When I was reviewing my monthly gifts for the year, I realized that I hadn’t given monthly to several organizations since May.
I call this a soft cancel. I didn’t mean to stop giving monthly, and I didn’t take action to stop.
I had received a new card at the time, but things were very busy. I simply didn’t take the time to sit down and contact the organizations. Of course, part of me also wanted to see what happened. Sadly, in many cases, nothing happened.
What was interesting, while I had been receiving monthly receipts from the giving platforms before, there was no communication from those platforms whatsoever after my card didn’t process.
What was especially interesting is that these were also different platforms, and some charge a substantial amount monthly to make life easier on the nonprofit (and donors).
I reached out to the organizations and asked them what happened.
In one case, the system had sent a note to the organization’s admin person, but she didn’t realize she had to do something. Never even questioned it. And the organization doesn’t have many monthly donors (yet), so it shouldn’t be that hard to keep track of.
In another case, because of a system transition, a note was sent to an organization’s admin person, but that, too, fell through the cracks. The development director is now getting them and is able to follow up.
In another case, the organization thought the system was sending follow-up reminders to the donor when it wasn’t doing so. They apologized, and they did include me in monthly donor appeals earlier this year, so at least they’re trying to bring me back. But by not checking their system, they missed out on many monthly donations!
So do yourself a favor, if you’re serious about growing your monthly donor program, write down what happens when a card doesn’t process. Assign someone to be responsible for following up right away.
Look at your giving platform and make sure you know what happens when and how soon after a card doesn’t process. Annualize the value of monthly gifts at risk.
Then have your “Monthly Donor Retention Playbook” handy to act right away. Writing down your process doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but it’s time extremely well spent.
