During this holiday season of giving, especially based on the recent success of #GivingTuesday, you can clearly tell there is something magical about using a match. Successful fundraisers have used matches for years and continue to use it. Why? Because it works! Nearly all of #GivingTuesday emails I received before, during and in the days following included some type of a match. Most matches were straight amounts. Some matches were small. Some...

Whenever I talk about monthly giving to a group, in person or via webinar, I often ask people how many of them are monthly donors themselves. Sometimes just a few hands go up, or a few indicate it in the poll if it’s on a webinar. Well, how can you ask someone to give monthly if you don’t know the feeling and the satisfaction it gives you as a donor if you’re not even giving monthly yourself? How can you find out what other organizations are...

As you know, I do a ton of blogging and presenting on monthly giving. I talk to organizations about their monthly donor programs all the time. But I haven’t been able to solve the biggest monthly giving mystery: “What’s holding organizations back to start or grow their monthly donor program?” I’d love to find out from you what you think it is, because I’ve not yet been able to answer that question. I can guess at some of the reasons (or...

There are many opportunities to generate monthly donors, if you’re willing to use them. I’ve given you several options in past blogs, but here is one of the BEST ways to make a real splash and generate a substantial number of new monthly donors in a very short period. It’s by using a MATCH.  It literally sets your program on fire! A match is a special gift you’ll receive if you reach a certain fundraising goal.  A match will help motivate...

As you’re getting ready for Giving Tuesday — or the campaign season starting before Thanksgiving — this question comes up often: Should I include my monthly donors in my Giving Tuesday campaign?  My answer is: Yes! Absolutely, BUT… Why do I recommend including your monthly donors? Because this is an exciting time to give, and you’ll leave money on the table if you don’t ask. Many Giving Tuesday (or Giving Day) campaigns have a match challenge...

Soon, we’ll celebrate the D-Day invasion, which happened 75 years ago. Next year, we’ll celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. My mom and dad grew up in the Hague, Netherlands, and they were only 4 years old and 6 years old when Rotterdam was bombed and the war became real. My parents suffered through the Hunger Winter 1944/1945, when the Eastern part of the country was liberated after the major battle in Arnhem, but the...

Growing a monthly donor program is a drip-by-drip, bit-by-bit approach. That’s why January is such a great month to go for it. But there are two important things to bear in mind. First, I recommend creating a monthly-only page. When you’re trying to drive donors to give monthly, it must be very easy to find and very clear what you’re asking donors to do. If the only option is to give monthly, it must be very clear to the donor what will happen...

… You’d think that every organization by now would be convinced that there are donors who are interested in supporting your organization by joining a sustainer program. … You’d think the tremendous feeling of excitement that these wonderful sustainers generate would permeate your organization.  Well, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, it’s the “financial folks,” “the bean counters” who are holding things up. They...

You’ve heard me say this before: ”Assign a driver!”—if you’re serious about growing your nonprofit sustainer program.  Just one driver who pulls it all together and who makes sure the car keeps running and is being maintained to keep on running for a very long time.  So, when I mentioned this at a recent conference, an attendee asked me: ”What are the top characteristics someone needs to manage a sustainer program?”  That’s such a great...

One of the key annual fundraising strategies I recommend you add (or rev up) this year is monthly giving. It’s one of the best ways I know to move the needle in improving your mid-level giving program, and to also serve as a pipeline to acquire new donors, upgrade current donors, and influence major and legacy giving. To help you persuade your “powers that be” this is a direction in which you should definitely be headed, I’ve invited Erica...

I just got back from a tremendous few days in the Washington D.C. area, and I learned a lot about monthly sustainer programs. First, I was privileged to attend the Professional Face-to-Face Fundraisers Association meeting, where some 75 people listened to speakers on the latest trends in face-to-face sustainer fundraising and how one nonprofit tweaked its retention to higher levels. Spoiler alert: account updater and credit card processes had a...

I was born and raised in the Netherlands where electronic bank payments, or direct withdrawals, were a way of life. Believe it or not, even credit cards there were required to be paid off every month, automatically, from your bank account. Things have changed there, but also here in the U.S. Now, the question, “can monthly giving via direct withdrawal work here?” has a much more powerful “yes” answer than ever before. While it’s still not quite...

These days, there’s so much interest in new channels and the latest next “new shiny thing,” but did you know that there’s one medium you use everyday that has evolved tremendously over the past few years? That medium (the one that you’re holding in your hand right now or the one that’s very nearby!) is the ultimate key to retaining your donors: it’s your phone! In a session at the 50th Annual NCDC Conference and Exposition, Juddee Millito and...

I still come across many organizations that are actively trying to grow their monthly giving program, but they’re not sure who’s “running the show.” Nobody feels responsible. People wait until someone comes up with the next idea. Some think they only need to be focused on one aspect of monthly giving. Nobody is taking control of the whole process. Until those self-driving cars become a reality, just like with a car, you must have a driver. And...

This problem doesn’t just occur with monthly donors, but with all donors. That last step, finishing the donation is the key. But often, the donor clicks through. They’re ready to make a gift, but for some mysterious reason, they leave. They never finish the donation. What can you do? Should you just let that donor go? I say, not necessarily so. I say, use that opportunity to get feedback from your donor to help you improve future donor giving....

You’ve probably heard about the latest trend in donors, called rage donors. In a way, these have been around for years, but they used to be called “disaster donors.” Donors were often called “episodic” donors. Donors who only give at the moment of disaster, at the moment of “rage,” when something is really “hot” in the media, and people feel totally compelled to do something about it. And if there’s an organization, a group of individuals or...

Now is the time to celebrate your monthly donor wins.  As this is the new fiscal year for many organizations, make sure to celebrate your wins in number of monthly donors over the past year. Of course, this all started with your goals. Goals will be different for different sized organizations. You have wanted to generate your first 25 monthly donors. You may have wanted to break through the first 100. Maybe your goal was to get to the next...

As you may know by now, when it comes to monthly giving, I’m all about making things easy and simple for both monthly donors and the organizations. So when I start working with an organization on growing their number of monthly donors, we first look at the online donation forms to see what’s already in place. And that’s sometimes where the big pause comes… I call it the “stopper,” “the donation preventer” or the...

At a workshop last week, I asked the question: “Are you giving monthly to your own organization?” I was expecting everybody’s hand to go up. But boy, was I unpleasantly surprised! Out of the 52 people in the room, only eight people raised their hand. Fortunately, a few days later at another presentation, it was almost the whole room. So, my first recommendation if you’re looking to grow your number of monthly donors is to join your own program...

There it was: a text and an email message from my credit card company. Someone was trying to use my card in a different state! I had traveled there the week before and stopped at one of those travel plazas to fill up my car. Maybe that’s where it happened. How on earth somebody got ahold of my card information from my wallet and worse—was able to use it—is beyond me. Something must have set off this alert because the credit card was not...

Donors are fascinating people; and monthly donors, at times, even more so. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that one of my recommendations is to invite your monthly donors to events. Some may wish to attend, and, even if they don’t come, it will make them feel special. But at times, you give a donor a finger, and they’ll want your whole hand. Here’s an example based upon a recent question during one of my monthly donor...

It’s graduation time! It makes me think back of our boys graduating from college, who are now college alumni. Our youngest son went to Cape Cod Community College for the first two years and then graduated from Belmont University in Nashville. It’s a great campus, a terrific school and a great city to live in and visit. While he’s been on his own for a few years, he’s moving around a fair bit, and we receive his Belmont mail here at the house....

As you may know, Penelope Burk does some tremendous research on donors thinking and behavior. From her 2017 report, I was particularly pleased to see the tremendous move from donors with the focus on monthly giving, especially for younger donors. I reported on this before. As a follow up, Penelope recently wrote a blog about what donors are thinking, especially pertaining to disaster giving. Disaster donors are slightly different from other...

I never think of myself as a pack rat; but when it comes to fundraising, that’s exactly what I had become. So this past week, I took some time to go through old magazines and boxes of direct mail and, in particular, monthly giving samples. Sustainer trends and research; extra appeals and sustainer upgrades; thank you letters; stewardship newsletters; sustainer reminders; conversion packages. I still have a few more to scan in, but if you’re...

The other day, one of my clients mentioned that she has been giving $10 a month to an organization for three years. She signed up on the street, and that was that—no phone call, no thank-you letter, no email, no newsletter, no anything. Well, after this had been going on for three years, she called them up and said: “Enough is enough. While $10 a month is not a big amount, it’s all I can afford right now. I’m going to cancel because, clearly,...

I may have mentioned before that there really are not that many trend statistics tracking monthly giving revenue. For individual organizations, there are some wonderful analytics companies to look at trends and compare against their other clients, but that information is not publicly available. The only available stats I know of are: For small organizations (raising $2 million or less): the “Individual Donor Benchmarking Study,” but...

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 and possible one-time donations that came in from those donors who are not yet ready to give monthly, you’re not doing...

Many organizations are in the process of budgeting for their next fiscal year. Here’s a guest blog from Chrissy Reynolds who wrote a great post on how important it is for both organizations AND donors to budget their donations. That fits nicely with monthly giving, don’t you think? Donations to the non-profit sector for charitable causes grew by an estimated 3.6% in 2017 and is expected to increase to 3.8% this year. Many charities, foundations...

Here’s a guest blog where it’s all about the business focus for nonprofits. Somethings that’s very important when it comes to monthly giving. Once organizations see the power of those small donors, they’ll be more likely to focus on it more. As you know, nonprofit organizations are playing the positive role in the betterment of communities. Non-profit organizations are similar to for-profit organizations because they also need money to achieve...

You may know I’m a huge promoter of monthly giving. Why? Because it’s a great way to engage your small annual fund donors and increase your donor retention rates. And as a recent statistic showed, sustainer giving is indeed growing, especially online. Last year, 20% of online giving came from monthly donors (aka sustainers, recurring donors; source – Blackbaud 2017 Luminate Benchmarks). Needless to say, the interest in monthly giving has...