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?
The answer is (of course), it depends! Every organization is different and you will not know until you test, but here are some guidelines:
a. are you using specific (tangible) ask amounts in your other appeals and on your web site now? In other words, what are donors used to? For example, if you deal with food and clothes, donors can envision certain amounts. If you are an animal charity, you can be pretty specific in vet bills, but not everybody is able to do so.
If you have specific amounts now, can you take those amounts and create easy monthly amounts from it? Specific/tangible amounts work well but it’s important to remember that whatever we do in monthly giving is always unrestricted.
For example,
$9 a month: Provides 9 holes for three children every month
$18 a month: Helps fund a club outing for one child
$36 a month: Puts one kid in a golf uniform (Nike polo, golf hat and ball marker)
If you are not able to use specific amounts, you’ll have to be more general and that’s perfectly fine. You can say something like for x amount a day, …
If you are able to test it, you’ll see soon enough which amounts donors ‘gravitate to’ when you start marketing your program.
b. What’s the lowest amount you can ask for?
The rule to remember is: Ask low, get high response. If you’re too greedy by asking too high, your response goes down. So, if you’re interested in growing your monthly donors, you’ll have to be okay with starting low! Trust me, you’ll be okay. (Right now, the average monthly gift is $24).
Your lowest amount will first be dictated by which system you’re using. Some will require you to offer $10 as the lowest.
So, here’s what I recommend: look at the typical average gift when donors donate to appeals and take ONE THIRD of that amount as a gift amount and round it off to the lowest 5.
For example, if your typical average gift is $35, you can start with $10 a month, $15 a month, $20 a month, $35 a month, $50 a month, Other $ (always include other !!)
If your average gift is $75, you can start with $25 a month, $50 a month, $75 a month , $100 a month, Other $ but I’d still recommend testing a lower amount and see what happens.
I’ve done a number of tests over my lifetime of working with monthly giving and the lower ask typically wins… but you’ll have to do your own testing.
I’d love to know what works best for your organization.
I found a few fabulous great resources and articles this week:
- Check out Monthly Donor Monday tip on Nonprofit Pro. Subscription is free! Note, stay tuned for the April issue with some brand new research on monthly giving!
- Check out a great way to improve your donor retention even further with eCheck processing. Thank you Ronald Pruitt for sharing this with me.
- Facebook and Facebook live are growing and a terrific way to start generating monthly donors. Check out these great resources from John Haydon!
- If you’re considering changing careers and how best to manage your fundraising (team), check out this webinar my friend Mazarine Treyz is offering.
- If you’re an advocacy organization, check out a way to ignite engagement with a photo contest.
- A new infographic on monthly donors and I’m quoted in it…Thank you, Pursuant!
- Jay Love of Bloomerang wrote a new book on ‘staying together’… You can download it here
- Ann Green joined as a monthly donors herself last fall and shares some great examples of how to make monthly donors feel special. Thanks Ann.
- Consider a google grant to grow your email audience, go here to find out how to apply.
- Amazon Smile: What a great way to generate some money at no charge to your donors!
- We Microgive: offers a way for donors to round up their credit card payments to the next dollar and indicate which charity they’d like the roundups to go to.
