posted April 27, 2017 NonProfit PRO Today And the answer is: NOT ANYTIME SOON! A year or so ago, I joined 20 organizations with a monthly gift. And (sneaky me), I gave them a card that was going to expire a month later. I then tracked what organizations did in terms of “thank you” letters and actions to try to get me back. In the next two months, only two organizations picked up the phone and called me! The rest sent me emails and left it at...

originally posted on NonProfit Pro Today By now, you know the tremendous power  monthly donors have. You know how it can help improve your donor retention to much higher levels. We typically see monthly donor retention rates between 87 percent and 95 percent—that’s double that of one-time donors. So, as monthly donors are starting to take hold in nonprofits, it’s important to put a few things in place to keep those donors giving monthly to your...

Originally posted on NonProfit Pro Today  #TrendingNow In this new weekly video, Nhu Te breaks down the most popular articles of the week. This week is all about when a monthly donor calls to cancel from Erica Waasdorp, exercises in monthly giving from Blackbaud’s Ashley Thompson and DonorDrive’s webinar on Google AdWords. Check them...

A monthly donor calling up to cancel is a dreaded call for any organization. It’s something nobody wants to hear. But it’s important to respond in the right way. Bloomerang’s Steven Shattuck posted an article on his experience canceling as a monthly donor. So, let’s provide you with the best response when this happens at your organization. This requires you to get all of the people answering the phones at your organization in a room for a few...

A few weeks ago, NonProfit Pro shared an interesting NACHA case study on the long-term retention of those donors who give automatically through their bank account, also called EFT, Direct Debit, Direct Payment via ACH or automatic bank withdrawal. (Note, for the rest of this post, I’ll refer to this as EFT.) So you may say, “Why is this important if we only offer monthly donors via credit or debit card now?” The answer is because if you can...

This post was written for and published at Nonprofit Pro. Some of the most successful (and perhaps even leading) nonprofits that are converting members to monthly donors (often called sustainers or sustaining partners) are public television and public radio stations, all over the country. They realized several years ago that moving regular members to monthly donors had several major advantages: • Members who give automatically through their...

I just finished Seth Godin’s book, “Poke the Box.” As always, it’s terrific, short and to the point. It really got me thinking: Godin tells us to have the initiative to start. Turn fear into action because the consequence of doing nothing is much scarier and is certainly going to raise less money! It seems to me that this approach should be applied especially to monthly donors. There seems to be a fear of starting, and it prevents organizations...

If you’re an organization that has had monthly donors for a while, you’ll know that some of your monthly donors can and will stay with you for decades! Of course that in part depends on their age when joining. Typically, I’m seeing that those donors continue to give monthly for 5 years to 7 years. That’s great news, isn’t it? If you treat your monthly donors like your best friends, the news will get even better! Because these “small” donors...

This post was recently featured in Nonprofit Pro In one of the webinars I present on monthly giving, one of the polls is: “How often do you ask someone to become a monthly donor?” The answer in some 50 percent of cases is not at all. Twenty percent say once a year and others more often than that—maybe twice or three times. Well, here’s your number one must-do when it comes to bringing in new monthly donors: Must-Do No. 1: You must ASK for it As...

This week’s #MonthlyDonorMonday tip is focused on the best amount to ask for in monthly giving. One of the attendees of my webinar last week sent me a follow up question and I know it comes up a lot. What’s the best amount to ask for in monthly giving can really be broken into two additional questions: Should you ask for odd or even amount?  For example; does $9 work better than $10? What’s the lowest amount you can ask for?...

This post was written for and published by Nonprofit Pro.  One of the first things I recommend when you’re starting to work on growing your monthly donor program is to create the “promises” you’ll make to the monthly donors when they join. What will you send them? How are you planning to recognize them? So let’s begin with the end in mind. Think through the thank you opportunities then decide what you’ll tell them and what you’ll keep as a...

This post first appeared on the Donor Perfect blog. Many nonprofits struggle with the decision to make the move and ask for monthly gifts. Here’s what I hear from organizations when I ask them about their monthly donor program: “I need one time gifts.” “I can’t focus on monthly gifts right now. They’re too small to concern myself with.” “I only have so little time. Why would I worry about small donors?” “It’s all about the net and monthly...

A few months ago, I started promoting #MonthlyDonorMonday. All I ask of you is to focus one half hour every Monday on your monthly donor program. Of course, you’re totally welcome to do more, but if nothing else, start with half an hour. You can read a MonthlyDonorMonday tip. You can test your web site. You can see what other organizations are doing. You can create a monthly donor page. You can start working on a monthly donor plan.  You...

This post was written for Charity How To  and can be read here  I’m so excited… Because monthly giving is becoming more and more popular! Systems keep getting easier and easier.  More organizations have seen the ‘monthly donor light!’ But yet, so many organizations are slow to come on board.  With just a little bit of training, you too can start your monthly donor program and grow that sustainable revenue you need to...

This post was first written for and published by Donor Perfect and can be viewed here.  Happy new year! I hope you did fantastic and exceeded your year-end goals! Now it’s back to reality.  You’ve processed all of your donations for 2016.  You’re current with your thank you letters.  That should suffice, right? Then a monthly donor calls and wants a tax-receipt for all of her donations for the year, even though she gets her...

This blog post was also published in Direct Marketing Advents, the publication of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington, DMAW. If you’ve seen or heard me present about monthly giving before, you know that I always recommend the following first step of running a monthly giving program: Put one person in charge! (Note, If you’re a large organization, the above guideline could be expanded to: put ONE department in charge, but it will make...

This post was written for and published by Bloomerang  More and more organizations now have a sustaining donor (monthly, quarterly, etc. donor) program. That’s great! Unfortunately, there can be a tendency not to continue appealing to them. But should you continue asking them for money? Can you send an appeal to your recurring donors? The answer is a resounding: YES, YES, YES! If you don’t, you’re missing out. The typical small shop that I have...

As part of the country is cleaning up after Hurricane Matthew and others are bracing themselves for it, I was thinking about disasters and the tremendous impact on fundraising, especially in prime giving season. For example, if you’re local, based in Florida, Georgia or South Carolina and your donors have to evacuate in the middle of your busy appeal season, that will definitely have an impact! Just think back what happened with Katrina...

This blog was written for and published by Pamela Grow at Simple Development Systems  Thank you, Pamela for being a great colleague. She introduced me to the webinar phenomenon and I’ve not looked back since! So, when she sends me a question, it’s a great opportunity to give back. So, one of her clients recently asked her about Monthly giving pop-ups and how they work (or do not work) and what the negative or positive impact could...

This post was written for and published by Charity How To  A few years ago, Monthly giving was something for the few and big organizations. Not anymore! Every organization can and should organize a monthly giving program in very short order. With the right tools (and you may very well already have them in-house), you can get started in no time. You may know I’m somewhat of a monthly donor ‘groupie!’ I’ve been managing...

This was also published as part of an interview for the Nonprofit Leadership Summit.  MT: Hey, everybody. Welcome. This is Mazarine Treyz of Wild Woman Fundraising and I am so pleased today to be interviewing Erica Waasdorp, who wrote Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant, and who is also the president of A Direct Solution. She will be teaching at our Nonprofit Leadership Summit. Erica, can you give some people an idea of the kind of monthly...

This post was written for and published by Donor Perfect  Just a few years ago, setting up a monthly donor program was difficult. You had to do lots of workarounds, hire professionals to set it up.  or outsource the process and then spend money on direct mail or telemarketing to start asking donors to join your monthly donor program. It was expensive and labor intensive. Email campaigns were for the ‘big few’. Everything took a lot of time....

This post was written for and published on the Donor Perfect blog  1. Ask often. Just like anything in fundraising, ask and you’ll receive! It’s crucial that you start asking for monthly donations as often as you can. 2. Set sail with email. Email is a great channel to use as you begin asking. It’s affordable, and donors can easily click right through to your recurring donation page. read...

This post was written for and published at the Eight Principles. Monthly giving is probably one of the least understood methods of sustainable giving in the US, but yet one of the most powerful ones.  Once you start, you’ll experience the power, but it’s the starting that’s often the most difficult. Today, I’d like to address the first 3 of The Eight Principles for Sustainable Fundraising™ as they all relate to monthly giving as a major driver...

Recently, my Agitator colleagues asked, what would you do if you could do it all over again? Here is what I’d say to you: If you could do it all over again, you should focus on building your monthly donor pool right away. It will help provide that sustainable revenue and it is easy and convenient for the donor. No gift is too small! If you look at the numbers, you scratch your head and wonder why not more organizations have jumped on the...

At a recent webinar, two people asked me the question: How do I integrate monthly giving with my workplace giving campaign: those individuals who have designated us and we receive a small amount through their pay check every pay period. My answer is: If you’d like, you can recognize them as monthly donors and tell the donors this either upfront before they decide to support you through their pay check or you can tell them afterwards. BUT,...

In the past year, this organization in Washington, DC had steadily started losing 500 monthly donors each month. At the same time, its acquisition efforts were only generating 250 monthly donors a month, so the program was in a steady and rapid decline. Something had to happen! The Director brought in A Direct Solution to review the program and try to turn it around. And that’s exactly what we did! One big problem in the past year was beyond...

This youth organization in Colorado reached out to A Direct Solution to ask for help with its first email appeal asking its donors to join their newly developed recurring donor program. Our first recommendation was to develop a special targeted page so we could link the email directly to this page. Our second recommendation was to find a donor to provide a challenge gift.The organization found a generous donor who was willing to put up a $5,000...

You’ve heard me talking about monthly recurring gift programs and their importance on the long-term retention of your donors. Not to mention how much money you’ll raise! Fundraisers are often blown by away if I mention some numbers, just 300 monthly donors can bring in almost $100,000 a year for your organization. What’s not to like about that? So, if you are not already looking at implementing a program for your organization,...

How does Monthly Giving Jive with a membership program? Great question. It jives really well, but if you’d like to grow your number of monthly donors, you’ll have to ‘think’ a little bit differently about memberships. Basically what you’ll start allowing your members pay for their membership on a monthly basis. Key with this is that you recognize the member as a monthly donor and as a member at the same time, so...