Two economists ran an experiment on about 500,000 new donors. Half got a friendly thank-you call. Half got nothing. Fundraising pros predicted the calls would lift repeat giving by 80%.
The result? Nothing. The calls made no difference at all.
If you're about to hand your family a supporter sheet this holiday season, that study matters to you. Getting someone to back your first season is the easy part. Getting them to back your second is where most racers lose them.
Your supporters don't need another thank-you. They need to see what their money did.
That second "yes" is what the Funded Season Kit is built around. It's our full program for funding a whole season, not one lucky check. I'll show you why year two is where the money is, then what actually keeps people around.
Most first-time backers don't come back
Nonprofits track this better than anyone, so let's borrow their numbers. These are charity donors, not race fans. But a relative who chips in $50 for your season is acting a lot like a donor.
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project tracks giving across 15,102 nonprofits and 7.8 million donors. In its Q4 2025 report, only 18.9% of first-time donors gave again. Repeat donors came back at 59.3%.
Read that twice. Roughly four out of five first-time backers disappear. But once someone backs you twice, they tend to stick.
So the whole game is getting from the first gift to the second one. If you have 20 supporters this season, losing 16 of them means rebuilding your list from zero every winter.
Why the thank-you call didn't work
The study is real and it's peer-reviewed. Anya Samek and Chuck Longfield published it in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in 2023. They worked with public TV stations and a national nonprofit. About 28% to 31% of donors gave again, call or no call.
To be fair, not everyone buys it. Bloomerang, a donor-software company, pointed out the calls came from outsourced callers and often months after the gift. Its own data shows better retention when donors get calls. That data is observational, though, and they sell the software.
Here's my read. A thank-you is manners. You should always say it. But "thanks so much!" from a stranger, months later, doesn't tell anyone anything new. People rarely give again just because they were thanked. They give again because they believe it worked.
Show them what their money did
Back in 2012, researcher Penelope Burk was surveying thousands of donors. Nearly half said they had more to give but held back. The main reason? They didn't hear enough about how their past gifts were used.
That's old charity data, and it was a preliminary result. But it lines up with everything I've seen in this sport. People want proof, not politeness.
For a racer, proof is easy. You have a car, a schedule, and a budget. So tie every dollar to something real:
- Name the line item. A NASA weekend entry runs about $500. "Your $50 plus nine other supporters covered my Pueblo entry" lands harder than "thanks for the support."
- Send the photo. Their name on the car, at the track, during the race they paid for.
- Report after every event. Three lines: where you finished, what you learned, what their money covered.
- Send a season wrap before you ask again. One page. Every race, every result, every dollar.
Don't thank them for helping. Tell them what they helped do.
This is exactly the system the Funded Season Kit walks you through. It's 11 course-style modules, each with a guide, worksheet, checklist, and assignment. It also comes with a working sponsor tracker spreadsheet. Log every supporter, every perk you owe, and every report you've sent. Nobody falls through the cracks in March. See what's inside the Funded Season Kit.
Ask for year two the right way
Your season report is your renewal pitch. Send it first. Ask a week later.
Keep the ask simple. "Next year I'm running six weekends. Want your name back on the car?" The people who got three race reports and a photo already know the answer.
Then do one more thing. Offer the year-one backers something new. A better spot on the car, a paddock visit, a signed print. Repeat backers are your most loyal group, so treat them that way.
If you haven't built your first supporter sheet yet, start with our post on finding your first racing sponsors at Thanksgiving dinner. Once a business is ready to join them, our guide to what to send a sponsor mid-season covers the bigger-deal version of this same drip.
Where we stand
I'll be honest. LFR hasn't run a friends-and-family supporter campaign for our own cars. Our deals have mostly been with businesses like Engine Ice and Les Schwab. I don't have a retention number of my own to show you. I have published research and a race team's habit of reporting back to the people who fund us.
Keep them for year two
The Funded Season Kit is $197, once, no subscription. You get the full 11-module program, the sponsor tracker, the ROI calculator, and everything in The First Sponsor System. That's the reporting habit and the tools to keep it, set up before your first supporter ever pays.
Want the supporter sheet and the deck built for you instead? The Full Sponsorship Kit is the done-for-you version.
Sources: Samek & Longfield, "Do Thank-You Calls Increase Charitable Giving? Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2023), The Chronicle of Philanthropy — "Thank-You Calls Show No Impact on Giving", Bloomerang — Donor retention (citing the FEP Q4 2025 report), DonorPerfect — FEP Q4 2025 summary, Bloomerang — thank-you call analysis, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — "What Donors Want but Often Don't Get" (Penelope Burk, 2012). All retention data here is nonprofit donor data, not motorsports data. The entry-fee figure comes from our own racing cost reference for NASA Rocky Mountain weekends. The report format and ask script are my own suggestions. LeadFoot Racing has no customer, sales, or survey data in this post.
Do you believe?