There’s never a bad time to convert your constituents to give monthly, but there are two months a year that typically fit better in your overall communication plan: January and September.
Now’s a good time to look at what you could be doing to make your donors stay longer and become more loyal.
If you’ve always wanted to try taking over the home page for monthly giving for a month, September is a good month for it. If you’ve been following my blogs and tips for a while, you already have a monthly donor page in place, and it’s just a matter of linking to that page and then starting to spread the word. And if you don’t have that in place yet, all it takes is a little focused time to make that happen.
Now is also a good time to reach out to your current monthly donors and ask them for a little testimonial. Just ask them one question: Why are you supporting us with a monthly gift? Then ask them if you can use it to reach out to others.
If they’re willing, create a little video. It doesn’t have to be very fancy, as long as it’s personal and from the heart. Then create a special email message with that video, pop it into your email newsletter, share it on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, and put it on your website. All roads lead to the one big ask for September: Give monthly.
If they join, you’ll be able to recognize them as such in your year-end and holiday appeals and email messaging.
So, it’s not too late to declare January as Monthly Donor Month. Then focus on the messaging and the tools that are all consistently leading to generating new monthly donors. Steady wins the race.
You’ll be that farther along with your goals of improving donor retention rates and generating more money to support your wonderful programs. And if you need tools, examples or tips, there’s plenty of help to go around.
Originally published in NonProfitPro Today, August 28, 2017 and Updated for December
