Monthly Donors Give More Than One-Time Donors
The M+R Benchmarks research has always been one of my favorite studies, and often one of the very few go-to statistics on monthly giving trends. That’s why I’m really excited that the “2020 M+R Benchmarks Study“ is here. It’s very interactive, so you can find the most amazing trends in all things digitally. The M+R Benchmarks studies […]
Improving Donor Loyalty with a Winning Sustainer Program
Sustainer programs have grown substantially over the past few years, especially for those organizations that took advantage of generating new donors before, during and after the 2016 elections. In this article, I’m going to address two questions: Why has sustainer giving become so popular? How can you create a winning sustainer program? Why Has Sustainer […]
How to Incorporate Monthly Giving in Your Annual Fundraising Plan
The decision to add monthly giving to your annual fundraising plan is probably one of the most important ones you’ll ever make. It’s probably also one of the best you’ll ever make. Now if it were two decades ago, it would have been a costly one. But now, with the internet, email marketing, social media […]
2020 Monthly Giving Intentions
To start the year and decade off right, I thought I’d share 20 ideas and intentions to help you grow your monthly donor program to the next level. No matter what your current number of monthly donors is, you can always use more. No matter what your current overall communication schedule is, you should be […]
Grateful for a Smooth Agency/Consultant Transition
As we’re getting ready for Thanksgiving, I wanted to talk about something not often talked about: how nonprofit clients move from one fundraising agency or consultant to another, and how this can be a smooth transition or a difficult one. I’m very fortunate that I was recently asked to start working with an organization where […]
When and How Do You Record Monthly Gifts Financially?
This question also came up at the recent sustainer workshop, and I know it’s something people struggle with, especially when you talk with your treasurers or finance folks. Monthly gifts are different from the major gift pledges most organizations are used to. Those pledges are typically set up for a specific purpose with an end […]
Why ACH/EFT Increases Your Monthly Giving Retention
As I’m putting the finishing touches on the presentations and inputs for the Sustainer Workshop at the Bridge Conference, a colleague sent me this. It was part of the membership renewal she just received on her phone. Can it be any easier? Why are more and more nonprofits focusing on ACH/EFT (also called direct debits, eChecks)—automatic […]
What’s the Most Important Stage in a Monthly Donor’s Life?
Monthly giving is growing. Depending upon which provider of online communications you look at, the most recent statistics show that monthly giving accounts for roughly 16-20% of all online giving for 2018, up from 2017. But what do you have to do before you can bring in those monthly donors? What must happen when you […]
How Do You Manage Your Monthly Giving Program?
Good news! Monthly giving is one of the few groups of small donors that is (still) growing. Not surprisingly, because organizations have started focusing on it over the past few years. That’s why now job postings for monthly donor or sustainer managers, and monthly donor retention specialist positions are starting to pop up, but they’re […]
How to Measure Monthly Donor Success
I’m currently working on the analysis for a big national organization’s sustainer direct mail campaigns. One of the things we needed to settle on first was what they thought was important in measuring their monthly donor success. As you know, monthly gifts are typically small. So, if you only look at the first monthly gifts […]
