At the end of September, DMAW organized its first Sustainer Week. It consisted of a session every day, totally focused on sustainers (of course), from a different angle. As someone who is totally committed to recurring giving, I’m really excited about the DMAW and the education committees with such a sustainer-focused approach. If you too are a sustainer aficionado you may have attended sessions in the past during the Bridge conference,...

Did you know that Americans who include monetary charitable giving in their annual budget gave nearly seven times, on average, than those who do not budget at all? That’s the outcome of the online survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Vanguard Charitable, a nonprofit that administers donor-advised funds (DAFs). This study reminded me of two things: Recurring giving is extremely convenient for those...

Whether you want to call it social proof, a testimonial — it doesn’t really matter. Donor’s love hearing from other donors. It helps give them that “extra” little push or nudge if you will. This works in major gift fundraising. This works in general fundraising. It especially works with recurring giving. If someone tells why they’re giving monthly, that will help motivate others. It will also help you as the fundraiser in developing...

Donor advised funds are all the craze lately. Now is the time to motivate those donors who want to optimize their tax deductions this year to consider a gift from their donor advised fund. Or, if they don’t have a donor advised fund set up yet, they may wish to consider it. Did you know that you can already set up a donor advised fund for $5,000 minimum? You don’t have to be a millionaire to start, but it’s a guaranteed tax deduction of $5,000...

Last week, my husband and I took a trip, ultimately leading to visit our kids and grandkids. We flew to Norfolk, Virginia, and then drove down to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial. My husband is a private general aviation pilot, so this national park was high on his bucket list, and it did not disappoint. The park ranger did a great job telling the Wright brothers’ story and the evolution of their...

When an international fundraising legend like Ken Burnett writes a book, I stand up and listen. And having met Ken personally at numerous international conferences, I’m proud to have a signed copy! This new book, “The Essence of Campaigning Fundraising” was published by the White Lion Press in June. It includes a cool-looking USB drive that includes the 52 exhibits and 199 web links to which the book refers. Proceeds will go to SOFII, a...

A fundraiser asked me this question: “Do you need to send monthly receipts to monthly donors?” My answer is: Ideally, no. There is no need to send monthly receipts to monthly donors. The ideal situation is that you send some other updates to them instead. That way it’s much less about the transaction and the value of the gift, but much more about how the monthly donor’s gifts are making a difference. I recommend sending one very clear thank-you...

Every nonprofit wants to attract younger donors. That’s why it’s very exciting that monthly giving is so appealing to these younger donors. Why? Because they can support those organizations, they care about in a very easy way with a small amount that absolutely fits their budget. Easy and small are the key words here. Easy because they can make a gift from their credit card, their bank account, and more and more from their digital wallet like...

I love Next After and its tremendous research and experiments. Focused on online giving, donation pages and emails, Next After provides a lot to learn. If you know that the typical number of people who finish a gift is only 21%, that means 79% do not give, even though they go to your organization’s page to donate. Yet, you can do something about it, or, should I say, prevent that outcome. Recently, Next After — in collaboration with Fundraise...

You probably have seen me quote Seth Godin before. His blogs inspire some of mine. It’s a short one so I’ll share his full post on “The Order of Operations” because it’s so important when it comes to monthly giving: “If you put the jelly on before the peanut butter, the sandwich will fail. “And if you try to spread the peanut butter on the plate and then add the bread, it will fail even worse. “Like so many things, the...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been able to do some traveling again — in-person client visits, family visits, fun. Sitting on airplanes and in airports means time to read. I never leave home without a fundraising book to enjoy (along with other books, of course). Recently, I read “The Post-Pandemic Nonprofit: 12 Disruptive Trends Your Nonprofit Must Master” by Jeremy Reis. It’s a great and easy read in some 170 pages. It took me...

by  Jim Eskin I have to start with a confession: I am a monthly giving convert. As a practitioner, I heard a lot about it at the Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and other professional conferences, and my ears perked up. But when I returned to my development shop, I discussed it with the team and, regrettably, didn’t demonstrate the needed leadership to make a robust and serious commitment to make things happen as they should...

As you may know, I’ve been scanning and tracking examples of monthly giving approaches and follow ups for years. There are so many wonderful ways nonprofits ask for monthly donors. So many tremendous examples of saying thank you in the most grateful of ways. There’s so much that goes right with monthly giving and the results are showing! But every now and then, I see some goofs. I’m not going to name names, but you probably know who you are...

Donor data has always been important in raising funds for nonprofits. It’s literally your ‘gold.’ It provides you with everything you need to keep track of your donors and know most of what there is to know about them. Especially when it comes to outreach to potential monthly donors. Why is this helpful for outreach to potential monthly donors? For segmentation purposes, which then leads to personalization in email messaging and direct mail...

Monthly giving is not hard. It doesn’t require much investment at all, and a little bit of time and effort go a long way. I hope this will help you change your mindset, and you’ll find that monthly giving truly is very easy. Why? Because you already have the tools in-house. Because you already have the channels. You are already sending letters, sending emails, using social media and you’re probably also making phone calls. All it takes...

Today I wanted to start your week off with a little music. It’s been a very loooooong year, and as many of you are about to wrap up your fiscal year, you might need some encouragement to keep pushing. Let me share with you one of my all-time favorite songs with you: “Wake Up Everybody.” I found it by accident. A few years ago, my husband and I attended a big local charity event. It was the No. 1 event to be seen at, held just before...

Donor data has always been important in raising funds for nonprofits. It’s literally your ‘gold.’ It provides you with everything you need to keep track of your donors and know most of what there is to know about them. Especially when it comes to outreach to potential monthly donors. Why is this helpful for outreach to potential monthly donors? For segmentation purposes, which then leads to personalization in email messaging and direct mail...

I was looking back at some questions posed in a webinar I presented recently, and this was one of them: “What’s the most common mistake you see is made when it comes to monthly giving?” Of course, I’d love to say that most of you are not making any mistakes, but that’s not totally true. After all, we learn from mistakes, and we can make it better. That’s what we must do every day. The biggest mistake I’ve seen when it comes to monthly giving...

Whenever I take a trip by plane, I love the view from high up above. You can see the city, the mountains, the lakes, the rivers. You see the colors of it all. And everything is so tiny. It all looks so organized (mostly). You see the roads, the traffic down below, and it doesn’t really matter if there’s a lot or very little of it. You can see the big picture. You can see what’s on the horizon. Being above it all is very different from when...

You may know that I’ve been working in monthly giving for almost 30 years now. I’ve now written two books on monthly giving.  My second book, “Monthly Giving Made Easy,” is due to hit Amazon and e-book outlets any minute. All in all, I believe there are now six books in total on the topic of monthly or regular giving, as they call it in other countries. Much has changed since Harvey McKinnon wrote the book “Hidden Gold”...

Sometimes, fundraisers ask me: “What’s the cost per sustainer?” Let me explain a few different types of cost. 1. What should you expect to spend to acquire a new monthly donor? The answer is: It depends. And it’s all over the map because it depends on the channels you’re using or the combination thereof. Let’s take a look at three examples. Credit: Erica Waasdorp The email example above assumes that the cost for the email program is all put...

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 retention rates are also up. Let’s take a look at the growth...

I always look forward to when M+R Strategic launches its annual benchmarks. It just released this year’s edition, and you can find the full report right here. As you can see, and as I’m sure you expected, it was a great year for digital engagement in general. I, of course, tend to focus on monthly giving developments. You can find that data on this specific page, along with some charts. Great stuff. So, here’s the good news from 2020: Revenue...

Credit: Concord Leadership Group “The Surprising Gift of Doubt,” written by Marc Pitman of Concord Leadership Group, is a book that’s not just about nonprofit leadership. It can be applied to leaders in any situation, especially if you, as a leader, need some re-grounding or refocus. And who doesn’t need that during this ongoing pandemic? Even if you’ve never taken a leadership class, this book gives you, in easy bites, some of the key...

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This quote by Benjamin Franklin came to mind as I was lucky to get my second vaccine. There’s something amazingly liberating about knowing that you’ve done everything in your power to stay healthy. Not to mention that I’m really excited about traveling some more. When you think about starting or growing your monthly donors, think of it as the best way to prevent your organization from...

I love subscriptions. I have for years. I started out my direct mail and fundraising career working on subscriptions and loyalty programs. Subscriptions are great! And they certainly have and continue to have a huge impact on recurring gifts. They’ve allowed people to become much more comfortable paying for things automatically. They’ve opened up automated giving to younger donors. But in my view, that’s where it ends. Why? Just look at this...

When I was reviewing my monthly gifts for the year, I realized that I hadn’t given monthly to several organizations since May. I call this a soft cancel. I didn’t mean to stop giving monthly, and I didn’t take action to stop. I had received a new card at the time, but things were very busy. I simply didn’t take the time to sit down and contact the organizations. Of course, part of me also wanted to see what happened. Sadly, in many cases,...

While I was doing some research, I came across this interesting study.  Brightback’s research is more aimed at the commercial subscription world, but a lot of what happens there can be applied to monthly giving for nonprofits. What I find interesting is the shift to an online/digital model.  Take note: Online consumers expect the experience to be convenient and relevant. While I’m not a tremendous proponent of having online donor accounts,...

I just finished going through all of the donations I made last year to prepare for my taxes. I use two credit cards and a banking account for my monthly gifts, so it was a little bit of a process. First, thank you to those organizations who sent me a tax letter! That was helpful. When I was reviewing my gifts, I thought about those organizations I didn’t feel an affinity with any longer. Or I didn’t feel they were making me feel special. Some I...

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 not have the funds to help, so they did not ask at a time when it was most crucial to ask donors for help....