My family and I live on a small homestead, so we pay close attention to the seasons. We watch for the first shoots of spring, feel the quiet slowing of winter, and gather friends to celebrate solstices and equinoxes.
I started my nonprofit marketing career near the summer solstice. Just as the days were stretching long, I learned about something everyone in the office seemed to know: the Summer Slump.
It was treated as a kind of law of nature: nobody gives during the summer. People are on vacation, the kids are home, donors are distracted, and mail sits unopened in piled-up stacks while families are at the lake. The message was clear: brace for dry months, plan for fall, and wait it out.
And back then, it made sense because most fundraising efforts were built around direct mail.
But here’s what I’ve seen, year after year, as the industry has shifted and nonprofits have invested more in digital. The Summer Slump is not a law of nature.
It was a product of how fundraising worked in a mail-based world.
In a digital-first world, the slump smooths out, and for organizations willing to keep investing through the summer, it can be a season of momentum, growth, and preparation for year-end.
Where the Summer Slump Came From
To be fair, there was a time when the Summer Slump made perfect sense.
In the days when most nonprofit fundraising efforts relied on direct mail, your schedule revolved around print production calendars, postal delivery windows, and long lead times. And while mail still has its place, back then it was the primary lever.
Summer presented a few big challenges:
- People were gone, on vacation, out of state, out of reach.
- Households were in flux, with school breaks and travel disrupting normal rhythms.
- Response windows were long, so if you missed your donor while they were out of town, your appeal might never get opened.
- Budgets were tighter mid-year, both for nonprofits and for households.
Given all that, it was understandable that organizations would pull back on acquisition or delay major fundraising pushes until fall. That’s when people were “back,” kids were in school, and attention spans normalized. It felt like a smarter bet.
But then came digital.
Digital Doesn’t Sleep
Unlike direct mail, digital doesn’t care what month it is.
Digital is always on. It’s immediate, responsive, testable, and adjustable. It gives you real-time feedback and allows you to optimize for performance across devices, platforms, and channels.
And crucially, digital follows your donors wherever they go, literally in their pockets.
Your donors don’t stop scrolling just because it’s July. They don’t stop opening emails, searching online, or watching YouTube. They might be on vacation, but their phones are not.
That means you don’t have to wait until September to find them.
The Smarter Summer Play
At Masterworks, we manage digital campaigns for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes. Our clients invest in media throughout the year, and we track results closely.
We can say with confidence that the Summer Slump is not a hard stop in digital. It’s more like a subtle ripple. Yes, giving still has seasonality. You’ll always see peaks in December — tied to the holidays and year-end tax planning — but the idea that nothing works in summer just doesn’t hold up in the data.
The old rules don’t apply like they used to. The Summer Slump was real for direct mail. But in digital, it’s a window of opportunity.
We’re here if you want to talk strategy or take a look at your data together and map out what’s possible. Summer’s already started. Let’s make the most of it.
