When a Crisis Hits, Communities Stick Together: What Recent Crises Reveal About Donor Behavior

The 2025 government shutdown created an important moment for food banks across the United States. Although the crisis presented immediate operational challenges, it also revealed critical insights about donor behavior that will shape fundraising strategy for years to come.

This white paper examines what happened when the government shutdown intersected with food bank fundraising. Drawing on data from dozens of food banks and a comprehensive analysis of donor behavior during the crisis period, we explore how urgency mobilizes different donor segments, which channels prove most effective during emergencies, and how organizations can prepare for future moments of national disruption.

The findings are clear: Crisis moments activate younger donors, amplify online giving, increase gift sizes across both new and loyal donors, and create opportunities for reactivation. During an era fraught with frequent disruption, understanding these patterns allows food banks to build more nimble and resilient fundraising strategies, better preparing them to mobilize their communities during challenging times.

The Shutdown and What It Meant

In October 2025, the federal government shutdown created immediate ripple effects across the food bank sector. With SNAP and WIC benefits hanging in the balance and federal workers facing delayed paychecks, food banks found themselves once again on the front lines of a national crisis.

The situation was urgent, but not entirely unexpected. Food banks had already weathered significant funding pressures earlier in the year, including USDA funding cuts in March through June and federal budget implications in July. By the time the October shutdown arrived, many organizations were already operating in crisis mode. Yet what emerged from this period was not just a story of survival — it was a story of true camaraderie.

For fundraising professionals, the shutdown offered a rare window into how donors respond when the stakes feel real and immediate. The data tells a compelling story about who gives during crisis, how they give, and what that means for building sustainable fundraising programs.

The Immediate Impact

In October 2025:

Demand Surged Faster Than Expected

Food bank professionals reported that their communities felt the effects of the shutdown almost immediately. In regions with high concentrations of federal workers, new faces appeared at distributions for the first time. Some organizations reported that more than half of their program participants were using services for the first time.

For many food banks, the challenge was not just meeting immediate need, but also preparing for what felt like a tidal wave about to hit. Some organizations balanced the double stress of state budget challenges alongside the federal shutdown, with the prospect of delayed reimbursements and uncertain funding pushing them to find creative ways to maintain food inventories and avoid disruptions to their partner networks.

Communication with the Public and Partners Became Critical

Food banks moved quickly to adapt their operations and communications to the new reality. Many boosted efforts to reach donors and volunteers, leveraging every available channel for messaging. This included updating websites with banners and lightboxes that provided essential information about where to get help or how to give. Some food banks adjusted social media, texting, and email campaigns — and eventually direct mail campaigns — to acknowledge the shutdown, encourage donors to step up, and ensure that affected families knew where to find support.

The response from communities was striking. Although some social media posts generated polarizing comments, food bank professionals observed that community members often jumped in to offer supportive responses and clarify facts. Overall, engagement from both donors and the media was high. Several food banks reported unprecedented web traffic and strong fundraising results, with GivingTuesday-level support even outside the holiday period.

Staff Felt the Pressure

Staff members felt the strain — especially those who remembered the intensity of the early pandemic period. Many food bank professionals spoke about the importance of internal communication and holding network calls with agency partners to share updates and collect feedback. Staff burnout was a real concern during the weeks ahead. Some food banks reached out to food vendors to arrange delayed payments, easing financial stress and buying time as they waited to see how long the shutdown would last.

The Data Story

Looking at the data:

Overall Performance Exceeded Expectations

Across all food banks working with TrueSense Marketing, both revenue and donor counts increased significantly year over year due to the government shutdown and other urgent calls to action.

This growth was not evenly distributed across all channels or donor segments. Instead, the data showed that the shutdown activated unique audiences and specific channels. Understanding these patterns is essential for building more effective crisis-response strategies.

Digital Assets Drove the Majority of Revenue

When the shutdown hit, web assets became a critical revenue driver. In fact, for food banks that adjusted messaging to address the shutdown, web assets drove 59% of total revenue, and accounted for 80% of new sustainers and 79% of new donors during that period.

This finding has profound implications for how food banks should prioritize their digital infrastructure. When emergencies arise, external media coverage and organic exposure drive the initial surge in traffic, making the rapid deployment of updated, relevant web assets such as lightboxes and banners essential to drive direct revenue.

Google Ads Captured Intent in Real Time

As news and media attention increased around the shutdown, Google Ads (Search and Performance Max) proved key to capturing high-intent search demand tied to the moment. This suggests that when national crises occur, donors actively search for ways to help, and organizations that have relevant paid search campaigns live and ready (with budgets that can scale quickly) capture a disproportionate share of that intent-driven giving.

Paid Social and Text Converted Urgency at Scale

Paid Meta and text messaging were well positioned to amplify and convert crisis-driven demand, with email playing a supporting role as messaging evolved. This channel hierarchy differs from traditional fundraising, where email often plays a more central role. During crisis moments, the immediacy and directness of text and social media proved highly effective at moving donors to action.

Who Gave During the Shutdown

The data we’ve collected about government-shutdown–inspired donors gives us a lot of insight into crisis fundraising:

Younger Donors Responded in Unprecedented Numbers

One of the most striking findings from the shutdown period was the influx of younger donors. Members of both Gen X and Gen Y gave at significantly higher rates during the shutdown compared to a typical year.

Gen X giving made up 27% of shutdown donors, compared to 16% during the same period the previous year. Gen Y giving made up 24% of shutdown donors, compared to just 7% the prior year.

This pattern mirrors what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In both cases, crisis-acquired donors skewed younger than typical new-donor populations, indicating that moments of national disruption may activate a younger audience that typically does not respond to standard fundraising appeals.

First-Gift Amounts Were Significantly Larger

Donors acquired during the shutdown gave larger initial gifts than what organizations typically see from standard acquisition efforts. Twenty-eight percent of government shutdown donors gave between $100 and $249, compared to 16% in a typical year.

This pattern held for both new and loyal donors. Although the lift was slightly softer with loyal donors during the shutdown compared to the pandemic period, both groups demonstrated a willingness to give more when they perceived the need as urgent and real.

Online Giving Was Strongly Preferred

Donors acquired during the shutdown showed a strong preference for giving online over offline. This preference was notably stronger than during a typical year, suggesting that crisis moments activate donors who are comfortable with digital transactions and may not be reached effectively through traditional direct mail.

Multi-Year Donors Showed Strong Motivation

These crisis periods show influx in new donors, but they also show deeper commitments from loyal donors. In both the first wave of pandemic giving and the shutdown, we saw multi-year donors making more and larger donations. This confirms that incorporating relevant content in all communications is critical to bringing communities together in supporting the heightened need: new and loyal.

Comparing Crisis Moments: Shutdown Versus Pandemic

It’s worth comparing recent crises to see what we can learn, and few pairings are more instructive than the 2025 government shutdown and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Although these events differ dramatically in origin and nature, they share a powerful structural similarity: Both were unprecedented national disruptions that suddenly reshaped food insecurity across the United States, driving massive new demand on the food bank network and generating intense public attention surrounding food insecurity. Each moment tested the resilience of food banks and revealed just how effectively they could mobilize communities, attract new supporters, and meet surging need at scale.

Similar Patterns, Different Timing

Much of what we saw in the 2025 government shutdown analytics can also be seen in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic response data. When comparing, both events saw expanded giving from younger generations, larger gift sizes from both new and loyal donors, and a strong preference for online giving.

However, there were also important differences. The pandemic saw a higher percentage influx of new donations, whereas the shutdown seemed to generate higher loyal, multi-year donations. This suggests that although both crises activated similar donor segments, the shutdown may have been particularly effective at deepening relationships with existing supporters.

Long-Term Reactivation Potential

In a typical year, you can expect a 0.5% to 4% reactivation rate for donors who haven’t made a gift in three to five years. However, one particularly important finding emerged when we examined pandemic-era donors during the shutdown period: 9% of donors first acquired during the pandemic in 2020 gave again during the shutdown in 2025.

This finding has significant implications for donor stewardship and reactivation strategies. Crisis moments can reengage dormant supporters, as evidenced by pandemic-era donors returning several years later. This underscores the value of maintaining long-term reactivation pathways and ensuring that relevant communications reach the right audiences quickly.

Channel Strategy During a Crisis

Not only did the message itself matter, but how campaigns were deployed had a significant impact on fundraising successes.

The Priority Hierarchy

The data reveals a clear priority hierarchy for channel deployment during crisis moments. When emergencies emerge, the sequence matters.

First priority: web assets. External media coverage and organic exposure drive the initial surge in traffic, making rapid deployment of web assets (lightboxes and banners) essential to drive direct revenue.

Second priority: paid media and search. Google Ads should be live and ready, with budgets that can scale as needed to capture high-intent search demand tied to the moment.

Third priority: paid social and text. Paid Meta and text are well positioned to amplify and convert crisis-driven demand at scale.

Supporting role: email and direct mail. Email and direct mail certainly play a supporting role as messaging evolves, but they do not need to be the first-line strategy adjustment during the initial crisis response.

The Importance of Rapid Deployment

The shutdown data makes clear that speed matters enormously during crisis moments. Organizations that had web assets ready to deploy quickly captured disproportionate revenue. This suggests that food banks should maintain templates and pre-built assets that can be activated quickly when urgent situations arise.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask During a Crisis

Times of crises are not a time to pull back. We saw through the heightened giving and larger gift amounts that putting a foot on the gas pedal gives both loyal and new donors meaningful opportunities to be a part of the solution. We shouldn’t be afraid to offer those opportunities.

Within the messaging it is also okay — and often encouraged — to mention how people can find food assistance if they’re not in a position to support, but are actually in need of support. This can turn something negative into something encouraging and reinforce a genuine spirit of “we are all in this together.”

Why 2025 Results Cannot Be Used as a Baseline

It’s tempting to try to use a prior year’s fundraising results as a baseline for annual planning and consider year-over-year metrics as your primary marker of success. However, this should not be used for years with exceptional results related to a crisis.

The Urgency-Driven Anomaly

Food banks and their fundraising partners face an important challenge as they plan for their next fiscal year: The exceptional results of 2025 cannot be used as a reliable baseline for predicting future performance because performance in 2025 was significantly amplified by the government shutdown and other urgent calls to action that accelerated both donor volume and revenue.

This is particularly true for digital media performance, where there was an influx of younger donors giving via paid media during the shutdown. These results represent crisis-driven behavior, not typical donor behavior.

The Conservative Approach

To set realistic expectations for future years, organizations are encouraged to use 2025 planned projections — not actual results— as baseline metrics for 2026 across all channels. This ensures that projections are rooted in reality and more traditional behaviors, rather than crisis-driven surges.

Direct mail audiences should be carefully reviewed because there will likely be increases in 0-24–month volume attributable to the new file growth that took place related to the shutdown. Email files also experienced likely growth; however, this typically does not need to be accounted for in cost projections.

Lessons for Future Crisis Response

Let’s be honest here: A crisis period is a rough time to work in a sector where the need becomes extraordinarily high because of events outside of your control. However, there’s a lot we can learn to inform future crisis responses.

Keep Communications Updated and Specific

Food banks should keep website and direct response messaging updated, focusing on specific impacts and available resources. Generic messaging during crisis moments is less effective than messaging that acknowledges the particular situation and explains how the organization is responding.

Build Partner Networks Before a Crisis Hits

Organizations should connect with agency partners to create forums for sharing needs and ideas, even if they have not done so before. These relationships become invaluable during crisis moments when coordination and information sharing are critical.

Create Special “Gap” Campaigns

Food banks should encourage donors and major giving partners to support special “gap” campaigns created to fill holes left by government funding delays or other interruptions. These campaigns create a sense of urgency about particular needs and give donors a specific, immediate way to help.

Prepare Staff for Emotional Stress

Organizations should prepare their staff to handle increased emotional stress and explore external help or partnerships to ease this burden. Staff well-being directly affects the quality of donor communications and program delivery.

Plan for Reactivation

Crisis moments can reengage dormant supporters, as evidenced by pandemic-era donors returning during the shutdown. Organizations should maintain long-term reactivation pathways and be prepared to reach out to lapsed donors when urgent needs arise.

Ongoing Stewardship of Crisis-Acquired Donors

For donors acquired during the government shutdown, our recommendation is to be disciplined and intentional: Keep them fully integrated into your core communication stream, and focus on consistent, relationship-building stewardship.

Our post-pandemic analysis showed that minor wording adjustments or even fully versioned campaign tracks for emergency-acquired donors rarely produced meaningful lifts in long-term retention. Although it may be tempting to develop a dramatically differentiated communications plan in hopes of unlocking higher performance, the data simply does not support a strong return on that added investment.

Retention for crisis-motivated donors is far more influenced by continued relevance than creative segmentation. In the event of another shutdown — or a similarly urgent, mission-aligned event — retention patterns may shift in response to renewed urgency. In the absence of that external trigger, the most effective course is steady, thoughtful engagement through timely updates, clear impact reporting, authentic gratitude, and consistent opportunities to stay involved. This approach protects resources while building trust and habit formation over time.

For organizations still strengthening their digital infrastructure, this is also a critical inflection point. A robust, responsive digital program ensures that you are prepared not only to steward today’s emergency donors effectively, but also to capture and cultivate the next wave of community support when urgent moments inevitably arise.

Key Dates to Watch in 2026-27

Food banks should monitor several key dates that could create future crisis moments or opportunities:

January 2026: New charitable tax deductions went into effect that positively affect the general donor pool and potentially negatively affect major and corporate giving.

March 2026: SNAP eligibility and time-limit changes are enforced, potentially creating a surge in food assistance needs.

September 2026: An appropriations bill must pass by September 30, or the nation risks another government shutdown. States may become responsible for a larger percentage of SNAP funding, which could cause resource strains. Mid-term election noise may heighten, creating a challenging time for fundraisers to cut through.

November 2026: The midterm elections can have a big impact on government funding and programming availability.

January 2027: Several federal program changes take effect that could indirectly affect food security and community need, such as ACA eligibility shifts for certain populations.

Preparing for Inflection Points

To prepare for these potential inflection points, food banks should incorporate key dates into quarterly planning to evaluate risk and urgency signals that could affect future campaigns. They should continue cross-team communication loops during inflection windows, monitor media-driven traffic and adjust strategy and budgets as needed, and prioritize web assets followed by paid media and text, with email and direct mail supporting as urgency evolves.

Staff and Community Response

Throughout the shutdown period, food bank professionals emphasized the importance of solidarity and shared learning. Dozens of food bank professionals from across the country gathered to share what they were experiencing during a conference call that TrueSense Marketing set up for our food bank partners, providing helpful ideas and offering encouragement for all organizations working in hunger relief.

This collaborative spirit proved invaluable. Organizations learned from the experiences of others, shared creative solutions, and provided mutual support during a challenging period. The lesson is clear: Throughout times of crisis, the food bank sector is stronger when organizations work together and share what they’re learning.

Crisis as a Teacher

The 2025 government shutdown was undoubtedly a crisis. It created immediate operational challenges, strained staff resources, and forced food banks to respond quickly to surging demand. Yet it also revealed important truths about donor behavior, channel effectiveness, and the power of authentic crisis communication.

The data shows that crisis moments activate younger donors, amplify online giving, increase gift sizes across both new and loyal donors, and create opportunities for reactivation. These are not temporary anomalies, but rather, genuine insights into how donors respond when they perceive urgent need.

For food banks and their fundraising partners, the challenge now is to translate these insights into sustainable strategies. This means:

• Maintaining rapid-deployment capabilities for web assets and paid media
• Building relationships with younger donors who were activated during crisis moments
• Creating permanent giving day campaigns that provide fresh reasons to give
• Planning for future inflection points with clear communication and channel strategies
• Maintaining long-term reactivation pathways for donors who give during crisis moments
• Supporting staff well-being as organizations navigate periods of high stress and demand

The shutdown also reinforced a fundamental truth: Food banks do not face these challenges alone. The solidarity and shared learning that emerged during the crisis period created a stronger sector. As organizations prepare for 2026 and beyond, that collaborative spirit should remain central to how they approach both crisis response and long-term strategy.

Crisis moments are difficult, but they also foster clarity. They reveal what donors truly care about, which channels work best, and what communities value most. By learning from the 2025 government shutdown, food banks can build more resilient, effective, and human-centered fundraising programs that serve their communities better in both crisis and calm.