Over the years, I’ve worked with nonprofits of all sizes — small, midsize, large — when it comes to monthly donors.
A few of those smaller organizations started out earlier this year with 15 monthly donors. Now, a few months later, they are at 65 by introducing just a few additional ways to generate new monthly donors.
An extra button and a small match made all the difference for one. A few emails and a message in the nonprofit’s newsletter made all the difference for another.
So, is this where it ends? Well, yes, your program could stagnate if you don’t take the next step.
What else can you add? What’s your potential? Your number of donors and your number of email names make a difference.
So do yourself a favor. Write down your benchmarks. Then evaluate your activities. What does this look like?
- Where are you today? What’s the number of monthly donors? What’s their annual value?
- What percentage is this of your total number of active donors? Are you currently at 1%, 3%, 5%?
- What were the sources of the new recurring donors? Then, what can you do more of? If you generated 50 new monthly donors from a match during a sustainer drive, can you get another match and do another sustainer drive? Just think, if you’re at 65 now, that would push you through the first 100 recurring donors for your organization.
- Have you talked to some of those 65 monthly donors and asked them why they’re giving monthly? Have you tried sharing that testimonial in email, on your website and social media channels?
- What additional opportunities can you add? Have you tried the e-newsletter? Have you tried a monthly email? Have you tried that second button? Can you try a tick box on the appeal reply form? Have you tried picking up the phone?
As soon as you realize that monthly giving requests are not a one-shot deal, but rather they should ideally permeate all your fundraising efforts, the more successful you will be.
So, if you moved from 15 to 65, that’s fantastic. Now, let’s see how you can move from 65 to 100, to 200 — the sky’s the limit. You’ve already come a great way. Don’t despair, keep the momentum going and you’ll have a rocking and rolling sustainer program soon!
