On average, six out of every 10 donors who gave to your organization last year won’t give again this year. However, you can retain more donors (and raise more money) by kicking off a monthly giving program.
The 2017 M+R Strategic Benchmarks Report, a comprehensive report conducted by nonprofit agency M+R, shows that the typical average gift from email monthly donors is $23 and that most organizations grew their online revenue by 23 percent in 2016 thanks to monthly donations.
On the fence?
Here are five reasons why a monthly giving program will benefit your organization:
1. Maintaining a monthly giving program is easy.
Using online fund-raising software, you can offer donors a seamless and secure way to give monthly. With many fund-raising software systems, donors only need to enter their information once, and whatever funds they pledge to donate monthly will be automatically drafted from their accounts into yours. Typically, all monthly gifts are instantly reflected in your software and acknowledged via email.
2. You’ll retain more donors year after year.
The average donor retention rate is 43 percent, but results can skew much, much higher. DonorPerfect reports that hundreds of their clients have seen a retention rate of 90 percent or more for donors who signed up to give monthly. That means that a monthly giving program has the power to nearly double your retention rate.
3. Monthly donors give more
Every little bit helps, right? The benefit of monthly giving is that every little bit keeps coming your way 12 times a year -- and not just one year.
Rather than giving once and dropping off the map, monthly donors tend to give on a recurring basis for five to seven years on average. In a research study by Third Space Studio, a nonprofit consulting firm, organizations with budgets below the $2 million mark reported recurring donors giving $625 a year!
Recurring donations are funds you can count on. If your monthly giving program accounts for a good amount of your annual revenue, you can funnel some of the effort you’d put into fund-raising into furthering your mission.
5. You’ll offer donors a convenient way to give
Giving should be easy. With a monthly giving program, donors can feel good about supporting your cause year-round without the hassle of continuously visiting your site to donate or mailing a check.
Here are Three Ways to Get Board Approval:
Board members think in numbers, so it’s best to lead with them. Get a good estimate of exactly how much your organization could benefit from a monthly giving program with our Monthly Donor Calculator that’s available in DonorPerfect’s Monthly Giving Starter Kit.
The Monthly Donor Calculator keeps expectations in check, with a conservative estimate that calculates the impact of convincing how much revenue you’ll raise when just 3 to 15 percent of your donors to join your monthly giving program. (Although we’ve seen organizations with 20 percent all the way up to 60 percent of donors giving monthly!)
2. Emphasize the impact a monthly giving program could have on retention
DonorPerfect research shows that organizations who have monthly giving programs increase donor retention for those donors from 43 percent to 90 percent. According to fundraising professor Adrian Sargeant, you’ll double the lifetime value of your donors by increasing your donor retention rate by just 10 percent!
3. Highlight the effect a monthly giving program can have on existing donors
You can generate more revenue from existing donors if they sign up for your monthly giving program. In addition to giving to annual appeals, existing donors who choose to donate monthly could move close to major donor status. Look at it this way: If you’re able to bring a donor from giving $200 a year to giving $625 a year, that donor’s only $375 away from major donor status!
Get started on your monthly giving program by downloading DonorPerfect’s Monthly Giving Starter Kit.
