Nonprofit Perspective: Why Monthly Donors are the Major Donors You Can Count On

All right, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the monthly giving webcast here, we are going to spend some time today get an inside look at two very successful monthly giving programs. And I’m gonna do as much as I can to not talk and listen and Read More

All right, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the monthly giving webcast here, we are going to spend some time today get an inside look at two very successful monthly giving programs. And I’m gonna do as much as I can to not talk and listen and let them share their success with you. So I’m Josh, I’m the product manager for DonorPerfect. And I have two DonorPerfect customers with me today who

I’ll let them introduce themselves.

Tanya, go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining the webinar today. My name is Tanya Allison, and I am a member services coordinator with public justice and public justice foundation in Washington, DC. We also have a satellite office in Oakland, California. Wonderful. Thanks, Tanya. And Jason. Hi, welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming. My name is Jason Morris. I work for the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. And we’re located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, but we have five offices across the country. And I am the senior team lead in our fundraising department.

So

just to introduce this and to get a sense for who is on the call, I have the very first poll for you. I want to get a sense on who we’re talking to. So the first one is, do you currently have a monthly giving program? Answer? Yes. If it’s something you are promoting today, not if you just have one monthly donor, but you never asked them for a month of giving gift, they just happen to do it? And answer no. If you maybe have a couple but you’re not promoting it on your website. You’re not doing dedicated emails or,

or anything to directly ask.

Wow, about 5050. That’s great. So some of you are looking for tips from the experts and other others of you are looking to get started. All right. That’s, that’s fantastic. Perfect. Thank you. And as you know, are get to know me. I love feedback. And so we’re going to be asking for more feedback at the end of this year. But let’s take a look inside. So my first question for you

is, what is the median annual amount for a monthly donor?

So this is how much does a monthly donor give over the course of the year? I just want to get a sense from you.

How much do you think they actually give?

This is all of their donations for the year. And this is the median amount not average for those of us statistical people.

All right, good distribution, and looks like the winner by vote is $260. So we’re gonna see if you’re right.

Turns out, it’s $360. Now, just to put that in perspective, that’s over seven times the amount that your one time donors give you which is $50. Across the board for nonprofits and one time donors, they are giving you $50 annually. This is seven times that, let’s do another one while we’re at it. So what do you think the typical donor retention rate is for donors who give monthly gifts? If you were to guess

45% 55% 6575 or 85%?

What do you think?

By the way, the industry average is like 43% donor retention.

Ah, you’re getting smart. You’ve anticipated well, that it’s probably not the industry average, so well done.

You’re exactly right. The winning votes so far is 85%. Let’s see if you’re right.

Yes, you’re exactly right, folks, seven out of 10 of

Your one time donors walk right out the door, and they never give to you again. The reason why you have to keep finding new donors is because your current ones stop giving to you. Next year, we studied monthly donors who signed up in 2017. They gave during 2018. And 85% of them are still giving to their organizations this year. That’s off the charts good. This is sustainable income you can count on. And

anyway, there’s, there’s more. So here’s my next question for you. What do you think the median lifetime value of a monthly donor is? Now?

The question is how much over the life of a monthly donor do they typically give?

Okay, give me just a minute here.

All right. So 61% of you say 3200, we’re going to see how close you actually are.

I 20, sorry, $2,400 is the typical lifetime value of a monthly donor. Now, to compare that your median one time donors lifetime value is a mere $70 $2,400 is 34 times that of your one time donors, and an 85% donor retention rate. That’s a donor who’s going to give to you for an average of six and a half years. Now, with a monthly giving program. Every donor can be a major donor. And excuse me, I’ve got the loudest lawnmower on the planet. I was hoping to keep my windows open, but I’m going to change that. So

without further ado, I’m going to allow Tonya to introduce herself again. Um, but to share a little bit about

your organization, you said where you’re located. So that’s helpful. What’s your mission is? And how much do you raise?

Okay, Hello, again. My name is Tanya, as

I said, when I started working at the Public Justice Foundation, we already had a monthly giving program, but it was very small, and it wasn’t really utilized that that well. And it wasn’t really pushed in the beginning. So we started off with probably like 20 or so monthly donors, and now we’re close to 600.

So that is a definitely, definitely jump from what we started out with. And we currently bring in almost $100,000 Monthly, just in the monthly giving campaign. Probably justice itself, it’s time to fight for consumer and victims rights, environmental protection and safety, civil rights and civil liberties, workers rights, America’s civil justice system, and the wrong the poor and the powerless. We accomplish this through precedent setting and socially significant individual and class action litigation. I know that’s a mouthful, but basically.

Thanks. That’s that’s really helpful. And Jason?

Yes. Thanks, Josh. Jason Morris here. I work for the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. And we just turned 40 this year and we haven’t been able to celebrate but, you know, we’ve been able to fundraise because of it. But our organization, the CCP a produces peer reviewed research that is used to

suggest alternatives to economic, social and environmental policy. On a federal and provincial level, mostly including our office. We have five across the country, spanning from coast to coast.

We have approximately a yearly revenue of $2 million just from fundraising alone.

Our current monthly program is is quite mature. It started in the early 2000s. We had about

have perhaps 400 monthly donors. And when I joined, we had about 2500. And now we have close to 5000 monthly donors. And it’s a freakishly high percentage. Industry. When you look at the industry standard, we’re close to 50% of our donors, our monthly donors.

So, in terms of what we do, we Yes, we develop policy, and we try to provide alternatives to protect those in March, especially those in marginalized groups that wouldn’t otherwise be covered under current government policy.

Thanks, that’s helpful. And, Tanya, I’ve got the first question for you. How long did it take to grow from 20 to 600? monthly donors?

Why started in September 2010, we really started pushing a monthly membership program, when we realized that we were missing out. We were missing out on donor retention. And we’ve built in, we looked at those 20 members who were consistently donating monthly, and we just had, you know, wow, you know, we’re definitely missing out on an opportunity. So we started pushing it, I would say probably like 2013 2014.

Until now.

So we actually included in all of our appeals and renewals, we basically offer that as the first option.

That’s great. And Jason, how long did it take you to get to 50% of your donors giving monthly?

So we started in earnest, I would say in about 2015, and a multi pronged kind of effort with our monthly giving. I joined the CCPA in 2008. By then we probably had about 2500 monthly donors. But within I would say about three years, we had doubled our monthly donor number.

Thanks that that’s great. And help our audience understand. From your perspective, I’ll let you go first, Jason, just how does monthly giving fit into the rest of your overall fundraising? So you you shared when you started, you know how you’ve grown it to where you are now. But how does it fit into the rest of your overall fundraising? No, it’s a part of every part of any of our fundraising efforts. Online by telephone, by mail, and social media, there’s always the opportunity to address monthly donors or address the issue that you can become a monthly donor, even in the signature, so simple as the signature in your email, to push monthly giving, has elicited responses from our existing one time gift donors and converted them to monthly donors.

Wow. Yeah. Where doesn’t it fit in? Would be the question. It’s, it’s part of our ongoing strategy. And we address we tried to segment out all of our communications or touch points with our donors to single out monthly donors from those who are one time, one time gift donors, acknowledge their support, but also also provide the opportunity where ever we can in any donor touchpoint to provide the opportunity to give on a monthly basis.

That’s helpful. And just a clarifying question that’s coming in from the audience is, do you is the 50% of your donors giving monthly the revenue or just the donor count? That’s the donor count. They probably account for over 65% of our fundraising revenue,

if not more, okay, that’s helpful. Well, it sounds like one of the takeaways and how you got to where you are, if I was just to sum that up, is you promote monthly giving everywhere. It’s in your direct mail stuff. It’s in your phone stuff. It’s in your emails, it’s on your website, it just it in sort of infused everything? Yes. Okay, correct. That’s good. And Tanya, so I asked you the same question, you know, how does monthly giving sort of fit into your overall fundraising

Well,

I want to give him program is the largest part of our fundraising efforts. It’s kind of like the backbone of our membership program. And it brings in almost 30% of our revenue each year. It’s the same as Jason, we definitely in our appeals and outreach phone calls, things like that to our donors, we do let them know that we offer the monthly giving program. And that is an option that they can utilize. And I think that was going to really appreciate that. Because when, when you think of paying like $25 a month, or donating 25 hours a month, it may not seem as hopeful on the pocket, whereas a one time largest donation, but in the end, when you look at the end of the year, do you see that that felt that way, but that was a must really do add up, but it’s helpful for the contributor because they budget that into their monthly giving overall. So that’s one of the things we did we definitely we leave with that with constantly push it, put it out there on our website, and emails and our mailers and our brochures, to let our continuances and dullness know that that is an option. And that really is helpful.

Thanks. And while you’re at it, if you could answer this next question, I got the best job, I just got to ask the experts lots of questions, and then you do all the hard work. This is great. So, you know, what do you see is maybe some of the key benefits for establishing a monthly giving program, either to your organization to your fundraising efforts to just raising revenue for your mission.

While monthly giving definitely that’s the revenue that you can depend on each month, you know that that is coming in.

And what we what we’re trying to do right now is move all of our donors to monthly.

So we definitely we lead with that is extremely helpful to have that because once you set someone up on monthly giving, that automatically processes each month, so you don’t have to you save time, you don’t have to do that additional outreach each month, where you can redirect your focus elsewhere. So that is one of the major what’s one of the major benefits, the fact that it’s income that you can count on. And that saves on time, depending on your bandwidth, you may have a small organization, if you don’t have to reach out to 50 people each month, because they’re already set up on monthly giving, then that’s definitely saving your time to focus elsewhere.

That’s great.

And, and Jason, if you can sort of ask some of that, your answers on that benefit question of how monthly giving has either impacted your fundraising, your overall revenue, etc. Just what do you see as the benefits of having an established monthly giving?

Yeah, absolutely. As I said, probably more than 65% of our revenue comes from monthly donors. What that assured revenue does for an organization is allow them. In addition to the benefits that Tanya has, Tonya has mentioned, it allows an organization to strategize over a longer period of time.

You can also start to creep in and integrate other types of programs, because they just naturally feed into the monthly giving program. So the expansion of or the increasing the amount of monthly donors in the way that you address them. And the way you can segment them in every portion of your donor touchpoints also allows you to consider other programs and piggyback on the efforts that you’ve already built up with the monthly donor program, like legacy giving and major gifts. So I know I’m getting ahead of ourselves here. But it it builds a foundation upon which you can expand your whole revenue campaign and diversify the types of revenue you receive as an organization.

That’s great. Thanks. And if you started to share this a little bit that you incorporate monthly giving into all that you ask but if you can maybe just spend a little bit of time there explaining how and where you ask specifically for monthly gifts and how you market that sure

are?

Yeah, that’s a big question Josh.

We marketed and every donor touchpoint we have every opportunity we have to speak to a donor, like Tonya had mentioned to in our emails on online on our own website. In our own mailings. Each monthly donor is segmented out to acknowledge the fact that they are a monthly donor. So we communicate with them a little bit differently than we would with a donor who is a one time gift donor.

Also, our telephone campaign was something that really

rocketed our success when it came to monthly donations.

That campaign in itself, that telephone campaign is in its 10th or 11th. Year, and we initially saw the increase in uptake, uptick in monthly donors, via our mail campaigns, our house mailings, as you might call them. And then as we incorporated the telephone campaign, that just brought it to a completely different level.

There may be other avenues. But yeah, I think I think those are the real big ones. We started with mail and then and then initiated the telephone campaign some 10 years ago. So that’s been hugely successful. Okay. Thanks. It’s amazing that phones still work. And sometimes we overlook them. You can actually talk on that thing, it’s not just an app. So even even more, so more. So during COVID. Yes, yeah, that that’s interesting. We’ll get into some COVID stuff and just a little bit so that that’s.

So Tanya, if you could answer, you know, how and where do you ask for monthly gifts? And how do you in particular market monthly giving as part of your overall membership?

Honestly, I definitely agree with Jason in the outreach that we have, to our members and donors, we always put that out there as the first option, that, hey, we have this program, that efficient, effective, saves time. And it saves money, because that way, you can ensure that your entire donation, well 100% of it goes towards our programs. And you know, it saves on costs as well. One of the things that we don’t want to kind of piggyback on what Jason said, we’d be happy to follow us on we have an annual bonus on, we have one in July. And we use that as an opportunity also to promote monthly giving. We equip our volunteer fundraisers and our board members who also assist with our bonus on each year with this information and encourage them to use it in their network to give and we make it fun, we give out awards.

To our top fundraisers, we recognize those who bring in the most members or the most donations, and we just constantly you have to constantly put it out there. I mean, nowadays, people they comfortable with monthly giving. They have consoles monthly don’t.

I mean, nowadays, people have car payments, they have their phones, mostly just everything set up on a monthly giving. So it’s not completely different or scary or anything like that. So they are comfortable and familiar with it. You just have to put it out there and find them and let them know that it’s available.

You know, on that you make a really good point. Fundraising has changed over time. And as donors get more comfortable making regular payments, auto pay for everything else in life, why would they not want to have their donation to support the cause they care about be as convenient as the rest of their life? Hmm. That’s good. Definitely some of them and they can budget for that amount each month. So again, when I heard that packet versus giving one big donation at a time, so it’s a win win on both sides. Yeah, that’s great. So I’m going to take everyone to little transition into getting into a little bit about monthly donors. But I actually had this question just come up to people wondering, what is the average monthly gift amount, and I won’t make you do another poll. But I will ask the question before I give you the answer. And that turns out it’s $53 across the board, all donors, all donations. 53 And that’s where

really held steady for a very long time. Some give more, some give less. But the average is that it really is a myth that these donors are only giving five or $10.

And that it may not be worth your time because you’ll never, you know, meet your goal. And so I just wanted to put that out there as an answer the question as we now transition to some questions about the donors themselves. So monthly donors, indeed are the major donors you can count on. And Tanya, since you went last last time, you’re going first this time, and when when you target your monthly donors to join your monthly giving program? Do you select a specific set of donors to ask and maybe? What are some of the characteristics that you you see monthly donors have?

One of the things we don’t separate those who we asked for when we offer it to everyone, we do have major donors who utilize that program. So yeah, you don’t want to miss that opportunity you offer to anyone? And if they’re interested, they will take advantage of it. So yeah, we don’t we don’t separate it out.

Like that we offer to everyone. Okay, that that’s helpful. And Jason, how would you answer that question in terms of specific characters, characteristics of a monthly donor? And maybe who you ask? For? Sure. Well, just out of curiosity, it may be those who give

for a long period of time. But the question that I would ask more is, who do we exclude. And that’s only those that perhaps have given a legacy gift or a major, a major gift.

And organizations we have a different type of relationship with. But again, I would echo what Tonya has mentioned, in that, we offer it to each and every one of our donors who gives on who gives as a one time gift donor. I could also just add to your previous question to the way where we started to market the monthly program is, we offer what we call this alternatives plan.

Because we are the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, we named a kind of group that our donors could feel that they are part of, we don’t use that so much any longer. And if you think your donors may appreciate that kind of

club for per se, then that’s one way you can you can mark it monthly donors, you’re smarter, you’re part of a special group that has an integral effect on the on the revenues and

the aspirations of the organization. And you can help us carry those those achievements forward. So

yeah, all right. That was kind of a roundabout way of answering the question. No, that’s good. Um, we partnered with Erica was DARPA in the past, who is one of the monthly giving gurus, she’s helped us launch our month of giving to to the rest of our customers to create, how to start a monthly giving program, how to market it, she also recommends that if you want, you can create a sort of a sustainer circle or some branded name where you can then call it by name and treat it specially. And that that can work well in terms of what that society looks like, or how you’re going to frame it. It also has to work within your organization, not everyone can have the evergreens because it may not just fit your mission. So you got to get a little creative with that. But that that’s a really good point.

Okay, well, the next question is, I’ll let you go again. Jason, do you offer any benefits? There’s a lot of questions around benefits to the donor, whether it’s some tchotchke or merchandise or tickets to an event or some sort of special recognition dinner or, you know, and sort of this the part two of that question is how necessary Do you think those benefits are? Or aren’t for monthly donors to give or donors to give monthly?

Yeah, good question. We have We don’t any longer provide, you know, child

scales or incentives.

We, we used to publish a lot of books. And sometimes we would offer a free publication to someone who were to sign up monthly.

But now, the way we address it, if we do at all, is we give monthly donors,

the first access to webinars, or we’ll segment out monthly donors and have a webinar just for them. So I think those are the ways that people really appreciate being recognized as a monthly donor. Sometimes we would give them the first access to any fundraising events that we’ve had as well, not so much now. Because, as Tanya and I kind of mentioned before, the benefits the monthly, monthly giving to the organization, and letting know, letting monthly donors know what that impact

can mean to an organization is, is is enough in itself.

And thanks, Tanya, do you have any thoughts around offering donors benefits, maybe what you do or don’t do, or how necessary you think they are?

Well, a few years back, we survey our monthly donors, and, you know,

what they what their thoughts were. And we found out that the majority of them did not want us to spend money on gifts. Because that takes away from their donation, they spend the money on casework instead of on wagyu. So we don’t offer any tangible items. One thing that we do have for our monthly members is that we do offer them access to our members only database. But that way they can connect with other like minded attorneys. And those who are interested in specific cases, those who are interested in like, say,

environmental work, you know, they want to reach out to other people who have those interests, we offer that and we send them a monthly newsletter. So let them know the type of work that we’re doing. So that’s what they care about.

And that, you know, first of all, well done asking your donors what they

know, that’s one of the things that is often missing is that feedback from your donors that

sometimes we just guess, oh, I think they want this or I think they want that, or I think you want this and as a product manager and DonorPerfect. That’s one of the worst things I can do with our product is this guess what you want? Instead of asking you what this product is for you, what do you want, if I’m going to do any benefits, what would be a benefit to you? And it sounds like you’ve really dialed that in to say actually, you just care about maybe connecting with other people or being involved in our mission and what’s going on and for, in your case, particular cases that you’re working on, you know, and connecting with other people. And that’s the value that they’re gonna get, and that’s the value you’re gonna deliver. So, anyway, well done asking them, I think, you know, that that could really go a long way for philanthropy as a whole. If we do want to ask our donors, what they want to know, Jason, you had said that, before this call about how you ask your donors, and what resonates with them. Maybe if you could explain a little bit about,

you know, trying to

ask donors to give monthly but connecting it to why they give in the first place. Yeah, that’s I think the most important for the organization that you work for is distilling the reasons why a donor gives to your organization in the first place. And also, what are the things that you as an organization offer to those donors. And once you know that, once you have those things distilled, you’re able to communicate a lot more effectively with your donors.

And, you know, you can provide them with the storytelling and the involvement in your organization and the intimacy that a lot of these people just want to know. What are the direct effects that their contribution has on your organization? And its mission statement, which is for us, what effects have we had

unchanging government policy, what are our wins? Have we increased our media attention.

So it’s that kind of fine circle of of the relationship that you have with the donor and knowing what their motivations are in the first place. And then being able to tap into that, to relate to them and communicate them to them with those things in mind.

I need to unmute myself if I’m going to talk. How about that?

I’ll give you the next one. upgrades. Right? So you have monthly donors, they come in at whatever amount. What are the strategies you use? And I’ll let you go first Jason to to grow your monthly giving amounts to take a donor who’s at one level to get them go to the next. When do you do that? By how much do you ask for?

Go? Sure, yes, by every avenue, again, by ever, every donor, almost every donor touch point at a touch point, that’s possible. We first started with our mail and segmenting out those that were existing monthly donors. And

we would set a gift array that actually has kind of an equation and then I could geek out here, but I will. But offering a suggested gift array, we know that you give this much per month, currently, would you consider increasing your monthly donor or donation to this or this or that, and then there’s always an other.

But I would, and that is met with a lot of success. But I would also say that coupled with our telephone campaign, which again, is probably in its 10th year, and so it was quite mature. Even though we keep knocking on the same donor doors by the same type of communication, it’s still met with great success.

And that has been a really effective way to communicate with our donors, to check in with them to see how they’re doing during COVID. And also

thanking them for their support and having a little bit of a conversation about what we’ve done, what we’ve achieved, as well. So I would say our most effective methods would have been would be by mail and our telephone campaign, if I’ve missed anything there, Josh.

Yeah, and I think maybe a detail that would be helpful is, if you’re going to do an upgrade, I think what you maybe had shared earlier was increasing it by, say, 25%, for the next one, maybe 50%. And the next one, maybe double it in terms of what the range, the appropriate range would be based on where they’re at today. Um, so you’re not asking for an absurd amount that they would laugh at, or two little more doesn’t actually move at all. That’s right. That’s kind of what I alluded to in the gift array that you would offer to a donor, if you know how much they currently give, then you know that that ratio is usually 1.5, and then two times and then 2.5 times or maybe even three, but then also having an other category so that it’s easy for someone to kind of just tick off a box and go up at a different level. And so that’s how we’ve worked out

the gift arrays that we suggest in a mailing or in a telephone campaign. That’s great. And Tanya, in terms of upgrading your donors.

Yeah, we actually we do that as well. We reach out to our donors about their monthly giving each year, like once a year, and actively encourage them to upgrade. We put both donation amounts, their current giving level and upgraded, giving level on the renewal communication so that this information is right in front of them, it’s at their fingertips. The last point that donors have to do you know, the better. We also encourage that so now focus on for those who are currently given Laughlin, we ask our volunteers, you know, if they do know someone who they want to reach out to who they think they can get them to upgrade, then they can do this that time as well and it has been successful for us.

That’s great. Thanks. And I’m gonna turn transition here to our next topic around your work, the tools, the strategies and systems and the people that make it all go so none of this happens without you to within your organization’s and having the right tools and resources to actually have a sustainable monthly giving program. Um,

But I was like, you know, are there any tools you recommend to make it easier to administer your your monthly giving program? Tanya?

I don’t think any particular tool,

I would say, um, we have a platform for our volunteers to use what we call justice builders. And that’s a database just for our volunteers to use. So that when they reach out to contributors, they can kind of see what their last five years of giving was. So that that will give them a better idea of what to ask for. If, indeed, they get them to upgrade or the new.

Okay, and Jason?

Well, I think you let us down the garden path a little bit here, Josh. And I would say obviously, don’t imperfect.

All of the tools that they provide, allow you to choose when you process your monthly gifts, when you issue your tax receipts, whether it’s monthly or consolidated at the end of the year. So the tools that DonorPerfect has,

are really helpful in that regard. Also, that you have the option of sending your tax receipts in hardcopy or letter mail versus email is a huge a huge help. Although the the average age of our donor is approximately 72. I think even this year with COVID, and people are being forced to adopt new electronic

comforts.

Our

the number of our donors that have preferred to receive their tax receipts via email has increased significantly. Also, I would say there’s the tax receipts, templates that are available on DonorPerfect. They also allow for text at the top of the page. So you can address them specifically, you can create these templates, thank you letters, essentially, that acknowledge their monthly gift.

And thank you for your support. It’s it can be as lengthy or short of a message as you you would like we prefer to keep it to one page.

But in that text, you can specifically thank a donor for their contributions.

Yeah. Other than those, it’s it’s also the the tools that we have at our disposal. Again, this refers back to why a donor would contribute in the first place and making sure that you hit those points in your thank you letters and in your touch points with your donors. Okay, that’s good. Thanks. And now we are going to start our lightning round, I’m going to ask you quick questions, and you’re gonna give quick answers. And I’ll cut you off if you go along. So here we go, we’re gonna have some fun. How has COVID impacted your monthly giving program? Tanya?

Well, honestly, I think COVID is pretty much affecting everybody. And we in the nonprofit world, we know and understand that, the best thing that you can do is just to continue to reach out to be sympathetic to your donors and what they could possibly be going through. You know, you don’t even have to have an act, you know, a specific reason just to reach out and see how they’re doing, and they will appreciate that. But we did have, we did have some of our members to drop off. And they basically said, you know, they’re going through, you know, financial situation.

And they want us, they want to continue to support, they love what we do, but they can’t do it right now. But we in the same token had those things on to say, you know, once I’m better financially, I will be coming back. So you just have to just reach out to your donors to let them know you’re thinking about and let them know that you care, because we’re all going through this and we’re all together. And just because they may drop off as a member, we still let them know that we’re here to support them. And if they need us, we’re here for them. And that makes a big difference. Yeah, no, I appreciate you explain that. So here’s another lightning question. Yeah, but so we hear that a lot. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, monthly givers gave a lot month to give

are better monthly givers you know, our retain a high percentage monthly giving makes your fundraising easy, monthly giving and so great. But you don’t know my board? Or you know, we aren’t in your high affinity sector like you and Canada with your policy alternatives are you in DC with all this stuff that you do for, you know, your case work and trying to change the world that way we’re not like you are, you know, we don’t have the same fundraising, we just have the same fundraising events every year, or we don’t have time for another new program, or we’re short staffed as it is, or our donors are just too old, or this seems like a lot of work. So what would you say? I’ll let you go first, Jason, you know, what would you say to some of those objections about a monthly giving program? Geez, I would say it’s a very easy sell, who,

in their right mind would not appreciate an assured revenue stream, who in the right mind would not want to benefit from growth in revenue and growth as an organization, and who does not have a wish list over here that some of the things they wish they could do, but they don’t have the capacity to do at the time, who would not like to grow the staff capacity in their organization? It’s, it’s all about the way you present the benefits. And I, as far as I’m concerned, there are no detriments to either expanding your existing monthly program or initiating the monthly program.

If there’s any reticence at all, I think the benefits that you’re able to portray to your board to your directors will allow, allow them to realize that this is the way to go. And yeah, if they have any future aspirations, look at all the things we would like to do over here that we’re not currently able to do. But with the expansion of our monthly program, we can consider one, two, maybe three things on those lists. So yeah, I just I just think like Tonya said before, it’s a win, win. And Tanya,

anything else to add to that?

Oh, you’re muted.

Okay, it happens to the best of us.

Oh, I just have one. One more thing, just to mention,

your your donors, your members, your contributors, your supporters, they support you for a reason. They know your organization, they trust your organization, they know you the work that you do, and they want to support you, offering them the option to contribute on a regular basis.

That is pretty much a no a no brainer. Because again, it’s a win win on both parts. Once you set up that monthly giving program, you pretty much don’t have to touch

it auto processes on his own. So

I mean, that’s basically all I can say, you know, is there is an option, it comes with your DonorPerfect, utilize it, it saves time, it saves money.

And it saves your donors from having to write that check or to go online and make that payment, especially those who don’t want to be bothered with it. They want to support but they don’t want you to have to send them a paper we know and we’ve had some of our members to tell us that please don’t send us any paper. We want all of our money to go towards the work that you do. So listen to your donors, they’re asking for it.

You have, if I say on your platform, utilize it, trust me and pay for itself. And that’s one of the things that I appreciated about. Understand how you have both approached your monthly giving programs is that you’re some of what you had shared is that your fundraising has really changed how you do appeals. So you can’t afford not to start something that’s more sustainable. Instead of wasting money on appeals that are you know, having most of the donors walk out the door again and not give again and having to then go back to them find new donors to just replace them. So

just encouraging everyone listening to try and think in terms of Yes, and instead of Yeah, but so yes, I hear all of that and what can I do today to get me closer to realizing some of that I’m for our own organization. And with that, I am going to turn us in

To the next lightning round, we should still be in it. But I’m talking and that’s the problem. So here’s some open questions for the both of you all that one of you answer and then we’ll go to the next question.

So how do you recognize monthly donors or stewardship? And what do you do in terms of recognizing them, so they feel special.

Anyone can pick that.

Go ahead, Tommy.

Oh, one of the things we do is, we list them on our website, we celebrate them, we, you know, we put them out there, we both we say, Hey,

these are our supporters.

They understand and appreciate our work. So that’s one of the things that we can do that saves time and money. We recognize them giving them that recognition. We recognize them at the gala. We recognize them at board meetings. And we recognize them on our website, and if any other events that we have.

Okay, thanks. Next question, as this is from Lenny, she’s wanting to know has promoting monthly giving with every mailing created any reduction in other donors donating? So if you promote your monkey?

Is it taking away from other income on or getting elsewhere?

I can take that one.

I would simply say no. And it’s also allowed the opportunity for us, as I said before, to create other fundraising campaigns, and to piggyback off the efforts that have already been put in place with monthly contributions.

And so no, the question is, to me is almost a contradiction in terms in that.

With an increase in retention level with monthly donors a year, you’re not going to see any decrease in revenue at all, I’d be very surprised. I think one of the thing that’s hard to get our minds around is we’ve been thinking about one time gift amounts, rather than their entire giving over the course of the whole year. So if you’ve got $360 coming in over 12 months, that changes some of the the way that you ended up planning your your finances, and even just your cash flow, in terms of what you can do for your programs and services. So that’s one thing. So Tanya, I’m gonna give you this one, because I know you guys are doing this. Now you’re you’re trying to introduce monthly giving to your major donors. So the question is, what’s the best way to take a large annual donor and convert them or introduce monthly giving to them?

Basically, it’s the same that we do with our our live donors is offer them that option. And we’ve actually had, we have pretty much, quite a few of our major donors who are given monthly, we, sometimes we deal directly with their office managers, they appreciate that because they have a budget set up. And they know that these funds are coming out each month, and it makes it easier for them on the accounting then. So it’s still a win win situation.

All the way around. So yeah, we don’t really do anything different. Just offer that as an option. Okay, yeah, that’s good in terms of donor convenience, and just sort of selling the benefits on that side of it as you’re talking with them. Okay, that makes sense. So, either one of you can take this. So what are you measuring for your monthly giving? Like what what are some of the maybe the metrics that you have? Just in terms of seeing that success? What are the some of the numbers that you care about?

Good question, I would say new monthly donors, and recognizing anyone that is converted from a one time giver to a monthly contributor. Also any increase in revenue over time. These reports are easily accessible and pretty much setup and DonorPerfect already.

You can establish and pull the parameters for a monthly donor that’s given over 12 months over 18 months, who’s lapsed. Those are critical as well, those that might be lapsed monthly donors or those that have missed a monthly contribution. We actually have a program in place that deals specifically with declines of monthly contributions due to just maybe a change in the expiry date of

their credit card DonorPerfect also allows a donor to, to make up that missed gift as well. So there’s lapsed.

There’s those that have our new monthly donors, and those that have recently increased their monthly contribution. I would say those would be of paramount importance.

Yeah,

I’m sorry, I kind of lost connectivity for a second there.

Yeah, I agree with JSON that we measure, those who join our new MFI contributors, we measure those who upgrade. And we also measure those who used to give annually who still have lapsed or dropped off and who came back as a monthly donor.

So here’s a question for half of our audience who doesn’t have a month of giving program today, if you were to say 15 years ago, when you started, if you were to do that now, what would you say are the most important things to start? Well, how would you kick off a brand new monthly giving program, in its simplest form, that you think would be successful on knowing what you know, as the experts and monthly giving?

You have one minute, okay, I’m gonna go first

by mail, traditional, and that’s the way we started. But today, things are a little bit different. Something that’s very low cost is communication by email, depends on the tech savviness of your your donors, knowing your donors Well, and what communicate what form of communication works best. But if I were to start anything great at this particular time, during the pandemic, we know people are at home, we know people are thinking a little more existentially about their lives and issues. So many things have happened this year, that have kind of rocked our, the way we think about racism, about the environment about all these political issues. So people are open to talk and and also, so therefore phone, hands down. Okay, we got the one vote for fun. Tanya, what do you got

want to say now is a perfect time to start thinking about it, because we’re approaching the end of the year. And most organizations thought their end of the year campaign. So this is a great time to look into it, you want to get the framework in place.

Another great way to kick it off, hey, this is how in a year campaign, you can become a monthly member. We also have our board lead the charge, we have them to reach out to their colleagues and say, Hey, this is what we’re doing. This is a great opportunity. A lot of our board members are set up on monthly, whether they are set up on monthly giving for their membership, if they’re donating towards a specific campaign, but it’s our justice to all campaigns. And also some of our board members also donate to without annual gala. So they are utilizing that platform to do my. So this is a great time to start. And a great way to kick off your interview campaign.

And I’m going to take this last softball thank you both my both so much. The easiest one of all is our both of these panelists don’t have perfect users? And the answer is yes. And do they? What do they use to process monthly giving. So they use our DonorPerfect online forms that are integrated with DonorPerfect and on that donors can choose to give monthly, you can have a dedicated month a giving form. And that all is processed through automatic monthly giving within DonorPerfect. So that’s all connected right to their bank account that’s automatically deposited automatically processed through their DonorPerfect payment services. And last but certainly not least, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We couldn’t do anything without both of you. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Tanya, thank you to everyone who joined us today. You know, we are trying to get the word out in terms of helping nonprofits raise sustainable income during these uncertain times. And, you know, we’re so excited about being able to share how monthly giving can help everyone during these times. So I’ll just give four shameless plugs. Go ahead.

didn’t check out on donorperfect.com, the free monthly giving Resource Center, you can just type in monthly giving Resource Center, it’ll come right up. Join the monthly giving group within the DonorPerfect community. There, you can continue this conversation, ask any of your questions and others within the community can help. answer that. Go ahead and check out the month of giving how to webinars series. It’s all the nuts and bolts on how to actually do monthly giving with DonorPerfect. That’s coming up in a couple of weeks. And then lastly, go and help your donors support your mission every month with their monthly gift.

You can start today. And that’s the last thing I want to say. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. There is a survey at the end of this webinar. So go ahead and let us know what you think. And we can’t wait to hear more from you and hear the success about implementing Jason’s advice and Tanya’s advice on how to be successful raising money and giving revenue in today’s uncertain world. So, thanks again and good luck with all of your fundraising. Alright, take care everybody.