Rescue Mission Donors are Changing

How much do you know about rescue mission donors? Well, depending on when you last checked, you might be surprised at some of the demographic changes in the makeup of this group.

The COVID-19 pandemic, of course, has played its part in reshaping donor files at rescue missions in the last two years. But attitudes toward religion in the U.S. have been changing over the last two decades, resulting in a decline in giving to faith-based organizations.

Now, as life-transformation ministries evolve to meet today’s donors where they are, it’s important to understand exactly who these donors are. Our RKD data experts analyzed more than 250,000 donors at eight rescue missions to understand demographic trends such as age, household size, income, education level, gender and marital status.

Snapshot of Today's Rescue Mission Donors

In the dashboard below, you can see what these donors look like today. If you’d like to dive a little deeper, we’ve compiled additional charts that compare rescue mission donors from 2020-21 to those from 2013-14.

For starters, 55% of rescue mission donors are married—a slightly higher percentage compared to animal welfare donors. These rescue mission donors are also 54% men—quite the opposite compared to the average food bank donor.

Less than half of rescue mission donors (48%) have completed college. This percentage is lower than both food bank donors (52%) and animal welfare donors (49%).

Yet 7% of rescue mission donors earn more than $500,000 annually, which is more than both animal welfare (4%) and food bank donors (3%). Overall, 49% of rescue mission donors have household incomes of $150,000 or higher, a significantly higher percentage than both animal welfare donors (37%) and food bank donors (38%).

When we look at household size, we see that 61% of rescue mission donors live alone or with one other person. This household size likely correlates with the 85% of rescue mission donors who are age 50 or older.

Today's Donors Compared to 2013-2014

The numbers above are insightful, but what’s even more interesting is how today’s rescue mission donors compare to a few years ago. We analyzed rescue mission donors in 2020-21 and compared them to rescue mission donors in 2013-14. Here’s what we uncovered:

The biggest difference is in age.

In 2013-14, more than half of rescue mission donors (55%) were age 70 or older, another 35% ranged from age 50 to 69, and only 10% were under age 50.

In 2020-21, only 50% of rescue mission donors are age 70 or older, while another 37% are ages 50-69. The remaining 13% of rescue mission donors today are under age 50—a noticeable shift from what we see just seven years earlier.

Unsurprisingly, this shift has been driven by new donors. The chart above compares core donors (those who have been with rescue missions for two or more years) to new donors acquired in 2020-21.

The new donor group is quite different from the 2013-14 numbers:

• 30% ages 70 or older
• 40% ages 50-69
• 29% under age 50

These new donors are also different from today’s core donor group:

• 49% ages 70 or older
• 40% ages 50-69
• 12% under age 50.

As rescue mission donor files begin to reflect a younger average age, the average income has crept up.

In 2013-14, the breakdown looked like this: 44.3% at $150,000 or more 37.8% at $75,000 to $149,999 17.9% at under $75,000

When we put it all together, we see that donor value has continued to climb steadily, particularly among donors under age 40. And donors over age 75 have the lowest donor value in 2021.

All in all, today’s rescue mission donors are younger and have more income than just seven years ago. Successful missions are taking the opportunity now to invest in digital technology and build stronger relationships to prepare for a sustainable future.