At the DMA Washington Nonprofit Conference earlier this month, I got the chance to speak about one of our favorite things – monthly giving.
Yet from some corners, I still heard this:
How did you convince your [board / boss / staff ] to invest in monthly giving?
For sure, monthly giving isn’t always easy. It takes an additional investment of time to implement a monthly giving program, to ensure gifts are processed correctly, to report on and fully understand your program metrics. But despite the challenges, your organization can’t afford to ignore it. Here’s why …
1. This is the donor climate we’re all working in …
For years now, the universe of donors has been shrinking, and the number of new donors has been declining even faster. Although this trend was certainly not improved by the recent recession, declines in donor numbers began as early as 2005 and there’s no strong evidence that we’ll soon see a dramatic turnaround in this trend.
2. At the same time, we’re seeing more and more donors acquired online. While there are some benefits to online donors – they’re often younger, richer and give bigger gifts – donors acquired online are harder to retain, even controlling for age and income level.
Together, the picture that emerges is that it is harder than ever to get new donors … and harder than ever to hold on to those new donors.
As development professionals, our mandate is two-fold: to do whatever we can to retain donors, and focus on upgrading donors to higher levels of support, so that as we’re spending more on those ever-harder-to-acquire donors, we can be sure that our investment will pay off.
And this is exactly where monthly giving can help.
3. Monthly giving improves retention. Although rates vary by organization, retention for one-time donors is around 41%. In contrast, retention of monthly givers is 70% to 80%. Acquire a prospect as a monthly donor, or convert a new donor to a monthly donor, and you’ve immediately improved your long-term expectations.
4. Monthly giving will upgrade donors. Consider the following example …
We’d all be thrilled to have the donor on the left on our file; she’s a dedicated supporter who makes nice gifts several times a year. Yet by accepting a far smaller monthly contribution, we can increase this donor’s value by $85 annually – a more than 48% increase.
So next time someone asks if you think your organization can afford to do monthly giving, ask the opposite – can you afford NOT to?
Stay tuned! Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing the seven steps your organization needs to consider to start – or improve – your monthly giving program. Many thanks once again to Matthew Rojas of Lambda Legal and Sanaya Kaufman of Friends of the High Line who joined me to talk about monthly giving at the 2013 Washington Nonprofit Conference and so generously shared their time and expertise!
Hi, great presentation!! Perhaps you may be interested in reading more about monthly giving in a brandnew book, called Monthly Giving. The Sleeping Giant. It’s available via Fundraising Success, amazon and is now also available as an e-book and being released by all e-book outlets.
The more we fundraisers share our experiences about how important it is to get started with a monthly giving program, we will all benefit (including the donors)! It’s a win-win for everybody. Thank you for sharing!
Erica Waasdorp, Author: Monthly Giving. The Sleeping Giant.
Thanks for the recommendation – sounds great, and we’ll have to check it out. And thanks for reading!