Attracting new supporters is a long, resource-intensive process. That’s why your organization should make the most of every conversion by encouraging monthly giving. It’s much easier to convert a one-time donor than to find a new monthly donor!
Monthly giving provides nonprofits with consistent, reliable funding, and it’s an increasingly popular way to give. 57% of donors are enrolled in a recurring giving program, an 11% increase from last year. As the subscription economy becomes the norm (think Netflix or even your neighborhood gym), many consumers prefer to set up automatic monthly payments rather than remembering to pull out their credit cards every month.
If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and dive into monthly giving, this guide is for you. In it, we will unpack the basics of monthly giving and share proven tips to get started (or strengthen the program you have). Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is Monthly Giving?
- What Are The Benefits of Monthly Giving?
- Tips for Encouraging Monthly Giving
What is Monthly Giving?
Monthly giving refers to donations made regularly each month by loyal supporters. On an optimized donation form, users can toggle between a one-time gift or a monthly gift. Once a donor chooses to make their gift a recurring payment, the gifts will automatically be charged to a credit card or withdrawn from the bank account on a particular day each month.
Monthly giving also provides your nonprofit with reliable fundraising streams. One-time gifts are helpful but can often be unpredictable. By contrast, the consistent support of monthly gifts provides a clearer picture of your nonprofit’s finances. You’ll have an estimate of how much money you can reliably assume you will receive every month. This allows nonprofits to allocate their funding better and make appropriate spending decisions.
What Are The Benefits of Monthly Giving?
The benefits of monthly giving include:
- Increased overall contributions: Recurring monthly gifts are often lower than one-time or annual contributions, but they add up over the course of the donor’s involvement with your nonprofit to be substantially more. In fact, recurring donors give about 40% more per year than one-time donors. For instance, while an annual donor might give $100, a supporter donating just $10 monthly will contribute $120 over a year.
- Financial flexibility: Reduced monthly giving amounts allow donors to support their favorite nonprofits without incurring any significant financial burdens.
- Steady and reliable revenue stream: Monthly donations provide consistent income, allowing nonprofits to plan and budget more effectively.
- Lower administrative costs: Automation of monthly giving reduces the need for frequent fundraising appeals and processing costs.
- Deeper donor relationships: Consistent communications with monthly donors mean stronger ties and more loyalty to your nonprofit.
Monthly giving also benefits donors by enabling them to make a greater impact over time while potentially increasing their tax deductions.
5 Tips for Encouraging Monthly Giving
Giving is ticking up after a few flat years, which indicates donors are re-committing to nonprofits. Even during the flatter years, research has shown that recurring donor bases grew by 127% from 2018 to 2022, proving that it’s never the wrong time to start or grow your recurring giving program.
If your nonprofit is ready to tap into the benefits listed above, employ the following tips to encourage monthly giving among your supporters:
1. Invest in a CRM.
Your nonprofit must choose a comprehensive CRM to support your monthly giving program. If you’re looking for your first CRM or are considering an upgrade, look for a solution that will allow your monthly giving program to thrive by coming equipped with:
- Donor profiles. Donor relationships require continual maintenance, and moving donors to higher levels of giving and engagement is a multi-step process that can unfold over months or even years. CRMs that automatically create donor profiles allow your team to monitor where each supporter is on their donor journey and take the appropriate steps for that stage in their relationship with your organization.
- Payment processing features. Monthly giving programs can only function if you have a payment processor that securely accepts recurring gifts. CRMs equipped with payment processors allow your nonprofit to connect each supporter to their donations, immediately pinpointing monthly donors who lapse in payments. Too often, donors stop giving monthly due to a single payment failure and a lack of follow-up. Keeping a close eye on payment messages lets your nonprofit quickly touch base with the donor experiencing the issue to resolve the error. And a note: if your payment processor tells you it's standard for nonprofits to lose up to 15% of their recurring giving revenue because of card declines, you don't have to accept that loss.
- Communication and messaging tools. As mentioned, tailoring your donor experience for each supporter based on their feedback can help your nonprofit solidify long-lasting relationships with your monthly donors. Messaging tools connected to your donor database allow your team to automatically populate your communication templates with information relevant to your donors.
Above all, make sure your CRM can grow with your nonprofit. Some CRMs come with basic versions of the above features but can only accommodate a certain number of donors. Ask software providers about scalability and necessary features and integrations to find a solution that will work for your nonprofit in the long run.
2. Use your database to find monthly giving candidates.
Your donor management software or nonprofit CRM is one of your most valuable tools for collecting and analyzing donor information. For monthly giving, you can use your CRM to not only create unique profiles for your current monthly donors to help steward those relationships but also identify other donors who may qualify as monthly giving candidates.
Prospecting tools allow your nonprofit to decide which donors to reach out to to earn major donations. However, you don’t necessarily need additional software to analyze your database for potential monthly donors. Instead, you just need to pinpoint key traits that monthly donors are likely to have, then filter your donors to find individuals who match those traits. Two characteristics to look for are:
- Semi-regular giving. Semi-regular giving. Nearly 70% of donors don’t contribute past their first gift. However, once donors convert to monthly giving, they are more likely to continue giving regularly. They invest more in your cause than one-time contributors; they are likely knowledgeable about your nonprofit and have a strong, buildable relationship with it.
- Significant contribution levels. Donors who give annually at low levels are not as strong candidates as those making notable contributions. What defines a significant contribution will depend on your average donation level, but most nonprofits would agree that a $10/year gift is not as notable as a $100/year gift. Supporters who give at moderate to high amounts are already investing in your nonprofit and are good candidates for monthly giving.
Once these donors are identified, approach them with a monthly giving plan that increases their current contribution level without becoming excessive. For instance, you might approach your $100 annual donors with a $10 monthly giving plan. The donor can give without a significantly higher financial burden, and your nonprofit will earn an additional $20 annually.
3. Understand your supporters’ motivations
Before you can embark on the quest to engage new donors in your monthly giving program, you should first understand what inspired your current monthly donors to get involved. Use the insights from these recurring donors to improve your donor cultivation and stewardship efforts.
You can send out a survey to current monthly donors with the following questions:
- What inspired you to start contributing to our monthly giving program?
- What is your preferred method of receiving information about our monthly giving program (email, texts, social media, or another source)?
- How can we improve your experience as a monthly donor?
The responses you receive from these surveys will provide a blueprint for attracting and engaging new monthly donors to transform the program into a more effective fundraising channel.
For example, many of your donors give at the end of the year. You might consider creating unique follow-up thank you messages that convey the impact of year-end giving while gently reminding donors that your monthly giving campaign helps create sustainable funding all year round.
Also, it’s always wise to check in with current monthly donors to see if they have any feedback on their experience or suggestions to improve the program. For example, if donors say they’d like to receive fewer messages with more informational points per message, you can adjust your communications schedule to appeal to their preferences.
Listening and responding to donors can keep them engaged. These check-ins also let donors know their opinions are valued, promoting goodwill with your organization.
Using the data collected from surveys and interviews, you can take data-driven, actionable steps to enhance your communication strategy with future prospective donors.
4. Enhance donor communications
Once you gain a greater understanding of your monthly donors’ motivations and preferences, you can use this information to implement two new communication strategies: diversifying your marketing channels and segmenting donors to increase your odds of conversion.
Diversify marketing channels.
Optimize your marketing platforms, such as your email newsletter, direct mail appeals, social media pages, and phone campaigns, to distribute information about how to get involved in your monthly giving program.
Fundraising teams should:
- Send out scheduled reminders about your monthly giving program in your email newsletter. You can also share the successes of the previous month’s giving goals.
- Use direct mail to attract supporters. Include a compelling story in your messages to entice more monthly donors. Personalize your messages by including recipient names.
- Keep supporters updated on social media. Use your social pages to tell stories about how the program has impacted your organization’s ability to provide more goods or services to those in need.
- Call or text supporters with new opportunities. Phone calls can be a great way to develop stronger, long-lasting relationships by getting to know supporters personally.
By using a combination of marketing channels in tandem, you can increase your organization’s reach without overwhelming supporters with too much information on any one platform. Be sure to ramp up your marketing efforts during charitable times, such as Giving Tuesday or the end of the year, when folks want to get in that last tax-deductible donation.
Segment donor communications.
The top fundraising platforms allow nonprofits to appeal to donors across various channels. However, if you’re looking for a solution that simplifies tailored communications, you’ll need a CRM that doubles as a fundraising solution. This way, you can apply donor data to your marketing efforts to craft messages that resonate with your audience.
Show the impact of monthly gifts.
In all your communication and marketing efforts, emphasize the importance of your monthly giving program, allowing your nonprofit to carry out its mission effectively.
Your impact stories should be specific, detailed, and supported by data.
For example, let’s say your nonprofit focuses on cleaning local beaches and other waterways of debris and garbage. Perhaps your monthly giving program sponsors one clean-up per month by providing tools and resources needed for volunteer groups to collect and dispose of trash.
In your marketing appeals, share stories of how these monthly clean-ups have brought a rare species of fish back into a waterway or allowed local children to start playing in the sand on a nearby beach again. Additionally, you can share photos of local waterways before and after the clean-up events to demonstrate the visible impact of these initiatives.
Specific, compelling stories help prospective monthly donors understand the importance of your monthly giving program and how their donations will make an immediate impact. Lean into the emotional side of your nonprofit’s mission to intensify supporters’ empathy for your cause.
Highlight convenience.
In your communications and marketing efforts for your monthly giving program, highlight the impact and importance of monthly gifts for your organization’s overall mission and the convenience of these giving programs. Donors simply input their information once and automatically contribute to your cause each month, making this one of the easiest ways they can support your organization.
Additionally, share how donors can maximize the monetary value of their recurring donations through matching gift programs. In matching gift programs, corporations match donations made by their employees to eligible nonprofits. Supporters just have to submit a request to get their gifts matched. These programs improve the donor experience because supporters are empowered by seeing how their gifts can have an even more significant impact on your nonprofit’s cause than they initially thought.
Be sure to spread the word about the simplicity of your recurring gifts program and matching gift opportunities to lessen prospective donors' perceived barriers or hesitations about getting involved.
5. Coordinate with corporate sponsors to help incentivize monthly giving.
Donors want to know their money is going as far as possible to support causes they care about. Your nonprofit can offer incentives and leverage corporate partnerships to make your monthly giving program a more attractive way to give. Research backs this strategy up, as well. Surveys have shown that 84% of donors claim they’re more likely to give if there is additional corporate backing.
If your corporate partners have already agreed to donate, consider asking them to contribute through your monthly giving program. For example, you might ask your sponsors to contribute $100 per donor who opts in rather than taking a lump-sum donation. This method earns you nonprofit donations from your sponsors while providing an incentive you can share with your supporters on your donation page or when in conversation with potential monthly donors.
Final Thoughts on Monthly Giving
Once you attract monthly donors, you’ll need to take steps to keep them engaged. While some donors are content to make contributions quietly, most want to build a connection to your nonprofit and form a community of donors. Donors invested in your nonprofit’s success are more likely to stick around and continue offering support in the long run.
