Why it matters
Lapse is rarely a decision. Most donors drift away because nobody thanked them well, nobody told them what their gift did, or nobody asked again. That means a lot of lapse can be prevented if you notice the quiet early.
Decide what lapse means for your organization and write it down. Twelve months without a gift is the common rule for annual donors. A monthly donor whose card fails, or a major donor who usually gives every spring, needs a much shorter clock.
How Steward shows it
Steward watches each donor against their own giving pattern. Drift on Home lists the people who have gone quiet past their usual rhythm, so you can call before they lapse. When a donor does stop, Steward moves them to the Lapsed stage and logs the move on their timeline.
Related terms
- Lapsed donor A lapsed donor is someone who gave to your organization in the past but has not given within the period you expect, most often twelve months or more.
- Drift Drift is Steward's term for a donor moving away from their own usual giving rhythm before they lapse: they are well past the date their pattern says their next gift was due, but not yet gone.
- Attrition Attrition is the loss of donors from one year to the next. The attrition rate is the share of last year's donors who did not give again this year, the opposite of the retention rate.
The free Lost & Found audit reads a giving export in your browser and shows your lapsing donors and what they used to give. Nothing is uploaded. Then bring the same file to a 20-minute demo.