Case Study: How a Small Charity Keeps Growing Its Monthly Donor Base
As you may know, I love hearing from nonprofits. That’s how I learn. And that’s how I believe we all learn together. And I’m always amazed, especially at how small nonprofits keep growing and doing more — even with few resources. I think the biggest asset they have is the conviction, the belief that they […]
Nonprofits Should Make Donating Easier Amid Cost of Giving Crisis
We’re not alone in experiencing food, gas and other prices going up. And, as fundraisers, we should be concerned about the impact on giving. I’ve been following the great Donor Pulse quarterly trend analysis for a while now. U.K-based Enthuse did the research and recently released the spring 2022 edition to address this concern: “There is no doubt that […]
How Do You Get Your Board on Board With Monthly Giving?
Someone from a nonprofit recently asked me to address one of its organization’s biggest challenges with monthly giving: How to get its board on board with monthly giving. I’m baffled that board members still need to be convinced that monthly giving is a thing and that monthly giving is a great way to provide ongoing […]
Even a Tiny Gesture Can Make Monthly Donors Feel Special
Recently, I presented at the Faith and Fundraising Conference in Milwaukee for about 400 in-person attendees. It was so wonderful to see people I hadn’t seen in a few years. Everybody had to show either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test. Attendees indicated how comfortable they were with interacting with others through a small dot […]
Who Was Daring Enough To Ask for Recurring Gifts During Giving Tuesday?
I’ve been tracking results from the various CRMs and payment platforms to look at Giving Tuesday trends. Overall, more money was raised than on Giving Tuesday 2020. I was, of course, particularly interested in trends in recurring gifts. Most organizations now include the recurring option on their online donation forms, so I’d imagine there was […]
Can Recurring Giving Really Be That Simple?
Last month, I saw the greatest T-shirt, that said: Hold on. Let me overthink this. We fundraisers tend to overthink things. I’m not totally sure why, but fact is that we do. Maybe because we think that if it sounds too simple, it just can’t be true. That’s why I wanted to share a few […]
ADRFCO Members Expect Recurring Giving To Grow in Importance in 2022
For a number of years, I have been a member of the Association of Direct Response Fundraising Counsel (ADRFCO), which surveyed its members recently to identify their fundraising forecasts for 2022. These members are actively engaged either as agencies/consultants or as vendor partner providers, supporting nonprofit organizations to strategically develop, execute and analyze their direct marketing […]
How a Birthday Call Can Make a Difference
If you’ve not yet read the book “Hooked on a Feeling” by Francesco Ambrogetti, I can highly recommend it. I started it, expecting all kinds of feelings to be described, and I was ready to read all about great storytelling, tugging at the heartstrings messaging, etc. Instead, the book is filled with lots of great research on […]
How Do You Track and Record Recurring Gifts?
At a recent list serve, someone asked about how best to track initial and subsequent recurring gifts. There are two ways to do this. Note that your finance/accounting/bookkeeping folks may have a different approach, so it’s important to involve them in any decisions you make about this. As recurring gifts have no end date, so […]
Why Monthly Giving is Easy!
During the recent Virtual Summit for Nonprofit Changemakers , Ashton Rodenhiser did this wonderful visual overview of what I talked about for 45 minutes. Mind you, she had only heard me speak once before with a different monthly giving focus. It’s truly amazing how she can capture the essence of the session. If nothing else, […]
