Sarah gives for the first time.
$55 a month from her phone. The receipt goes out on its own.
Know who needs
your attention.
Raise money, keep supporters engaged, and see what to do next.
How Cotara works: from first gift to second gift
Cotara notices.
Sarah is new and nobody has been in touch since her first gift. Cotara shows why she needs attention.
Megan owns the next step.
She gets the task, the words and a due date.
Megan sends it.
She edits the thank-you and sends it from her own email.
Cotara shows what happened.
It links each follow-up to what happened next, so you can see which ones bring people back.
Why Cotara is different
A gift gets recorded.
The next step shouldn’t depend on someone remembering.
What you have today
Other fundraising tools
Plenty of donor information. More work deciding what to do with it.
- Donations and activities are recorded.
- Supporter context sits across different tools and notes.
- Staff must identify who needs attention.
- Important follow-ups can get buried in daily work.
- Reports show results, but not always what led to them.
What Cotara adds
Cotara
Know who needs attention, why, and what to do next.
Next best moveObserved
Say thank youSarah is one of your steadiest supporters.
Draft a noteAsk Relationship Director
You review and send. Cotara never sends for you.- Spot first-time donors who need follow-up.
- See why each supporter needs attention.
- Turn insights into tasks with owners and deadlines.
- Prepare personal messages for your team to approve.
- Learn which follow-ups actually bring people back.
The first gift is
only the beginning.
Keeping supporters engaged is the harder part. Cotara is being built to help small fundraising teams know who needs attention and make the follow-up happen.
43.3%
Overall donor retention
Donors who gave in 2024 and returned in 2025.
Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q4 2025Case study18.9%
First-time donor retention
New donors from 2024 who returned in 2025.
Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q4 2025Case study59.3%
Repeat donor retention
Previously established donors who returned in 2025.
Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q4 2025Case studyFrom every gift to every person helped.
Gifts
Monthly and one-time giving, event and QR giving. Receipts go out on their own.
Conversations
What supporters tell you in answers, replies and notes stays with their record.
Showing up
Volunteer sign-ups and event attendance sit beside the gifts.
From your supporters
RecordRememberNext steps
Your fundraising team
Knows who to thank, call or update, with the words ready to edit.
Your program staff
Hear what supporters care about and why they give.
The people you serve
Steady support keeps the meals, tutoring and care going.
Works with the tools you already use
Keep your payments, email and records where they are. Cotara connects to them and adds the next step.
Google SheetsSpreadsheetsAvailable now
Microsoft ExcelSpreadsheetsAvailable now
GmailEmailAvailable now
OutlookEmailAvailable now
MailchimpEmail marketingComing soon
HubSpotCRMComing soon
SalesforceCRMComing soon
BlackbaudDonor CRMComing soon
BloomerangDonor CRMComing soon
QuickBooksAccountingComing soon
XeroAccountingComing soon
ZapierAutomationComing soon
Connect, do not migrate
Bring in the data you already have, and keep working in the tools your team knows.
Go further with our API
Send supporter and gift data to Cotara and read back the next steps.
POST /v1/gifts
{ "supporter": "maya@example.com",
"amount": 5000,
"currency": "usd",
"frequency": "monthly" }Insights
Research and ideas for fundraising teams
Research
EventsWhat happens when a supporter brings someone else?Donor retentionRecurring givingThe donation failed. Did the relationship end?Free tool
We tell fundraisers to make thank-you calls. Do they work?
Half a million new donors. Experts predicted an 80% lift. The calls changed nothing.
The 18.9% problem: what small nonprofits should measure
Four in five first-time donors from 2024 didn’t give again in 2025. Start with the number you can measure.
Donor retention calculator
See your overall and first-time donor retention against the 2025 benchmarks. No sign-up.
PlanningAsk before you launch. Then ask who didn’t answer.
A one-question survey beats guessing. But the people who answer are rarely the people you most need to hear from.
Recurring giving
The donation failed. Did the relationship end?
Two monthly donors miss a payment in the same week. On your report they can look the same. They may need very different things.
Wale Abba
Two monthly donors miss their gift in March.
The first, Mark, has given $25 a month for fourteen months. His card expired in February and the bank issued a new one. He doesn’t know his gift failed.
The second, Anne, has given $40 a month for three years. Her card is fine. She cancelled it with her bank on purpose, because something about your last email didn’t sit right with her.
On your payment report, Mark and Anne can look very similar. Both gifts are missing. Both people may get the same automatic email. And that email is wrong for at least one of them.
A payment failure is not a decision
Most failed monthly gifts happen for ordinary reasons. The card expired. The bank blocked a charge it didn’t recognize. The donor got a new card after a fraud alert. Some payment processors update expired cards automatically when the bank shares new details, but that doesn’t catch every case.
None of these is a choice to stop giving. Mark needs a service, not a conversation. A short, friendly note from a real person with a link to update his card is enough.
Disengagement looks the same on paper
Anne is different. She chose to stop. If she gets a cheerful “your card needs updating” message, it tells her nobody is paying attention. That can turn a quiet exit into a bad one.
A failed payment tells us that money didn’t arrive. Sometimes the reason is technical. Sometimes a supporter has intentionally stopped giving. The payment record may give us clues, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what the person intended. That’s where the next conversation matters.
Banks often share very little about why they refused a charge. Meanwhile the person who knows Anne, and might have noticed the email that upset her, never hears that her gift stopped.
Tell them apart before you act
- Read the decline reason as a clue, not an answer. Your payment processor may record why a charge failed, but banks often give little detail, and a code can’t tell you what the donor intended.
- Look at the recent history. Did this person reply to anything, complain, or stop opening emails before the gift stopped?
- Let a person decide the message. Where it looks like a card problem, a two-line note and an update link. Where it looks deliberate, someone who asks, without pressure, whether something changed.
- Give each missing gift an owner. One name, one date. Otherwise both cases default to the automatic email.
What I don’t know
I can’t tell you how many failed gifts in a typical organization are card problems and how many are quiet cancellations. I haven’t seen good public data on it, and I suspect it varies a lot. That’s exactly why it’s worth checking your own. Pull the last 90 days of failed gifts, read what the records say, ask a few of the people involved, and see what you find.
Mark and Anne both stopped giving in March. Only one of them meant to.
Mark and Anne are composite examples. Names and details are illustrative.
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Donor retention
The second gift is the hard one: your first 30 days with a new donor
Tunde gave $60 to the spring appeal. He got a receipt within a minute. Then nothing.
Six months later the autumn appeal arrived in his inbox. It was the first time the charity had written to him since the receipt. It asked him for money.
Tunde did not give again. He did not decide against it. He just felt like a stranger being asked for a favour.
What breaks
Most teams treat a first gift as the end of a campaign. The money is counted, the receipt goes out, and the team moves on to the next appeal.
For the donor, the first gift is the start. They took a small risk. They want to know what happened to it, and whether anyone noticed.
The gap between the first gift and the next message is where donors drift away.
A plan for the first 30 days
- Day 0: a receipt that sounds human. Say what the gift does. "Your $60 pays for six tutoring sessions." Not "Thank you for your contribution."
- Day 2: a personal thank-you. From someone who knows the work: a short note or a two-minute call. It does not need to be long. It needs to be real.
- Day 10: a story, with no ask. Show one thing that happened because of the campaign.
- Day 21: an invitation to see the work. A visit, an open evening, a volunteer morning. Seeing it matters more than reading about it.
- Day 30: a question, not a request. "What made you decide to give?" The answer tells you what to say next.
The next ask comes after the donor has heard from you at least three times.
What to avoid
- Do not put a first-time donor on the same list as a ten-year donor and send them the same message.
- Do not send the thank-you only after the campaign closes. By then it is weeks late.
Try this week
Look at the people who gave for the first time last year. How many gave again? That is your baseline. Write it down. Then choose the next five first-time donors and give each of them the plan above. In three months, compare.
How Cotara helps
Cotara spots first-time donors who have not given again. It drafts a short welcome series for you: emails and a call script. You edit the words and send them from your own email, on your own schedule.
Common questions
What counts as a second gift?
Any gift from the same person after their first one, in any campaign. Count it over a fixed window, for example twelve months, so you can compare year to year.
Is a phone call too much for a small first gift?
No. A two-minute thank-you call to a new donor is one of the best uses of staff time. Start with the ten most recent donors and see how it feels.
When is it right to ask again?
After the donor has heard from you at least three times without an ask. The exact gap depends on your calendar. The rule is to give before you ask.
Tunde is a composite example. Names and details are illustrative.
See how Cotara helps your team do this
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own campaign.
Book a DemoMore guides
Recurring giving
The donation failed. Did the relationship end?
A declined card is rarely a decision to stop. Here is how to keep the donor.
EventsWhat happens when a supporter brings someone else?
Many of your guests may be people you have never met. Do not lose them.
ReportsA board report your board will actually read
One page, five parts, and a date you set on day one.
Events
What happens when a supporter brings someone else?
We know who bought the tables and what the night raised. We rarely know who came because someone they trusted asked them.
Wale Abba
Something interesting happens at fundraising events, and most of us don’t record it.
A community food bank holds a gala for 180 people. The team knows about 120 of them. The other sixty came as guests of table hosts. One of those hosts, a long-time volunteer named Carol, filled her table with neighbors who had never heard of the food bank.
The next morning, everyone who bought a ticket gets a thank-you. The sixty guests get nothing. Their names are on a paper sign-in sheet. And nowhere in the database does it say that six of them came because Carol asked.
The relationship we don’t keep
The guest list tells you who attended. It doesn’t tell you why. Carol may have been the reason those neighbors first walked through the door. What happened afterward could tell us whether that introduction developed into a relationship with the organization.
When we lose that link, two things go wrong. We follow up with the guests as if they were strangers, and we never thank Carol for the thing she actually did, which was to vouch for us.
What the research says about asking people to share
There’s evidence that how we invite supporters to bring others in matters. In a field experiment with 77,485 donors, published in Marketing Science in 2023, Ike Silver and Deborah Small tested two versions of a request to share a donation. The standard version asked people to share. The other told donors their gift could start a chain reaction.
The chain-reaction version increased click-through by 5.1% and the likelihood of recruiting at least one later donation through word of mouth by 12.4%. That’s one experiment, online, with one organization’s donors, so I wouldn’t treat it as a rule. But it supports something I believe: the person who brings someone else is doing real work for your cause, and the way we ask shapes whether they do it.
Keep the link
- At check-in, ask who invited them. One extra field. It’s the most useful thing you’ll collect all night.
- Thank the inviter first. Carol should hear from you before her guests do, and she should hear what her table meant.
- Let the introduction carry on. A short note to guests, from you and in Carol’s name if she agrees, beats a generic newsletter signup.
- Only write to people who said yes. Ask clearly at the door, keep the answer with the record, and follow the privacy and anti-spam rules where you operate.
Six months later, you’ll be able to ask a question most organizations can’t: which of our supporters bring others in, and what happens to the people they bring?
The food bank and Carol are composite examples. Names and details are illustrative.
Sources
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Reports
A board report your board will actually read
Ruth is the executive director of a youth centre. Her Spring Appeal report was due on November 24.
She wrote it on November 23, after the children had gone home. It was fourteen pages. It had every number she could find.
At the board meeting, the chair turned to page one and asked a single question: "Did we do what we said we would do?" The answer was somewhere on page nine.
What breaks
Most reports are written from memory at the deadline. They list what the team did, not what the team promised. Nobody checks whether the report arrived on time. And the board reads the first page, so the first page decides everything.
One page, five parts
- What we promised. The goal and what the money would do, as you told donors.
- What we raised. The total, the number of donors, and how many were new.
- What we did with it. Planned against actual, in plain numbers. If a number is different, say why.
- What surprised us. One thing. It shows the board you are paying attention.
- What comes next. Two or three actions, each with a name and a date.
Everything else goes into an appendix, for the people who want it.
Set the date on day one
When you launch a campaign, choose the report date and tell your donors. Now the report is a promise, and a promise gets done. Keep a simple count: how many campaigns did we report on time? A board likes a number like "4 of 4".
Write as you go
Keep a running note during the campaign. Two lines a week: what happened and what you decided. When the deadline arrives, most of the report is already written.
Try this week
Take your last report. Cut it to one page using the five parts. Show it to one board member and ask what they would still want to know.
How Cotara helps
Cotara tracks every campaign against its report date and shows how many you sent on time. When a report is due, it drafts one from your results. You review it, edit it and send it.
Common questions
How long should a board report be?
One page for the main report, with an appendix for details. If the board cannot find the answer to "did we do what we said?" in thirty seconds, shorten it.
Should donors get the same report?
Give donors a shorter, warmer version of the same facts: what you promised, what you raised and what you did with it. Send it by the date you promised.
What if we missed our goal?
Say so on page one. Explain what you learned and what you will change. Boards trust honest reports more than perfect ones.
Ruth is a composite example. Names and details are illustrative.
See how Cotara helps your team do this
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own campaign.
Book a DemoMore guides
Recurring giving
The donation failed. Did the relationship end?
A declined card is rarely a decision to stop. Here is how to keep the donor.
Donor retentionThe second gift is the hard one: your first 30 days with a new donor
A receipt is not a welcome. A simple 30-day plan for first-time donors.
EventsWhat happens when a supporter brings someone else?
Many of your guests may be people you have never met. Do not lose them.
Faith communities
When giving changes, who should notice? A guide for churches
A family gave every week until June. After August they gave nothing. By then they had also stopped coming on Sundays.
The church treasurer saw it in November, while preparing year-end tax receipts. She mentioned it to nobody. It was not her role, and it felt private.
In February the pastor learned that the father had lost his job in the summer. The family had needed help for six months.
What breaks
The first sign of trouble was in the giving record. It was read as a finance report, by the one person who does not do pastoral care. The people who care for others never saw it.
This is not a case for pastors to watch what people give. Many churches rightly keep amounts private. It is a case for a small, careful step between the finance office and the care team.
A respectful way to do it
- Keep amounts in the finance office. Nobody else needs to see what a family gave.
- Share only a change. "This household's pattern changed." No amounts, no history.
- Send it to one named person. Choose one trusted person on the care team. Not a committee.
- Make the first step a visit or a call, never a question about money. "We missed you. How are you?"
- Ask. Do not assume. A change can mean a new job, a trip, a move to another giving method, or a hard season. Only the family can tell you which.
Tell your members
Put it in plain words in your member guide. "We look for changes so we can care for you. We never discuss what you give." Members who know the rule trust it.
Try this month
Ask your treasurer and your care lead to meet for fifteen minutes. Agree who receives a "pattern changed" note, how often, and what the first response will be. Write it on one page.
How Cotara helps
Cotara shows which supporters' giving has changed and suggests a short, caring note or call. You choose who sees what. Your team sends the message and records what happened.
Common questions
Is it appropriate for a church to look at giving patterns?
It can be, if members know about it, the finance office keeps amounts private, and the only purpose is care. Check with your leadership and, where needed, your denomination or legal adviser.
What if the change is nothing serious?
That is the most common outcome. A kind check-in costs little and is rarely unwelcome. Never mention giving in the conversation.
Who should receive the note?
One trusted person on the care team, not a committee. Fewer people means more privacy and a faster response.
This family is a composite example. Names and details are illustrative.
See how Cotara helps your team do this
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own campaign.
Book a DemoMore guides
Recurring giving
The donation failed. Did the relationship end?
A declined card is rarely a decision to stop. Here is how to keep the donor.
Donor retentionThe second gift is the hard one: your first 30 days with a new donor
A receipt is not a welcome. A simple 30-day plan for first-time donors.
EventsWhat happens when a supporter brings someone else?
Many of your guests may be people you have never met. Do not lose them.
Planning
Ask before you launch. Then ask who didn’t answer.
A one-question survey beats guessing. But the people who answer are rarely the people you most need to hear from.
Wale Abba
A community center was planning its 2027 campaigns. The board chose three priorities in one meeting, from experience and instinct. One member was sure parents cared most about the Saturday STEM club. Another thought it was the meal program. Nobody asked a parent.
So the next year, they did. They sent one short question to their email list: “What should we focus on in 2027?” Ninety people answered. The STEM club won easily.
Then someone looked at who had answered.
Who answers your survey
Most of the ninety were long-time donors and volunteers. Very few were families who used the meal program, because most of those families weren’t on the email list. Some didn’t read English comfortably. Some had never been asked anything by the center before.
The survey told them what the respondents thought. The mistake was assuming the respondents spoke for the whole community. It reached the people who were already closest to the organization, and their view was treated as everyone’s.
Asking well
- Ask one question. “What should we focus on next year?” with three to five options in plain words, and room for people to add their own.
- Say how you’ll use it. “This is input, not a vote. The board decides, and we’ll tell you what we chose.”
- Keep it short and open. No account, no password. It should take a minute.
Reaching the people you don’t usually hear from
- Ask where people already are. At the pickup line, the meal hall, the front desk. A paper card and a pen still work.
- Ask in the languages your community speaks. If you serve families in more than one language, ask in all of them.
- Compare who answered with who you serve. If the answers come mostly from donors and the program serves mostly families, say so when you report the results.
- Let people stay anonymous. Some will only tell you what they think if they don’t have to give a name.
Close the loop
Tell everyone what you decided and why, including the people whose favorite didn’t win. “Donors told us STEM club. Families at the meal program told us meals. Here’s how we’re funding both.” People who see their answer used are more likely to answer next time.
The board may still choose the same priorities. The difference is that now they’ll know whose priorities they are.
This community center is a composite example. Names and details are illustrative.
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Legal
Terms and Conditions
These terms form the agreement between Cotara Finance Technology LLC ("Cotara", "we", "us") and the organization that uses Cotara ("you", "Customer"). Read them before you create an account.
1. Who these terms cover
Cotara is fundraising software for nonprofit and mission-driven organizations. You may use Cotara only for a business or organizational purpose. The person who accepts these terms must have authority to bind the organization.
These terms apply to the Cotara website, the Cotara application, Cotara Relationship Director, and any related service (together, the "Service").
2. Your account
- Give accurate information when you sign up and keep it current.
- Keep your sign-in details secret. You are responsible for all activity under your account.
- Tell us at once if you think someone has used your account without permission.
- You decide who on your team has access. Give each person only the access they need.
3. Plan and payment
The Cotara plan costs $299 per month. Cotara Relationship Director is included at no extra charge. All prices are in US dollars and exclude taxes.
- New accounts get the first month free. After that, we bill in advance for the period you choose (monthly, quarterly or annually), using the payment method you provide. The current prices for each period are on our Pricing page.
- You may cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. We do not give refunds for part of a period, unless the law requires it.
- We will give you at least 30 days' notice before we change the price or the content of the plan.
- If a payment fails, we will tell you. We may suspend the Service if the payment is still unpaid after a reasonable notice period.
4. Donations and payment processing
Cotara uses Stripe to process donations and subscription payments. Your use of Stripe is also subject to Stripe's own terms. Stripe sets and charges its own processing fees.
Donations go to your organization through your Stripe account. Cotara does not hold donated funds on your behalf and is not a bank or money transmitter.
5. Your responsibilities as a fundraiser
You are responsible for how you raise and use money and how you contact people. In particular, you must:
- hold any registration, license or tax status your fundraising needs;
- issue receipts, acknowledgements and tax documents that your local law requires (for example in the US, the UK and Canada). Cotara provides tools. It does not give tax or legal advice;
- have a lawful basis, and where required, consent, to contact supporters and to keep their information;
- honor opt-outs and unsubscribe requests;
- describe your cause, your campaigns and your use of funds truthfully.
6. Your data
You own your data. This includes supporter, donation, event and campaign information that you or your supporters put into Cotara ("Customer Data"). You give Cotara the right to host, process and display Customer Data only to run, secure and support the Service for you, and as the law requires.
When we process personal information in Customer Data for you, we do so on your instructions. Our Privacy Policy and Data Governance pages describe how. If your law requires a data processing agreement, ask us and we will sign one.
7. Suggestions from Cotara Relationship Director
Cotara Relationship Director suggests who to contact and what to say. It may be wrong or incomplete. A person on your team must review every suggestion before it is used. Cotara does not send a message to a supporter unless a person on your team approves it. You are responsible for what you send.
8. Acceptable use
You must not use the Service to:
- break the law or the rights of other people;
- raise money by fraud, deception or for an unlawful purpose;
- send spam or contact people who have opted out;
- upload malicious code, or try to gain access to accounts, systems or data that are not yours;
- copy, resell or reverse-engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product;
- put in sensitive information that you have no right or need to hold.
We may suspend an account that breaks this section. Where we can, we will tell you first.
9. Early access features
Some features are marked "Early access". They may change, be incomplete, or be withdrawn. We provide them as they are, and we welcome your feedback on them.
10. Our property
Cotara, its software, design, name and logo belong to Cotara. These terms give you a limited, non-exclusive right to use the Service for your organization while you have an active plan. You may not transfer that right. If you give us feedback, we may use it without payment or obligation to you.
11. Confidentiality
Each side will keep the other's non-public information confidential, use it only for the purpose of these terms, and protect it with reasonable care. This does not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiver, or that the law requires a side to disclose.
12. Availability and support
We work to keep the Service available and secure, but we do not promise that it will run without interruption or error. We may carry out maintenance, and we will try to give notice of planned work. Contact us at hello@usecotara.com for support.
13. Disclaimers
To the full extent the law allows, we provide the Service "as is" and "as available". We do not give any warranty, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. We do not promise any level of donations, growth or fundraising result.
14. Limit of liability
To the full extent the law allows, neither side is liable to the other for indirect, special, incidental or consequential loss, or for lost profit or lost donations. Cotara's total liability for any claim connected with the Service is limited to the amount you paid Cotara in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim. These limits do not apply to liability that the law does not allow a party to limit, or to your duty to pay fees.
15. Indemnity
You will defend and compensate Cotara against claims by a third party that arise from your Customer Data, your fundraising activity, or your breach of these terms. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and give you reasonable help.
16. Ending the agreement
You may stop using Cotara at any time. We may end the agreement if you break these terms and do not fix the problem within 15 days of our notice, or at once for serious or repeated breach, fraud or legal risk.
After the agreement ends, you can export your Customer Data for 30 days. After that, we delete it as set out in our Data Governance page. Sections that by their nature should continue (for example sections 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 18) continue after the end of the agreement.
17. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. For a material change we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email or in the Service. If you keep using the Service after that date, you accept the new terms. If you do not agree, you may cancel before the change takes effect.
18. Governing law and disputes
The laws of the State of Texas, United States, govern these terms, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The state and federal courts located in Texas have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, and each side agrees to that jurisdiction. Before either side starts a claim, both sides will first try in good faith to resolve the matter by direct discussion for 30 days.
19. General
These terms, with any order form we agree with you, are the whole agreement between us on this subject. If a part is found to be unenforceable, the rest stays in force. You may not assign these terms without our written consent. A delay in using a right is not a waiver of it. Neither side is liable for failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control.
20. Contact
Cotara Finance Technology LLC, Texas, United States. Email: legal@usecotara.com.
Legal
Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Cotara Finance Technology LLC ("Cotara", "we", "us") handles personal information. We keep it short and plain. It covers three groups of people: visitors to our website, people who use Cotara for an organization, and supporters whose information an organization keeps in Cotara.
1. Our role
- For visitors and account holders (for example, a person who asks for a demo or signs in): Cotara decides why and how the information is used. We are the controller (or "business").
- For supporters of an organization (donors, volunteers, event guests): the nonprofit that uses Cotara decides why and how their information is used. Cotara is the processor (or "service provider") and acts on the organization's instructions. If you are a supporter, contact the organization first about your information.
2. What we collect
From visitors and account holders:
- Name, work email, organization, role, and what you tell us when you book a demo or contact us.
- Account and sign-in details, and billing information for the plan (card details are held by Stripe, not by us).
- Technical data such as device type, browser, pages viewed and approximate location from your IP address.
On behalf of organizations (Customer Data):
- Supporter contact details, gift history, receipts, event attendance, communication history and notes that the organization's team records.
- Information that supporters give through donation pages, forms and surveys.
We ask organizations not to put in information they have no need to hold. We do not ask for or need government identity numbers or full card numbers.
3. How we use information
- To provide, run, secure and support the Service.
- To process donations and subscription payments through Stripe.
- To send receipts, service messages and, for supporters, the messages that an organization's team approves.
- To answer questions, book demos and send product information to organizations (you can opt out at any time).
- To keep the Service safe, prevent fraud and meet legal duties.
- To measure and improve the Service, using information that is aggregated and de-identified so that it does not identify a person.
Cotara does not use one organization's identifiable supporter information to serve another organization.
4. Our legal bases (UK and EU visitors)
Where the UK or EU GDPR applies, we rely on: performance of a contract (to run your account); legitimate interests (to secure and improve the Service, and to reply to business enquiries); legal obligation (for example tax and accounting); and consent (where we ask for it, which you may withdraw at any time).
5. We do not sell your information
We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context advertising. We do not use supporter information for advertising.
6. Who we share it with
We share information only as needed to run the Service, with:
- Payment provider: Stripe, to process payments.
- Infrastructure providers: cloud hosting, storage, email delivery and monitoring services that work under contract and process data only for us.
- Professional advisers (for example lawyers and accountants) under a duty of confidentiality.
- Authorities, where the law requires it, or to protect rights and safety.
- A successor, if Cotara is part of a merger or sale. We will tell you before your information becomes subject to a different policy.
A list of the categories of service providers we use is available on request.
7. Transfers across borders
Cotara serves organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Information may be processed in the United States and in other countries where our providers operate. Where the law requires it, we use approved transfer safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses.
8. How long we keep information
- Customer Data stays for as long as the organization has an account. After the account ends, the organization can export it for 30 days. We then delete it within a further 60 days, unless the law requires us to keep it. Backups expire on a regular cycle.
- Billing and tax records stay for the period the law requires.
- Demo and enquiry information stays until you ask us to delete it, or for up to 24 months after our last contact.
9. Security
We protect information with measures that suit the risk, including encryption in transit and at rest, access limited by role, sign-in controls, and logging of access to sensitive records. No system is perfectly secure. If we confirm a breach that affects personal information, we will tell the affected organization without undue delay, so it can meet its own duties. More detail is on our Data Governance page.
10. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or move your personal information, to object to some uses, and to withdraw consent. Residents of California and other US states have similar rights, including the right not to be treated unfairly for using them. Canadian and UK residents have rights under PIPEDA, provincial laws and the UK GDPR.
- If you are a supporter: send your request to the organization you gave to. If you write to us, we will pass it to that organization.
- If you are a visitor or account holder: email data@usecotara.com. We will reply within 30 days. We may need to confirm who you are first.
You may also complain to your data protection authority, for example the UK Information Commissioner's Office or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
11. Cookies
Our public website uses only the browser storage needed to remember your light or dark theme choice. We do not use advertising cookies. If we add analytics, we will update this section and ask for consent where the law requires.
12. Children
Cotara is for organizations and is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect information from children for our own purposes. Organizations that collect information from young people are responsible for lawful consent.
13. Changes
We will post changes on this page and update the date below. For a material change, we will also notify account holders by email.
14. Contact
Cotara Finance Technology LLC, Texas, United States. Email: data@usecotara.com.
Legal
Data Governance
Nonprofits give Cotara their supporters' information. This page states the rules we follow to look after it. It is a commitment to our customers and complements our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
1. Principles
- Your data is yours. Each organization owns its supporter, gift and campaign data.
- Purpose first. We use data only to run Cotara for the organization that supplied it.
- Least access. People and systems see only what their job needs.
- People decide. Suggestions come from Cotara. A person on your team approves anything that reaches a supporter.
- Be clear about what we know. Results in Cotara carry a label that shows how strong the evidence is: Observed, Associated, Contribution or Causal.
- No selling. We do not sell supporter data or use it for advertising.
2. Who is responsible
- The organization (Customer) is responsible for what it collects, why it collects it, and who on its team may see it.
- Cotara is responsible for the security of the platform and for processing data only on the Customer's instructions.
- Internal owner: a named Cotara leader owns security and privacy, reviews access each quarter and handles requests. Contact: data@usecotara.com.
3. Data we hold, by sensitivity
| Level | Examples | Handling |
|---|---|---|
| Restricted | Sign-in secrets, payment tokens, private notes about care or wellbeing | Encrypted. Access by role only. Access is logged. Card numbers are held by Stripe, not by Cotara. |
| Confidential | Supporter names, emails, gift history, communication history | Encrypted. Visible only to the Customer's team, by role. |
| Internal | Aggregated and de-identified service measures | Used to measure and improve the Service. Cannot identify a person. |
| Public | Donation pages, published reports | Published only by the Customer. |
4. Access control
- Role-based access for each Customer team. The Customer's administrator assigns roles.
- Sensitive views, such as gift amounts, can be limited to specific roles. A Customer may keep amounts private from program or pastoral staff.
- Cotara staff do not browse Customer Data. Support access needs a reason, is limited in time and is logged.
- Sign-in controls, with multi-factor authentication for Cotara staff.
5. Security
- Encryption in transit and at rest.
- Separation of each Customer's data from every other Customer's data.
- Logging and monitoring of access to sensitive records.
- Regular updates and review of the code and systems we depend on.
- Secrets and keys held in managed storage and not in code.
6. Responsible use of suggestions
- Cotara Relationship Director shows suggestions and the reason for each. A person approves before anything is sent.
- Notes about supporters should be written as things the team could say to the supporter. Do not record guesses about a person's character, health or beliefs.
- A Customer can review, correct or delete any note about a supporter.
7. Using data to improve Cotara
We may use aggregated, de-identified information to measure how the Service performs and to improve it. It cannot reasonably identify a person or a Customer. We do not use one Customer's identifiable supporter data to serve another Customer, and we do not train a shared model on identifiable supporter data.
8. Retention and deletion
- Data stays while the account is active.
- After the account ends, the Customer has 30 days to export.
- We then delete Customer Data within 60 days. Backups expire on a regular cycle.
- A Customer may ask us to delete a single supporter's data at any time. We act within 30 days.
9. Supporter rights
We help each Customer answer requests from its supporters to access, correct, delete or move their data. Supporters should contact the organization they gave to. If a request reaches us, we pass it on and do not answer it ourselves.
10. Service providers
Every provider that handles personal information for us works under a written contract. The contract requires confidentiality, security measures, and use of the data only on our instructions. We use Stripe for payments. We review providers before we use them and when their service changes. A list of the categories of provider is available on request.
11. Incidents
- We contain and investigate the issue.
- If personal information is affected, we tell the affected Customer without undue delay, with what we know, what we are doing and what the Customer may need to do.
- We help the Customer meet its duty to notify supporters and regulators.
- We review the cause and fix it.
12. Legal requests
If an authority asks us for Customer Data, we send the request to the Customer where the law allows. We share only what we are legally bound to share.
13. Review
We review this page at least once a year and when our practice changes. Questions: data@usecotara.com.
PricingOne plan.
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Cotara
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Everything you need to raise, grow and prove
- Campaigns and donation pages
- One-time and monthly giving
- Automatic receipts
- Events and QR giving
- Supporter timelinesEarly access
- Cotara Relationship DirectorEarly access
- Reports for boards and fundersEarly access
TodayStart free. No charge for 30 days.
After one monthYour first payment, on the plan you chose.
Any timeCancel, or switch how you pay.
Questions
How does the free month work?
You start with one month free. You are charged at the end of that month, on the plan you chose, unless you cancel before then.
Can I change how I pay?
Yes. You can switch between monthly, quarterly and annual billing when your current period ends.
What happens if I cancel?
You keep access until the end of the period you have paid for. You can export your data for 30 days after that.
Are there extra fees?
The plan price is the price of Cotara and excludes tax. Donations also carry payment processing fees, which are separate from the plan price.
Which countries do you support?
Cotara is built for nonprofits in the US, the UK and Canada.
Is Cotara Relationship Director an add-on?
No. Cotara Relationship Director is part of the plan. Some features are in early access, and we label each one.
Research
We tell fundraisers to make thank-you calls. Do they work?
Half a million new donors took part. Thank-you calls didn’t change whether they gave again, though experts predicted they would.
Wale Abba
Picture a fundraising team that makes 200 thank-you calls in a month. Every call gets made. The task list turns green. At the next meeting, everyone agrees it was a good month.
Now ask a different question. Not how many calls were completed, but what changed because they were made.
We measure whether the call happened. But how often do we measure whether it changed anything?
What the experiment found
In 2023, the economist Anya Samek and Chuck Longfield, formerly chief scientist at Blackbaud, published a field experiment in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. They worked with 70 public television stations and a large national nonprofit. More than half a million first-time donors took part. Some were assigned at random to receive a thank-you call that described the impact of their gift and asked for nothing. The others got no call.
They followed those donors for at least a year, and in some cases five. The calls made no measurable difference to whether people gave again, and no difference to how much they gave when they did.
Before the results came in, the researchers asked fundraising professionals what they expected. The experts predicted the calls would raise retention by 80%.
The gap between what we believe works and what we can show works is bigger than most of us admit.
What it doesn’t mean
It doesn’t mean thanking people is pointless. Gratitude has value of its own, and a call can do things a retention number won’t capture. It also doesn’t mean every kind of contact fails. This was one kind of call, for first-time donors, in two settings.
Timing matters too. According to the authors, most calls were made by paid callers three to seven months after the first gift. So the study doesn’t tell us whether a personal call within a day or two of the gift would have the same result. That’s an open question, and an important one.
What it does mean is that “we followed up” isn’t the same as “we made a difference.” Those are two different claims, and most of our reporting only checks the first one.
The better question
Most fundraising advice is about doing more: more calls, more stories, more touches. I think the more useful question is narrower.
Which follow-up, for which supporter, under what circumstances, actually changes what happens next?
A new donor who gave once after a gala might need something different from a neighbor who has given every December for six years. A thank-you that works for one may be noise to the other. We rarely test this. We repeat what feels right.
How a small team can test it
Samek has suggested a simple approach: hold the calls back from a random 10% of donors and compare how often each group gives again. You don’t need a research budget for that. You need a list, a coin flip and patience.
- Pick one follow-up you already do, such as a thank-you call or a welcome email.
- Leave out a random group of about one in ten, and write down who they are.
- Six to twelve months later, compare the repeat-giving rate for both groups.
Be honest about the limits. A small nonprofit may simply have too few donors to detect a real difference, and one test won’t settle anything. It will still teach you more than assuming.
So here’s the question I’d put to any team, including mine. If you complete every follow-up task this month, how will you know whether any of them made a difference?
Sources
- Samek, A. and Longfield, C. (2023). “Do Thank-You Calls Increase Charitable Giving? Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15(2): 103–24
- USC Schaeffer Center, “Do thank-you calls increase charitable giving?” (calls made 3–7 months after the first gift)
- The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Thank-you calls show no impact on giving”
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Donor retention
The 18.9% problem: what small nonprofits should measure
Dollars are up and donors are down. For a small nonprofit, the number that matters most is one most teams never calculate.
Wale Abba
Imagine your nonprofit had 400 donors last year. If your retention matched the sector benchmark of 43.3%, about 173 of them would give again this year. That leaves 227 people to replace just to keep the same number of donors.
Now ask yourself a harder question. How much of your team’s time goes into finding new donors, and how much into understanding why existing ones don’t come back?
That 400-donor organization is an illustration, not a forecast. Your own numbers will be different. But the arithmetic is the reason I think retention deserves more attention than it gets.
What the 2025 data shows
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project tracks giving across 15,102 organizations and 7.8 million donors. Its Q4 2025 report found that charitable dollars rose 5.0%, the strongest growth in five years. The number of donors fell 3.6%, the fifth straight annual decline. Overall donor retention moved from 43.1% to 43.3%.
Most of the growth came from major and very large donors, while participation from small donors kept falling. More money is coming from fewer people. A large charity can absorb that. A small one usually can’t.
The number most teams don’t calculate
The overall figure hides two very different groups. According to the FEP figures for 2025, as cited by Bloomerang, 18.9% of new donors from 2024 gave again in 2025. Donors with an established giving history returned at 59.3%.
That’s the 18.9% problem. Four in five first-time donors from 2024 did not give again in 2025, and first-time retention was essentially flat compared with the year before.
One detail matters here. This is retention across calendar years. It isn’t the share of donors who ever make a second gift. Someone who first gave in January 2024 could have given again that same year and still not appear as retained in 2025.
What those numbers don’t say
It’s tempting to read the gap between 18.9% and 59.3% as proof that a second gift turns someone into a loyal donor. I don’t think the data supports that. The 59.3% describes people who already had a giving history. It doesn’t tell us what caused their loyalty.
The same caution applies to FEP data showing that donors with more past gifts return more often. Through the third quarter of 2024, people with one gift returned at 18.6%, two gifts at 38.1%, and three to six gifts at 61.2%. That’s a pattern across donors, not proof that any single action moves someone up the ladder. People who were already more committed may simply give more often.
A number can tell you where to look. It can’t tell you what to do.
What I’d measure instead
- Your own first-time retention. Of the people who gave for the first time last year, how many gave again? Write it down. It’s your baseline.
- How it varies. Compare first-time donors from events, online appeals and referrals. They often behave differently.
- Time to second gift. The share of new donors who make a second gift within 90, 180 and 365 days of their first. It measures the second gift more directly than calendar-year retention.
- Whether anyone followed up, and when. Not to prove follow-up works, but to know what actually happened.
- What changed because of it. If you can, hold back one follow-up from a random group and compare. I explain why in this piece on thank-you calls.
You can work out your own figures with the free donor retention calculator.
The sector’s numbers will move slowly. The more useful thing is to know your own, and to be honest about what you do and don’t yet know about why they move.
The 400-donor nonprofit is an illustration. It applies the FEP average to a sample donor file.
Sources
- Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q4 2025 report
- AFP, “Fundraising Effectiveness Project reports strongest revenue growth in five years, even as fewer donors give” (April 2026)
- Bloomerang, “Donor retention” (citing FEP Q4 2025 new and repeat donor rates)
- NonProfit PRO, FEP data through Q3 2024 (retention by number of gifts)
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Free tool
Donor retention calculator
See how many of your donors gave again, how your first-time donors compare, and how many new donors you need just to stand still. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Calculator
Overall retention–Sector average 43.3%
First-time donor retention–Sector average 18.9%
New donors needed to stay level–Donors you lost, to replace next year
If first-time retention rose 10 points–More second-time donors next year
Benchmarks: Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Q4 2025 report (overall retention 43.3%; first-time donor retention 18.9%, as cited by Bloomerang). Your own trend matters more than the average.
How donor retention is calculated
Take everyone who gave last year. Count how many of them gave again this year. Divide the second number by the first and multiply by 100. That’s your donor retention rate.
Do the same for first-time donors on their own. It’s usually the lower number, and the one that moves fastest when someone owns the follow-up.
What to do with your number
- Below the sector average? Start with first-time donors. Give each one a named owner and a thank-you within days of the first gift.
- Above it? Look at loyal donors who are late this year. They rarely say goodbye, so someone has to notice.
- Either way, check the number every quarter, not once a year.
For the full picture, read The 18.9% problem and whether thank-you calls change retention.
Insights
just launchedCotara 2.0 is here: a new look and new featuresThe weekly list, Tasks and Outcomes. Rolling out now in early access.Read the announcement →The fundraising resource.
Data, research, and decision frameworks for fundraising leaders who want to work smarter, from the Cotara team and our network of sector experts.
We tell fundraisers to make thank-you calls. Do they work?
Half a million new donors. Experts predicted an 80% lift. The calls changed nothing.
The 18.9% problem: what small nonprofits should measure
What happens when a supporter brings someone else?
recent postAsk before you launch. Then ask who didn’t answer.
A one-question survey beats guessing. But the people who answer are rarely the people you most need to hear from.
free toolRetention calculator
43.3%What’s yours?Free tools
Free tools for better follow-up decisions
Measure, test and plan with your own data. No sign-up, no login, and nothing leaves your browser.
Time to second gift
Upload a gift export. See what share of new donors gave again within 90, 180 and 365 days.
Use the tool → TestHoldout test builder
Split your donor list at random so you can see whether a follow-up actually changes giving.
Use the tool → PlanRetention impact calculator
See what a few points of retention are worth over three years, in donors and in dollars.
Use the calculator → BenchmarkDonor retention calculator
Compare your overall and first-time donor retention with the 2025 sector benchmarks.
Use the calculator →Get started
Book a DemoSee who needs attention in your own data.
Cotara reads the data you already have, shows who needs a follow-up and why, and records what happened next.
Product
Cotara 2.0 is here: a new look and new features
A cleaner Cotara, with three features built around one idea: the right next step for every supporter, and a record of what happened.
Wale Abba
A new look, the same idea. Cotara 2.0 is the biggest update we’ve made. It looks different, it’s simpler to use, and it does more of the work that small teams never have time for.
The idea behind it hasn’t changed. Most nonprofits already have the data. What they don’t have is time to work out who needs them this week, who should reach out, and whether any of it made a difference. Cotara 2.0 is built to close that gap.
The new look is live today. The three features below are rolling out now in early access.
Three things you can do with Cotara 2.0
See who needs you with the weekly list
Every week, Cotara reads the data you already have, from gifts and events to email, and shows a short list of supporters who need attention. Each name comes with the reason in plain words, like a first gift nobody has followed up yet or a monthly card that failed. No scores to decode and no dashboards to interpret.
Hand off the next step with Tasks
Each item on the list can become a task with an owner, a due date and the words already drafted. The person who owns it reads the draft, changes it and sends it from their own email. Personal messages always go through a person. Routine messages, like receipts, still go out on their own.
See what happened with Outcomes
Cotara links each follow-up to what happened next: a reply, a second gift, or nothing at all. Over time you can see which follow-ups bring people back, and track the number that matters most for small teams, the share of new donors who give a second time.
Outcomes show what happened. They don’t prove what caused it. If you want to know whether a follow-up actually works, hold it back from a small random group first. Our free holdout test builder does the split for you.
See it with your own data
The fastest way to understand Cotara 2.0 is to see it on your own donors. Book a 30-minute demo and we’ll walk through your first weekly list together. If you’d rather start on your own, try our free tools. No sign-up needed.
See who needs attention in your own data
Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you with your own donor file.
Book a DemoMore from Wale Abba
Free tool
Time to second gift
Upload a gift export and see what share of new donors made a second gift within 90, 180 and 365 days, and how long it usually took. The measure that matters most for small teams.
Second gift within 90 days–of new donors
Within 180 days–of new donors
Within 365 days–of new donors
Typical time to second gift–Median, among donors who gave again
How it works: a donor’s first gift in the file starts their clock. Each window only counts donors whose first gift is at least that many days before the last gift in your file, so recent donors don’t pull the numbers down unfairly. Gifts on the same day count as one. This is different from calendar-year retention: someone who gave twice in one year counts here even if they didn’t give the next year. Read why it matters in the 18.9% problem.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter or upload is sent to Cotara or anyone else.
Free tool
Holdout test builder
Find out whether a follow-up actually works. Paste or upload your donor list, and we split it at random into a group that gets the follow-up and a group that doesn’t.
Get the follow-up–Test group
Held back–Comparison group
Smallest difference you could reliably detect–Based on group sizes and your expected rate (80% power, 5% significance)
How to use it: send the follow-up only to the test group. Six to twelve months later, compare how many people in each group gave again. If your list is small, the detectable difference above will be large. That’s worth knowing before you start. Why this matters: in a study of 500,000 new donors, thank-you calls made months after the gift didn’t change repeat giving (read the article).
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter or upload is sent to Cotara or anyone else.
Free tool
Retention impact calculator
See what a few points of donor retention are worth over three years, in donors and in dollars. A simple projection to support a decision, not a forecast.
Extra donors in the final year+37At target retention, compared with today
Extra revenue over the period+$24,702Cumulative, same average gift
| Year | Donors at current rate | Donors at target rate | Revenue difference |
|---|
How it works: each year, donors = last year’s donors × retention + new donors. Revenue = donors × average gift. It assumes gift size and new donor numbers stay the same, which they rarely do. Use it to compare scenarios, not to predict your budget. Sector benchmark: overall retention was 43.3% in 2025 (Fundraising Effectiveness Project).
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter or upload is sent to Cotara or anyone else.
