Fundraising 101: 10 Things You Need to Know About Creating a Monthly Giving Program

7. Ask often and early, especially online. We worked with a nonprofit that had the ugliest donation form, but the form did feature a monthly giving option. During an audit, we identified this as a potential problem, but our fears were unfounded. While 20 percent of online givers committed to the monthly program (which we thought had to be a mistake caused by the form), not one of them cancelled. Most of these donors joined the organization as monthly givers. Test an online donation form that includes a monthly giving option to measure the impact.

8. UYTY — Use Your Thank-Yous. We are huge fans of an interactive, online thank-you that encourages a second action. Someone has gone to all the trouble to find your site (it’s not always easy), found the form to fill out (again, sometimes rather hidden), and given you an immense amount of personal data or, better yet, her credit card number. You have her undivided attention — a rare thing online! What are you going to do with this 10 seconds of time? Throw a couple of text lines and a lot of white space at her? NO! Instead, re-engage her right now while you have the opportunity.

Use your thank-you pages and e-mails for new e-mail list subscribers and petition signers to present your monthly giving program. Use a testimonial from someone who has been helped or a video that talks about the work you do.

9. Segment. Make sure you know who is giving to you monthly and who is most likely to say yes when you ask. Look for those who give frequent gifts; start with those who have given three or more times in the last 12 months, whose total giving for that period is more than $50 and who have previously given using credit cards. Donors using electronic payment are less likely to cancel or stop giving.