The beginning of the year is a great time to start anew. I hope that this will be the year your organization will try some new things. I hope this year you’ll be able to really move the needle on growing the number of new monthly donors in your organization.
What a great way to create critical donor loyalty. What do you have to lose?
I took a look at my year-end mail and new year’s emails, and I found five ideas you may consider testing this year. The cost of each test is minimal. You can incorporate these tests into something you’re already doing. It might just mean a little bit of time, a tiny bit more copy/creative or space on your existing one-time giving appeals online and offline.
1. Incorporate Monthly Giving in Your Gift Catalog
Many nonprofits have started sending gift catalogs. You can do this at year end or any special giving days your organization has planned as well. If you’re planning on doing a gift catalog this year, how about building in a spot to feature monthly giving, like Zoe Empowers did?
The nonprofit designated a half-page spot to encourage donors to become a sustainer, offering a few price points with how many vulnerable youth each monthly gift would empower. Of course, when you offer a monthly gift option, make sure it’s one of the options on your gift catalog reply form.
2. Include an Invite for Monthly Giving in Your Year-End Recap
Many nonprofits are doing a year-end-in-review, an overview of the wonderful things the donor has helped make possible. Why not incorporate a request to become a monthly donor? It can be as simple as an invite for monthly giving right in the P.S.
Rabih Torbay, Project HOPE’s president and CEO, closed a letter with:
“P.S. You can be a symbol of HOPE not just in moments of crisis, but all year long. Become a HOPE Partner with your first monthly gift today to ensure the reliable support Project HOPE needs to continue our livesaving work every day.”
What do you have to lose by adding this and planting the seeds about monthly giving early?
3. Request to Keep the Great Work Going
In a similar vein to the prior idea, incorporate a request to keep the great work going with a monthly gift. That’s what charity: water did. The organization first gave an update on the great results to date, but the work is not yet done. Joining the Spring is just the way to help! It will not hurt if you start planting the seeds about monthly giving early on in the year. It’s just a bit more copy on an update you’re already doing.
4. Add a Monthly Giving Button to Your Emails
Why more nonprofits are not doing this is an absolute mystery to me. It’s not a lot of copy. It’s literally a button linking directly to your monthly giving page. It’s a button in addition to your one-time gift button.
If you’re worried it’s going to hurt one-time responses, test it with and without. But don’t wait too long. It’s one email. It’s one extra button.
One nonprofit told me that when the organization tested it, they got five times the number of monthly donors simply by adding that extra button in the email.
Yes, I’ve only heard positive test results, but I realize you probably have to test it in your organization to make sure it’s not negatively impacting your giving. The sooner you test it, the sooner you know the impact. The sooner you can make this a standard practice.
I’m seeing extra buttons in emails, I’m seeing extra buttons on top of the email. I’m seeing extra buttons inside the copy or the email shells. Try what is easiest and see what happens.
And remember, monthly donors have a much higher lifetime values than one-time donors.
Volunteers of America recently had two buttons on the bottom of a thank-you email, talking about the impact the donor has made.
5. Create a Monthly Gift Option in Your Gift Arrays
Will this be the year where you test some more monthly giving asks on your one-time gift appeals? Here’s what Tunnels to Towers Foundation includes on its acquisition package: a simple, small monthly-gift ask that says, “I’ll give $11 monthly to support your critical programs,” as part of the gift array. There are so many options to test here for both acquisition and donor appeals. It can be an amount based upon what the donor has already given. It can be a simple laser test with and without that line — at virtually no extra expense.
So, there you have it, some new ideas you can test in your nonprofit with things you’re already doing to help you grow your monthly donors to the next level.
