At a recent webinar, someone asked me: Are there certain parameters to use to find your best monthly donor prospects?
The general answer is: Yes, there certainly are! But, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. And where you are in your monthly donor program. And how you’re offering monthly donors to give (credit/debit card only or credit/debit card and EFT)? And it depends on which media you’re using to raise funds now.
The overall answer is: Anybody who is not yet a monthly donor is a prospect. And if you don’t ask you’re not going to get.
Having said that, I typically recommend to focus monthly donor asks on donors who give less than$100. They are not your big check writers but they are typically those who respond to your appeals and email appeals. Most monthly donors are small (on average they give $23 a month now) (M&R Strategic Benchmarks) .
If you’re looking to do a targeted appeal and you’re only offering credit/debit card monthly giving now, find those under $100 donors who have made a credit card/debit card donation and start there.
If you’re looking to do a targeted appeal and you’re offering all options, select those donors who have given 1 gift in the past year and those those donors who have given 2 or more gifts in the past year and look a the results. And build your plan from there.
And if you read my previous post, ask those donors who just gave!
Realistically, where you’re in the monthly donor building phase, it’s key to ask as many donors as you can to join.
So, in the beginning don’t worry too much about targeting, but as you grow target those who just gave, target those who gave several gifts in the past year and start building the plan from there. (For a plan template, see here) . I’m working on a few more advanced plan templates and will update you when they’re ready.
If you’d like to find out how to grow your monthly giving program, just contact the Monthly Giving Help Line . It only takes one extra new monthly donor to pay for it! You can’t beat the price.
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