Monthly giving programs

There are a variety of different types of acquisition channels for monthly giving, including events, direct marketing, digital, telemarketing, face-to-face, television and radio. Investing in the right acquisition channels will determine success for your monthly giving program.

Testing is vital. Pursue and test multiple giving channels to determine a repeatable acquisition cost. Some donors will quit giving. Measure the percentage of donors that quit over time attrition rate and project a lifetime donor value. This data will help inform which acquisition channels are the best for your organization.

A successful monthly giving program retains donors. Building these systems before you launch a monthly giving program will help you retain more donors and let you focus on acquiring new donors. Every successful monthly donor program needs a multi-disciplined team.

The challenge is getting this diverse team to work together and believe in the project. When you assemble the monthly giving program launch team, challenge them to create common ground. Not every monthly giving project is going to succeed immediately. At Food for the Hungry, it took several years before the child sponsorship program found success.

Keep testing and evolving the program. Jeremy Reis is the Senior Director of Marketing at Food for the Hungry, an international relief and development organization. Jeremy and Mike blog at nonprofitdonor. Register Today! Skip to content. Let us make the case to you why monthly giving should be one of the areas you invest. Monthly donors give a lot to your cause. Monthly giving income is consistent and predictable. So the big question: Is creating a monthly giving program worth it?

Here are five keys to launching a successful monthly donor program: 1. Get Leadership Buy-In Not everyone will be in favor of your nonprofit launching a monthly giving program.

There are five areas in which a chief executive will be interested: How much will it cost? What is the return on investment ROI? But what goes into creating a monthly giving program is a different story. Charity: water launched their monthly giving program Pipeline today , which is "a system of outstanding local partners, innovative technologies and local entrepreneurs all working together to keep water flowing at charity: water projects around the world.

There are several important tactics to focus on when developing your monthly giving program. To increase the likelihood of turning your casual donors into recurring donors and eventually, life long fundraisers and major donors, as well as build a recurring revenue model for you organization, consider the following six tactics:. Creating a destination about your giving program on your website is not only a place to send people to sign up, but also a destination for others to share with their friends and social networks.

Providing all the information on one page about the program keeps it simple to find and update. Charity: water created a homepage for Pipeline with all the information you need to know about the program and an easy way to sign up. It's also beautiful and engaging, with videos and images. Before you launch your campaign to promote your new monthly giving program, you need a base of supporters to get it off the ground. Recruiting this select group of a few hundred people is important not only to get started, but also to gain feedback from trusted supporters.

These people should be your most engaged donors, volunteers, and fundraisers. They will be elated to be in on the secret campaign and will be all about sharing the news once it's public. Charity: water recruited HubSpot and myself to be one of the founding members of Pipeline, sending an email that said "something big is in the works" about a week and a half before the public launch. Charity: water also teased the public on social media a few days before the public launch with similar messaging to get followers excited and guessing about the news.

Those that join your program prior to the public launch are very much like investors. They are getting it off the ground, and proving that the concept works and is worthy of support. It also gives them the feeling that they are part of your team, helping to achieve your mission. Limiting access to joining the campaign and deeming those that sign up prior to the public launch as "founders", charity: water took it one step further and created a password-only page for founders to sign up on.

The password was emailed to a select group of supporters, who were able to sign up for the program before anyone else. Immediately after signing up for Pipeline, my name showed up on the founding members list.

It adds a "cool" factor to the process and really makes you feel special to be a part of something new and big. Asking someone to give to your organization every single month may sound like a big ask. But if you offer a low price point, you're opening up your program to a larger audience, particularly one that is younger and not able to give large amounts.

But, if you recruit the right people who have supported you in the past and that want to continue to support you, they will be much more willing to start small and grow over time into lifetime fundraisers and major donors. If you can have a diversified portfolio of givers at different price points, you'll open your program up to more people of all ages and income levels.

The higher giving levels can be more targeted to major donors, corporations, and foundations that may want to give consistently, as well. Before someone joins your program, they are going to want to know where their money is going and why they should join. Besides simply donating to your organization, long-term donors are more likely to be involved in events and volunteer opportunities.

This is why it is important to offer different levels of giving to monthly donors as well. Even though they are automatically giving to your cause each month, it is important to give them the flexibility to change the amount. It is also important to be transparent and share with them exactly where and how the funds will be used for each respective giving amount.

CARE's monthly donation page not only provides different levels of giving, but it shows how each amount will contribute to their cause. This helps potential donors see that each amount has a specific role in making a difference. Monthly donors might be more involved with your organization on a regular basis, so make them feel special. Nonprofit organizations can do this by adding some type of membership or exclusive community aspect to monthly givers or by holding specific events.

Charity:water has its own community called Pipeline that is completed focused and dedicated to monthly donors. It is imperative to show them the impact of their contributions on a regular basis with images, stories, statistics and other concrete examples. This goes back to the earlier point about lifetime value, a key success metric for sustainer programs.

Measuring the success of your program is going to be a little different. Instead of looking at net revenues booked per month, come up with a plan to monitor and measure key metrics with a longer view such as:. Response metrics for your sustainer program marketing activities email opens, clickthroughs, click to recurring donor ratios, etc.

Gift upgrades. For example, if you run a campaign at the year-end to encourage existing recurring donors to increase their donation amount from one tier to another, measure the net result in terms of responses. They fall into a unique category of supporters and should be approached with strategic and personalized messaging. Creating a successful monthly giving program can be challenging, but by forming a lasting relationship with dedicated donors that continuously support your organization, it is worth it.

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