Monthly Donors Were Up on #GivingTuesday
#GivingTuesday results were way up compared to last year. Who said donors are not generous?
The best spot to see it all together is GivingTuesday Data Commons, fed by some 60 contributing partners and 40 global data labs. I know all are feverishly tallying results and creating infographics and more, so definitely stay tuned for more results as they become available.
I of course am most interested in any trends on monthly giving, so I was pleased to see that Classy showed the number of monthly donors who gave on #GivingTuesday.
Credit: Classy
You see here that the number of monthly donors almost doubled compared to last year! Last year, monthly donors made up 6.4%. This year, it’s 7% of the total number of donors who gave that day, a small growth there, too.
From the hundreds of emails I received in my inbox, I only saw a handful of nonprofit emails that had two buttons or a second (monthly) ask in their email. If they did, those are the ones that did generate some new monthly gifts. Virtually all of the emails I received had a match in it.
One of the things most data providers did not track was the number of existing monthly donors who made an extra gift (nicely “motivated'' by that special GivingTuesday match).
Anecdotally, I heard monthly donors opened and clicked at twice the rate of other donors, but it will take a bit more tallying to see which percentage made that extra gift, because most did not have a special tracking link. But I hope to report on that in a future post.
Sadly, I heard about one big online form provider that went down for several hours, several times that day. Some of my clients that use them ended up sending some extra emails, and they doubled their number of gifts — so it was not a total bust, but scary nonetheless. But with these tremendous results, just think: If #GivingTuesday is an indication of what’s going to happen later on in December, all may be well in the world.
Consider adding that extra monthly giving button in a few of your emails this month, and you’ll be in a better position come January. And make sure someone is monitoring your online giving, especially those last few days in the year. So if you must create a quick extra email on the fly, you can do so! The final push is on!
- Categories:
- Annual Campaigns
- Monthly Giving
Erica Waasdorp is one of the leading experts on monthly giving. She is the president of A Direct Solution, a company serving nonprofit organizations with fundraising and direct marketing needs, with a focus on monthly giving and appeals. She authored "Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant" and "Monthly Giving Made Easy." She regularly blogs and presents on fundraising, appeals and monthly giving — in person and through webinars. She is happy to answer any questions you may have about this great way of improving retention rates for your donors.
Erica has over 30 years of experience in nonprofits and direct response. She helped the nonprofits she works with raise millions of dollars through monthly giving programs. She is also very actively supports organizations with annual fund planning and execution, ranging from copywriting, creative, lists, print and mail execution.
When she’s not working or writing, Erica can be found on the golf course (she’s a straight shooter) or quietly reading a book. And if there’s an event with a live band, she and her husband, Patrick, can be found on the dance floor. She also loves watching British drama on PBS. Erica and Patrick have two step sons and a cat, Mientje.
