An analysis from Contributor Development Partnership (CPB) expects public radio to hold onto 91% of donations below $1,000 from 2025 during the fiscal year of 2027, compared to retention rates of 87% for joint licensees and 82% for television.

“After an unprecedented surge in donors and revenue in 2025 across public media, including new donor counts that doubled, revenue retention will remain strong but will decline from 2025 highs,” says CDP’s report, based on data from the National Reference File, representing 75% of all public media donors and $1.4 billion in annual membership revenue. “CDP expects year-over-year growth rates to decline by the start of FY27 (for July 1 budget years), with absolute new donor counts returning closer to pre-2025 station-level trendlines by late 2026.”

As a result, CDP recommends that “local stations maintain their acquisition investment levels and expand investment in their capacity for prospect cultivation and donor stewardship for the coming year, [and] take a conservative approach to FY27 budgeting, planning for a range of approximately a 2% decline to 2% growth in membership revenue from donors under $1,000.”

Based on its research, CDP finds that for donors giving less than $1,000, the most likely donors to drive revenue retention rates in FY 2027 are: new sustaining donors (170% retention); reactivated non-sustaining donors (161%); consecutive sustaining donors, no multiple gifts (99%); consecutive non-sustaining donors, no multiple gifts (86%); and consecutive sustaining donors, multiple gifts (82%), with consecutive non-sustaining donors, multiple gifts (66%), reactivated non-sustaining donors (53%) and new non-sustaining donors (49%) less likely.

“It is important to note that even flat performance in FY27 would represent a significant success, indicating that public media organizations have retained the extraordinary gains achieved in 2025,” CDP’s report says. “Organizations with high retention and stronger-than-average new donor acquisition strategies may reasonably plan for results above this range, while others may need to adjust downward based on their specific file composition and retention metrics. 2025 was a steep change in growth that created real opportunity for local PMOs to forge their path to a secure future through strategic investments in, and innovative approaches to, their fundraising programs. How PMOs approach this work in FY27 could very well separate those that survive from those that thrive.”