Amplify Your Fundraising with a Monthly Giving Program
Do you wake up dreaming about consistent unrestricted revenue for your nonprofit, from donors that are fully invested in your work year after year?
If you answered “yes” to this, two quick things:
You need a vacation. Don’t dream about work.
Stop dreaming. Launch a monthly giving program.
Converting your donors and followers to monthly contributors is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways start-up and small nonprofits can create reliable revenue and grow their donor base.
A monthly giving program is one of the simplest fundraising campaigns to create, and gifts from even modest monthly donations can add up. Think about it: a donor who gives $5/month is investing $60 annually, and a $100/month donation is a $1,200 investment! And, retention rates for monthly giving hover around 80%, compared to new donor retention rates that tend to be less than 25%.
Launching a monthly giving program can seem daunting. But once you nail down the technology and streamline the solicitation and stewardship processes, it is a powerful and sustainable way to put your annual giving on autopilot.
Plan the Logistics of Your Monthly Giving
The most critical part of your monthly giving program is ensuring the technology works! Make sure your donors can sign up for recurring monthly donations via credit or debit card— and double-check that whatever payment processing system you use processes the payments! We’ve had nonprofit partner struggle when they realized they need to manually run each month’s donations, or who saw their donors drop off before they hit “submit” on their gift because their websites were too confusing.
Once you know your donors can easily donate monthly, make sure it’s easy for them to give! A landing page on your website that drives donors to invest monthly is recommended, but at the very least make sure that your “donate” page draws attention to your monthly giving option. Don’t make donors click through countless options and dig through pages on your website.
Signing up to make a recurring donation should be easy and intuitive. Have family, friends, board members, and even current donors look at the systems you’ve put in place to make sure they’re easy to use. Nonprofit donation forms see an abandonment rate of 50% to 70%! That means more than half of the people who click on the “donate” button don’t make a gift. Don’t let that be you!
Read More: Is Your Donation Page Costing You Donors?
Show Your Donors Why They Matter
A monthly giving program is an opportunity to deepen your engagement with your donors and make them feel like part of your community. As you start to craft your monthly giving emails, landing page, and other collateral, keep in mind that you have the opportunity to: engage with your donors each month, so they’re more likely to keep giving,k and help them see the impact of their giving, so they’re more likely to increase their giving in the future.
Your monthly giving program is also an opportunity to active your brand - and have a little fun while you do it!
Create an exclusive inner circle and give your monthly giving program a fun name that reflects your mission and work. Calling your monthly giving program something other than “monthly” or “recurring” donations helps create a feeling of unity and community without your donors having to do anything more than click a few buttons.
Welcome monthly donors enthusiastically. Consider the first monthly gift you receive from a donor the start of your relationship with them. That is the moment they enter into your ecosystem and begin receiving sincere gratitude, frequent updates, and ways they can continue to get involved. Create a digital new donor welcome packet, have your board members make thank you phone calls, or both!
Paint a picture that shows where every dollar goes. Some of the most frequent feedback we hear from donors is that they don’t ever hear from nonprofits except when they are solicited. Showing examples of how donors are bringing your mission to life will help them stay connected long-term.
Talk to your monthly donors. If a donor has signed up to give monthly, they’re making a significant investment. You need to show them why you’re worth it. Segment your mailing lists so that you can send your monthly donors specific, customized updates - whether that’s a short quarterly email highlighting what you’ve accomplished with their gifts, or inviting them to be the first to know about upcoming events.
Read more: The simple secret to keeping new donors that most nonprofits forget
Plan to Say Thank You
What will you do when someone makes a gift? It’s far too easy to let thank you letters and phone calls slip through the cracks - it’s one more thing piled on our already very full plates. But stewardship is the make-or-break point for many fundraising campaigns, and monthly giving is no different.
Make sure that before you start soliciting monthly donors you have a plan for stewarding them all year round. And - most critically - make sure its’ a plan you can use not something you dream about over your morning cup of coffee.
Our recommended four-step stewardship process includes:
A donor-centered thank you email that invites deeper engagement. Make the automatic email a donor gets one that they want to read. We’re talking amazing photos, short videos, and links to learn more.
A physical thank-you letter sent shortly after a gift is received. Email doesn't cut it when it comes to saying thank you. A physical thank you letter signed by your Executive Director is a chance to highlight another success story and remind donors once again that their gift has an impact, and that you are putting it to good use. The rule of thumb is to get thank you letters out within two business days - but if that feels insurmountable, shoot for once a week.
A handwritten thank-you or custom postcard. We all love getting mail. But we mostly bills - or from nonprofits, mountains of solicitations. Cut through the noise with a short handwritten thank you note, or a simple postcard sent through a service like TouchNote.
A thank-you phone call. Thank you phone calls are one of the most powerful (and cheapest) tools in a fundraiser’s toolkit. But since most board members shy away from talking on the phone, it’s the tool that is often left at the bottom of the pile. A quarterly - or even annual! - thank-a-thon can help increase donor retention significantly.
Lauch Your Campaign
The most exciting part of your monthly giving program is getting it out into the world! You want to share your monthly giving (or relaunch, as the case may be) loudly and clearly with donors, prospects, and followers.
This is not the time for mass emails and vague Facebook posts. Start your monthly giving solicitations by segmenting your mailing list and reaching out to potential monthly donors with a clear call-to-action. Foks who are most likely to become monthly donors are;
Donors who have donated sometime in the past (often called SYBUNT donors);
Donors who donated last year, but not this year (LYBUNT);
Donors who consistently donate small amounts each year;
and donors who gave at an event.
Customize your outreach for each of these segments to illustrate to your potential monthly donors that you understand their relationship with your organization and that you want to deepen it!
Of course, you also want to share your monthly giving page in your newsletter, on your social media pages and have it prominently placed on your website. And, once you’ve successfully launched the program, you can make it the way you encourage annual donors to give to you, this year and for years to come.
