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Crafting A Recurring Donor Welcome Series: A Guide

A computer screen showing a notification that an email from a donor welcome series has been received.

Recurring giving is a significant source of revenue for nonprofits, as 57% of nonprofit donors are enrolled in a recurring giving program. Recurring donations provide reliable funding every month to keep your organization running. This means your organization should be dedicated to cultivating these donors—and be extra careful to retain them! As a nonprofit leader, […]

10 Things I Learned From 30 Years in Sustainer Giving, Part 4

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I’ve shared six of my top sustainer giving lessons so far. Today, I’ll get to the heart of sustainer giving, and probably the hardest lessons for nonprofit leadership. 7. Be Patient and Think Long-Term If you talk to those organizations that are most successful with sustainer giving, they all have a long-term focus. I know […]

10 Things I Learned From 30 Years in Sustainer Giving, Part 2

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In a previous article, I shared the first two things I learned during my 30 years of working on sustainer programs. Most of this is not rocket science, but it’s important to keep in mind when you’re looking to grow or retain your sustainers. Here are my next two lessons. 3. Operations Is Your Friend When […]

How Are Recurring Donors Doing in This Economy?

economy

You may know that I used to work at an international nonprofit, where we focused on monthly giving in some seven countries. The number of recurring donors, or committed givers as they call it in the U.K., was the largest. That’s why, to this very day, I still like looking at trends in other countries, […]

What’s Love Got to Do With Fundraising?

love

Turns out love has everything to do with fundraising. Relationship Fundraising 3.0 from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy proves it. I had the pleasure of meeting Adrian Sargeant, co-director and co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, many years ago, when he was still working in the U.S. He was one of the foremost researchers on customer […]

What Can Your Nonprofit Do With Just $1?

$1

A few months ago, I went to a conference where they had an actual bookstore. It was great and fortunately I had a big suitcase in which to carry some books home. There, I found a little book called “What Can You Do With Just $1?” written by Teresa Vasilopoulos, the executive director of the WoodGreen Foundation, a […]

The M+R Benchmarks 2022 Are Here: Monthly Giving Up by 24%

M+R Benchmarks

One of my favorite statistics were just published: the M+R Benchmarks 2022. Not surprisingly, in the second year of the pandemic with still few in-person events, online giving grew, although not by as much as you’d expect, only 3%. Monthly giving however was the major driver of that growth. It increased by 24%, while one-time revenue […]

Even a Tiny Gesture Can Make Monthly Donors Feel Special

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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 […]

5 Ways In Which Sustainers Differ From Subscribers

subscribers

There have been several discussions about subscription giving and sustainers. In my view, some aspects absolutely apply, but not all of them. First, let me tell you that I have a subscription background. I organized the loyalty condensed book program at Reader’s Digest in Amsterdam. I had to calculate conversion rates and specifically how many […]

Who Was Daring Enough To Ask for Recurring Gifts During Giving Tuesday?

Daring Enough

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 […]