Growing a monthly donor program is a drip-by-drip, bit-by-bit approach. That’s why January is such a great month to go for it. But there are two important things to bear in mind.
First, I recommend creating a monthly-only page. When you’re trying to drive donors to give monthly, it must be very easy to find and very clear what you’re asking donors to do. If the only option is to give monthly, it must be very clear to the donor what will happen when he or she hits the “Give Monthly” button.
Second, if you’d rather try directing people to your typical donation page, I recommend not pre-populating or pre-selecting the monthly giving option. This may sound counter-intuitive, but there’s a good reason for it.
Monthly giving is a commitment, and the more the donor realizes that’s what they’re doing, the better off you are in the long run.
If the monthly gift option on the one-time donation page is pre-populated, you’ll run the risk of creating angry donors and bad donor experiences. The last thing you want to happen is the donor realizing that they accidentally gave monthly and now they have to call you to cancel it—Not Ideal.
Asking for monthly gifts means walking that fine line between providing the monthly opportunity wherever you can, making it easy for the donor to find, while asking the donor to really say: “Yes! I’m going to commit to a monthly gift.”
While you want to get as many new monthly donors you possibly can, you also want them to stay, right?
