A Monthly Giving How-To: Asking Will Result in More Monthly Donors

Good thing we have an extra day this week. I had a stack of mail more than a foot high, and I just finished scanning the various appeals I would like to save in a folder to use for training or learning.

Let me start with some good news: Many organizations have adopted the best practice of a tick box on the front of their appeal reply form, which is terrific.

You should know that I’ve tested this. And in my tests, the tick box did not typically negatively impact the one-time gifts. So if you’re not already offering this tick box, now’s a great time to test it. It’s all part of planting those monthly giving seedlings.

This is what a reply form with a tick box might look like.

Credit: Operation Homefront

Many nonprofits are only showing a small tick box on the back of the reply form, so it’s only visible to the donor if they complete their credit card information on the back of the form. It’s typically as simple as the below.

Credit: CARE

Some, however, have started to be a bit more specific about it, highlighting the monthly gift option and the name of the group. See below.

Credit: Animal Legal Defense Fund

But wait, it’s getting better and better. 

Others have gone one step further: They offer the monthly giver tick box on the front, and then add the credit card and EFT option on the back of the form. That’s awesome. You will not generate new EFT monthly donors unless you ask. (Of course, this presumes you’re able to manage EFT gifts.)

Credit: Mercy Ships

Credit: Mercy Ships

But that’s where it stops.

In this huge stack of mail from dozens of organizations, only one was daring enough to ask for a monthly gift very prominently on the reply form. See below.

Credit: Commemorative Air Force

Finally, only one organization, out of dozens of nonprofits who sent me mail in the past week or so, was daring enough to specifically include the monthly donor option in the letter and on the reply form both.

And it was an organization I had not yet heard from before. This was the first appeal I received from them. Reference to the monthly gift was only included in the letter twice, but it was clearly there.

Credit: Save the Redwoods

Credit: Save the Redwoods

Credit: Save the Redwoods

With the number of appeals and emails you’re sending to your donors, could you just step up your monthly donor asks a little bit more?

You can be highly targeted by selecting just those donors who have given by credit card in the past year and make them an offer they can’t refuse. You can select just those donors who have given two or more times in the past year or even the past six months.

In this day and age with laser variations being part of most direct mail appeals, a test costs you virtually nothing, and you may end up with some new wonderful monthly donors because of it.

I’m grateful to be able to share these examples that dropped into my mailbox. Thank you for those organizations that are testing new things.

What are you planning to test as your next monthly donor variation?