 

Our market cohorts are: 

  • Local newsrooms 
  • State newsrooms
  • National newsrooms 
  • Journalism support organizations (not newsrooms)

And our business stages, inspired by INN’s business cohorts, are: 

  • Early stage startup (0-3 years): Outlets within the first 3 years of launch. They are just getting off the ground, building out staff and solidifying mission. 
  • Late stage startup (4-6 years): Outlets that are past the first 3 years of launch – they’re solidifying and building out audience and membership programs. 
  • Sustainer (7-15 years): Outlets that have exited the startup phase. Sustainers have more mature audience or membership programs and are identifying one or two revenue streams or audience platforms that work for their organization. 
  • Heavyweight (16+ years): Mature organizations that we may consider legacy; focused on maintaining their revenue base. 

High Level Takeaways 

 

End-of-year fundraising is revealing both encouraging bright spots and emerging pressure points. Together, they show a clear roadmap for where newsrooms can focus their energy to drive meaningful results.

Bright spots:

  • Donor counts are up YoY.
  • Giving Tuesday still delivers meaningful value, contributing nearly 14% of revenue in the first half of EOY, even higher for local outlets.
  • Average gifts increased on Giving Tuesday, particularly for local newsrooms. 
  • Local newsrooms and startups continue to grow their donor bases, proving that audiences are still willing to invest in news they value and trust.
  • 69% of News Revenue Hub consulting clients are up year-over-year in their EOY fundraising so far.
  • 18% of Hub newsrooms raised more than $10,000 on Giving Tuesday alone.
  • One newsroom raised more than $30,000 on Giving Tuesday.

Many Hub organizations are seeing YoY growth across all metrics — we’ll dig into some lessons you can learn from these newsrooms below.

Want to work with the News Revenue Hub? Apply for the Catalyst Subsidy Fund

Learn More

Yellow flags we’re monitoring: 

While revenue and new donor acquisition is softening, these trends point directly to where strategic adjustments can make the biggest difference – and where Hub partners are already finding success. 

  • Although donor counts are up YoY, revenue is down, a sign that audiences are still motivated to give but continued inflation may be leading to lower average gifts.
  • New donor acquisition is down during EOY across newsrooms, one of the most important areas for strategic intervention and where the Hub can help rebuild the pipeline.
  • Fewer new donors are giving recurring gifts, indicating a need to shift strategy and projections. 

Industry data shows similar patterns, with smaller average gifts and fewer recurring payments (as reported by Glueletter, an email analytics platform), and a sector-wide decline in new donors sustained throughout 2025 (as reported by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project).

year-over-year revenue and donor change for newsroom cohorts

Growing Donor Engagement Despite Economic Headwind

Comparison: Nov. 1 – Dec. 3 2025 vs. Nov. 1 – Dec. 3, 2024

Donor engagement is continuing to rise across Hub newsrooms during the year-end campaign, with total donors up +2.7% year-over-year, a clear signal that audiences remain eager to support meaningful journalism even in a softer giving climate. As was the trend last year, growth is strongest among local newsrooms and startups, which continue to expand their donor bases at an impressive pace.

While donors are contributing smaller individual gifts, with donations under $1k making up a larger share of revenue this year versus last, this trend signals broadening participation and an expanding base of community supporters.

New donor acquisition is down 29% in the first half of EOY fundraising, mirroring national trends across the nonprofit sector reported by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. When we conduct our broader analysis in January, we’ll be looking to see if increased fundraising throughout the calendar year has reduced new donors during the EOY time period specifically. 

Though there’s a slight uptick in individual donors, overall revenue across newsrooms is down 2% in the first half of EOY fundraising when comparing Nov. 1 – Dec. 3 2025 to 2024. 

  • Local newsrooms’ EOY revenue is down -0.32%, while median is up +7.2%. 
  • State newsrooms down -1.2%, median down -1.9%.
  • National newsrooms down -4.5%, median up +3.1%. 

This highlights a significant opportunity: newsrooms that focus on reactivation, retention, and deepening relationships with existing audiences stand to capture the most growth in the weeks and months ahead. 

[Data analysis note: We calculated revenue and donor trends by cohorts overall and by median growth. Trends in the median are more descriptive of a typical newsroom’s fundraising experience.]

YOY total donors vs new donors

Zoom In: Giving Tuesday

Comparison: Dec. 2 2025 vs. Dec. 3, 2024

Giving Tuesday continues to matter, but it’s becoming less about a single day and more about how effectively newsrooms can activate their audiences around it. 

Revenue for gifts under $10k on this single day of giving was down by nearly 12% year-over-year across all Hub organizations, which includes non-newsrooms (down 11.6% for newsrooms).

  • Local organizations’ Giving Tuesday revenue as a group were down -20.7%, and on median down -9.29%.
  • National organizations as a group were down –11.3%, and on median were down – 14.8%.
  • State organizations as a group were slightly up +4.3%, and on median up +32.4%.

Giving Tuesday continues to play a powerful role in year-end fundraising, even as donor behavior shifts. Of all donors who gave between Nov. 1-Dec. 3, 8.5% made their gift on Giving Tuesday, and those contributions made up nearly 14% of total revenue during the period. 

For local newsrooms, the day’s influence is even more pronounced: 15% of their early end of year revenue came from Giving Tuesday alone. One of the strongest indicators of Giving Tuesday’s continued value is the higher gift amounts it inspires. Compared to the rest of EOY, Giving Tuesday donors give an average of $68, as compared to $42 for the Nov. 1- Dec. 3 period. 

  • For local and state newsrooms, Giving Tuesday is particularly important for those higher gifts, with local newsrooms getting an average gift of $79 on Giving Tuesday (compared to $44.61 during the month of November-Dec. 3) and state newsrooms seeing an average gift of $74 on that day, compared to $44.80.
  • Giving Tuesday might not be as important for national orgs to get those larger gifts, with the average gift amounts on Giving Tuesday in line with the average gift sizes seen during the first half of EOY fundraising. 

These patterns underscore an important takeaway: Giving Tuesday may be evolving, but it remains one of the best opportunities of the season to motivate larger gifts and activate highly engaged supporters.

Trends

  • Local newsrooms and startups (newsrooms 6 years old or younger) still see donor growth Yoy, both in aggregate and median. Startups saw +22% median donor growth.
  • Sustainers (newsrooms between 7-15 years old) are nearly flat in revenue Yoy (-0.06%), signaling stability but underscoring a need to grow new donors.
  • Heavyweights show stability overall, though national heavyweights saw a median -5.3% revenue decline.

How to win the final weeks of this fundraising season

 

Leverage existing donor enthusiasm.

Your biggest opportunity is leveraging existing donor enthusiasm to grow revenue. Because donor counts are up, especially for local and early-stage newsrooms, you have more people in your pipeline to re-engage. Ask one-time donors to give again or become recurring, ask recurring donors to increase their gifts, and so forth. 

Use your website.

Many Hub member organizations are seeing YoY revenue growth in their campaigns driven by their websites, even when email revenue is down YoY. One statewide newsroom has nearly doubled revenue from on site conversions compared to this time last year by deploying new calls to action (CTA) formats and iterating on language and design. 

You must do more to get more. 

While we expect increased giving around New Year’s Eve based on past-year data, you shouldn’t wait and hope that the final days of your campaign will make up any revenue deltas. Several Hub organizations that are seeing YoY growth started their campaigns earlier and are deploying more tactics throughout the period than they have in years past, including one national organization that has tripled their new donor growth so far compared to this time last year. 

Try something new. 

Several Hub organizations are working with us to pilot new and experimental ideas this fundraising season and seeing gains driven by those new approaches, reinforcing the idea that we must always couple best practices and tried-and-true efforts with experimentation and testing. One local newsroom more than doubled their revenue raised from social media by utilizing a feature in Hootsuite they hadn’t previously.

And remember: you’re not doing this alone.

The News Revenue Hub has spent nearly a decade running end-of-year campaigns with newsrooms of every size, mission, and maturity level. We’ve seen these patterns before. We know what works — and we know how to help you navigate donor behavior that’s shifting in real time.

If you need support with messaging, segmentation, website optimization, or a final-week strategy, reach out to your Hub strategist. There is still plenty of opportunity in these last weeks and our team is here to make sure you finish strong!

What other industry partners have reported 

Stay up-to-date on best practices and key learnings

Sign up for our newsletter