Let your tech help you maximize recurring donations!
Ask any large, successful nonprofit about the secret to their fundraising growth, and chances are, they’ll point to a strong monthly giving program. Why? Because it brings in loyal donors, predictable revenue, and a solid foundation for all other fundraising efforts.
Call it a recurring giving program, a sustainer program, or monthly donors—whatever name you choose, the key to success isn’t just the concept itself. It’s the technology that powers it. A well-built nonprofit CRM makes it easy to attract, engage, and retain recurring donors by automating processes, personalizing outreach, and ensuring seamless payment experiences.
And the results speak for themselves:
- Increased Annual Revenue: The average monthly donation is $24, or $288 annually. This far surpasses the average one-time gift of $115.
- Higher Donor Retention: Monthly donors stick around eight times longer than one-time givers, making donor retention a built-in advantage.
- Growing Popularity: Enrollment in monthly giving programs has risen from 46% to 57% year over year.
- A Major Source of Online Giving: Monthly giving accounts for 31% of all giving, highlighting its importance.
Clearly, a thriving monthly giving program is a nonprofit game-changer. But here’s the catch: it won’t reach its full potential without the right CRM features. The good news? Many modern nonprofit CRMs already offer tools designed to maximize donor engagement, automate stewardship, and reduce churn—you just need to make sure you’re using them effectively.
Let’s dive into the must-have CRM features that can take your monthly giving program from good to great.
How a Nonprofit CRM Can Help with Monthly Giving
Once you’ve decided to start or put concentrated focus on growing your monthly giving program, you’ll want to be certain your fundraising software aligns with your goals. There are features (many of which can be found in a number of good nonprofit CRMs) which will make building and maintaining a program much easier.
While we will dive into a checklist of specific features and why you want them to help with recurring giving, they will also help with donor retention. Donor retention and monthly giving often go hand in hand. A loyal donor might appreciate the convenience of having a smaller, more regular donation automatically drafted from his or her account, taking advantage of the subscription economy so many of us have become familiar with.
Key Features for Building and Maintaining a Strong Monthly Giving Program
This list applies to any nonprofit looking to begin, strengthen, or maintain a program—in short, everyone. This isn’t a sales article.
- It’s almost guaranteed you have some of this functionality in your current CRM—use it.
- You might choose to tack on a third-party system to get some of it—integrate it.
- You might choose to shop for a unified system that puts all the tools in one place—buy it. (Okay, that was a little salesy, but now I'm done.)
The key is to look at the features and what they can do to help and find a way to incorporate them into your processes. Let’s examine some key features you’ll want.
Seamless and Flexible Recurring Donation Options
Almost above all else, make it easy to give, and easy to choose a recurring gift over a one-time gift. In this example, the party hat is animated, and confetti explodes when you click on it, reinforcing the feeling to the donor that they have made a valuable choice.
Customizable giving amounts and frequencies are crucial components of your CRM’s donation form. Donors should be able to choose a one-time or monthly gift. If your system uses artificial intelligence, personalized ask strings can be displayed to increase the amount suggested based on previous donations incrementally.
Allow donors to control payments in a donor portal in your CRM. They should be able to modify, pause, or cancel their payments easily and independently.
Ensure your payment processor offers multiple payment methods. Online gifts can come via credit card, ACH transfer, PayPal or Venmo or other digital wallets, or even, increasingly, from Donor Advised Funds via DAFPay. Currently, the only payment method CharityEngine doesn’t accept is crypto! Everything else is a popular source of funds.
Automated Donor Stewardship and Engagement
Your CRM should do the heavy lifting to keep donors engaged and reduce churn. That means automated workflows that build relationships at scale. When nonprofit automation is used in workflows, it’s called a series, and it means you can program entire campaigns (stewardship, welcome, etc.) that are scalable as your nonprofit grows.
Program your CRM to send personalized, automated gift acknowledgements immediately following a gift. While this is often an email, you can segment donors according to their preferred communication method and send this acknowledgement via text or even direct mail. The system can even prompt you to make a phone call if that’s desired.
Use automation to run milestone campaigns celebrating donor anniversaries, milestone tallies of total gifts received, or impact updates. A well-timed email or SMS saying, "You've provided clean water to 12 families this year!" keeps donors engaged.
Set up multi-step engagement series to inform donors about their impact and encourage them to stay committed to their recurring gifts. Your CRM should allow you to trigger automated emails, texts, or even direct mail based on donor preferences.
AI, BI, and Data-Driven Insights to Reduce Churn
Your CRM should help you predict and prevent donor churn by analyzing giving patterns using AI and business intelligence (BI) tools.
Gift probability is offered on several different platforms. It runs algorithms to identify which donors are likely to give on a day, so you know where to direct your appeals. Those with high scores can be approached for monthly giving; those with declining scores are at risk and need attention.
Ensure you are using AI in payment processing. CharityEngine uses artificial intelligence in a multifaceted subscription billing system that guarantees you’ll retain up to 30% of your monthly fundraising. This system includes a tool that others also offer: a credit card updater. When talking to your payment processor about the credit card updater, inquire whether they update American Express cards. Vendors must be accepted to update these, and not all are.
Finally, leverage reporting and analytics to run reports on the health of your monthly giving programs. A dashboard can take various calculations, such as Lifetime Value (LTV), into account, giving you an overall look at your program's health and identifying donorsshowing lessening signs of engagement.
Integrated Marketing and Multichannel Outreach
Integrated marketing will allow you to personalize your outreach to your supporters, both recruiting monthly donors and nurturing, or perhaps increasing the gifts of, donors already in a recurring giving program.
Integrated email and SMS marketing means reaching donors through different channels and personalizing your outreach. For example, an automated email saying, "Thanks for your $25 monthly gift—here's how it's making an impact!" strengthens donor connections.
Social media and peer-to-peer fundraising can also be integrated. P2P fundraisers can create donation pages and rally their networks, but they can also enable donations through social media platforms. These campaigns expand awareness and reach; donors can opt in to monthly giving when they donate.
Ensure your CRM allows A/B testing of messaging, donation forms, and appeals to find what resonates best with different donor segments.
Scalability and Security
If you’re planning to grow your monthly giving program, your CRM needs to be scalable and secure.
Ask if the system can seamlessly expand as you grow. Ask if there are hidden fees that will jump out as your contact list grows.
Talk about PCI compliance (or, even better, certification). Ask how they will help keep your donor data safe in light of tightening safety regulations.
In short, don’t be wedded to a system destined to fail as soon as your monthly giving program succeeds. Following these tips ensures it will be!
Your Nonprofit CRM is Key to a Thriving Monthly Giving Program
A monthly giving program is one of the most powerful tools for increasing donor retention and long-term revenue. However, even the best-planned program will struggle to grow without the right CRM features.
By ensuring your CRM supports automation, personalization, data-driven insights, and seamless donor experiences, you can scale your monthly giving program efficiently—without adding extra manual work to your team.
Take a hard look at your current CRM. Are you fully using its capabilities? If not, start leveraging the tools already at your fingertips. If your system is falling short, it may be time to explore solutions that will truly support your growth.
By putting technology to work for you, you’ll create a stronger, more sustainable monthly giving program that fuels your mission for years to come. Can CharityEngine provide all these features? We sure can.
