Did you know that donors who give monthly are more likely to stick with your nonprofit and are more likely to give more over their giving lifetime than those donors who only give one or two times a year?
Monthly giving programs are an effective way to engage with donors, increase your nonprofit’s fundraising revenue and establish long-term donor relationships.
Benefits of monthly giving
There are many benefits of monthly giving. One of the easiest ones to see from a nonprofit’s viewpoint is that it provides you with a more stable budget. When you know the amounts of your monthly gifts, it’s easier to plan what comes in from donations versus when all your donations are one-time, sporadic gifts.
From the donors’ perspective, offering a monthly giving program can make it easier on the checkbook and has the potential for larger donations. If donors can break up their gifts into smaller, monthly installments (that are automatically deducted from their accounts), it’s likely that they’ll round up those monthly gifts. Say someone typically gives $500 at the end of the year, the per-month amount would be around $41 (which is easy to round up to $45 or $50 a month instead which could mean an additional $40 to $100 from just one donor).
Consider this:
In 2020, the average one-time gift for 4aGoodCause clients was $207. Not bad.
Even better? The average monthly gift for 4aGoodCause clients was $73/month. That equates to $876 a year. Almost $700 more than the average one-time gift average! If your donors averaged nearly $900 a year, just think about how much of a positive impact that would have on your nonprofit.
Small nonprofit, high donation potential
Monthly giving can be largely beneficial to small nonprofits. If you have a smaller pool of donors, providing an option whereby those donors can make smaller gifts over longer periods of time can not only sustain them, but make their ongoing donations easier to digest. And, with a higher retention rate for monthly donors, it means you may not have to spend as much time on large-scale giving campaigns or annual fund drives that typically ask for higher donation amounts. Not that you can’t do those things—but if you have a healthy pool of monthly donors, it takes the pressure off the other fundraising initiatives.
See monthly giving in action
Friends of Foothills Animal Shelter does a great job of showcasing its monthly giving campaign by inviting donors to become a Paw Member, providing free T-shirts for monthly gifts of $25 or more, and by demonstrating how various dollar amounts impact pets in need. The organization’s online monthly giving landing page is clean, provides an easy way for donors to sign up for automatic debits and provides an exclusive offer for members.
4 ways to make monthly giving work for you
If you don’t have a monthly giving program, it’s easy to get started. As you roll it out, consider ways to make the program appealing to donors of all levels:
Brand your monthly giving
Think of your monthly giving program as a club that donors can belong to. Can you give the members or the program a fun name? Does it make sense to break them out by giving levels? Be creative and tie your monthly giving brand back to your organization’s full brand.
Run targeted monthly giving campaigns
Use your social media channels, email marketing and events to upsell your monthly giving on a routine basis. Crunch some numbers to give your donors context and visuals on how moving to a monthly giving set-up can help them give more and, in turn, impact more.
Develop easy monthly giving enrollment pages
Use the Foothills Animal Shelter as a guide. Make your enrollment pages mobile-friendly, outline specifics of the monthly giving program, pre-highlight a suggested giving amount and ask for their contact (and account) information right on the page. Grab our free donation page checklist to get you started.
Give monthly donors organization swag or gifts
T-shirts, water bottles, beach towels, notebooks, bags—there’s no shortage of ideas on fun gifts you can give your donors as a thank you for becoming a monthly donor. Before determining your donor gift, ensure that it fits the budget and that you have clearly identified which monthly donor levels are eligible.
Need help? Contact us to learn about our online donation platform, landing pages and how monthly giving can be a simple option for your donors online.
