A Monthly Giving How-To: Should You Ask for Monthly Gifts at Year-End?
A good friend asked me this question and, as good friends tend to do, I wanted to address this question right away before getting into the busy fundraising season. While I would love to tell you yes — go all out and ask for monthly gifts — the answer really should be: “It depends!” Let me […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Prevent Dropouts
Monthly donor retention is probably the biggest challenge for nonprofits. In my nearly 30 years of monthly giving experience, I’ve seen three big reasons for this: Nobody feels responsible for tracking monthly donor dropouts and attrition (a fancier word for dropout percentage). Believe it or not, while you think this may be more rampant in […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Ask Why
Let’s face it–just because you, as a fundraiser, send emails and/or letters to a donor asking them to give monthly, it may not work right away. It might require several calls and emails. It may require some additional ammunition. If you have at least one monthly donor, you have that ammunition. You have at least […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Join Monthly Donor Programs
Whenever I talk about monthly giving to a group, in person or via webinar, I often ask people how many of them are monthly donors themselves. Sometimes just a few hands go up, or a few indicate it in the poll if it’s on a webinar. Well, how can you ask someone to give monthly […]
On the Road to 1,000 Monthly Donors
An interview with Sami Sheehan, manager of donor engagement of Lollypop Farm, Humane Society of Greater Rochester My favorite part about working with nonprofits is how much we can learn from each other. I learn from their questions every day. I am blown away with how smart people at nonprofits are, and how committed they […]
Book Review: ‘Donor CARE’ by the late John Haydon
What a tremendous legacy John Haydon left us with his book, “Donor CARE: How to Keep Donors Coming Back After the First Gift.” Sadly, Haydon passed away earlier this year. While I never had a chance to meet him in person, we did talk by phone a few times. He had an amazing following with thousands of […]
How to Improve Your Online & Monthly Giving Donation Processes
I just bought my 2021-day runner filler. Yes, I’m still one of the ‘old fashioned’ people who uses a paper planner. It just helps me get organized during chaos and writing things down helps me remember! I sure hope that next year will bring some more travel again. Because that’s what I love the most. […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Update Your Monthly Receipt Emails
If you have a monthly giving program, chances are your processor sends a gift confirmation email every month. What happens when, what the receipt looks like and how much you can control depends on the system. In some cases, the monthly email looks like a receipt. In other cases, you can customize it and add […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Test Your Forms
As a fundraising consultant, I’m always learning and researching. I do this by working with clients, vendor partners, databases, payment processors and so much more. I have many answers, but not all. That’s why I enjoy the research and experiments NextAfter does, especially when it comes to donation forms and emails. Even a small change can make […]
A Monthly Giving How-To: Take the Next Step
Seth Godin’s blog always gives me inspiration. Recently, he wrote about the words I hear so much when it comes to monthly giving: “That’s a great idea!” Seth says: “…after every good idea, there are at least 100 steps of iteration, learning, adjustment, innovation and effort. But not committing to the 100 steps is a waste […]
