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Is There Room for Monthly Giving in Your Fundraising Appeals?

Earlier this week, a copywriter friend of mine asked a great question. And I’m sure many of you are struggling with this same predicament. Here’s her question:  Often a strategy calls for including so many offers in one direct mail fundraising appeal — the basic ask, maybe a matching gift, sometimes a push for monthly […]

Why Recurring Giving Leads to Better Donor Retention

If you look at the most recent statistics on donor retention, the year 2020 was not great. One reason was that many organizations put a hold on asking for contributions in the first half of the year because they worried about donors not giving. Many continued to be reluctant well into the second half. Hence, […]

More Recurring Gifts From Digital Approaches

Every year, Blackbaud’s donorCentrics Sustainer Benchmarking group meets and evaluates information on recurring gifts. This year was no exception. Face-to-face/door-to-door fundraising, also known as canvassing, came to a screeching halt during COVID-19. For organizations that picked those strategies back up again in late 2020, the good news is the number of sustainers is up and […]

Monthly Giving Is All About Donor Retention

Maria Voogt

This is always an exciting time of year as donor base providers and analytics groups release their giving trends from the prior year. We are continuing to see so many changes. Not many were prepared for this disaster. And many, especially smaller organizations, almost froze when the shutdown happened. Many assumed that their donors did […]

Find a Way to Address a Monthly Donor’s Hesitation

At this time, many people are looking to find out when they can possibly get vaccinated against COVID-19. I live on Cape Cod, an area with many older residents — many who have been struggling. Many of these older residents do not have access to the internet, so registration online is difficult. They do have […]

Are You Still Using Return Address Labels?

By now, you probably know I love to organize. I have hundreds of direct mail and monthly giving examples scanned in. And over Christmas, I scanned in a huge box of family pictures. It’s all part of the downsizing and simplifying process my husband and I are going through. I must say, it’s tremendously liberating! […]

A Monthly Giving How-To: Asking Will Result in More Monthly Donors

Good thing we have an extra day this week. I had a stack of mail more than a foot high, and I just finished scanning the various appeals I would like to save in a folder to use for training or learning. Let me start with some good news: Many organizations have adopted the best […]

On the Road to 1,000 Monthly Donors

An interview with Sami Sheehan, manager of donor engagement of Lollypop Farm, Humane Society of Greater Rochester My favorite part about working with nonprofits is how much we can learn from each other. I learn from their questions every day. I am blown away with how smart people at nonprofits are, and how committed they […]

A Monthly Giving How-To: Make It a Thing

The expression, “Make monthly giving a thing,” came from Cara Schwalbach of One Tail at a Time in Chicago. She and I were scheduled to co-present on monthly giving at an upcoming animal welfare conference, but that was canceled. Cara was going to share her amazing story of how she grew from 200 to 1,600 […]

Segmentation Is The Key To Your Nonprofits Direct Mail Success

Did you know that 50% – 60% of your nonprofit’s direct mail results comes from whom you are mailing to? Target audience is crucial, and segmentation is just as important. But, to determine the best target audience for your nonprofit’s direct mail, you first must determine the goal of your appeal. For Any Nonprofit Organization […]