Are You a Monthly Donor Yet?
At a workshop last week, I asked the question: “Are you giving monthly to your own organization?”
I was expecting everybody’s hand to go up. But boy, was I unpleasantly surprised! Out of the 52 people in the room, only eight people raised their hand. Fortunately, a few days later at another presentation, it was almost the whole room.
So, my first recommendation if you’re looking to grow your number of monthly donors is to join your own program first—just $5 or $10 a month. How can you invite others if you’re not giving monthly yourself?
You could even be the first monthly donor to give a quote on why you’re giving monthly. You can ask someone to take your smartphone and video you while you’re saying it and create a video testimonial. Then you can post that on your website and social media, and share it in your emails.
Once you’ve joined yourself, start asking your board, your volunteers, your staff to join and generate more testimonials. Use it wherever you can.
And consider choosing a few organizations you really care about and join their program. And choose some you think are doing a great job with giving monthly. A few big ones I “track” myself are:
- ASPCA
- Habitat for Humanity
- Jude
- American Red Cross
- International Justice Mission
- Charity:Water
And I’m a monthly donor to a bunch more.
It helps you find out what they’re doing, how you’re being treated and what you like and don’t like. It will give you some great ideas that you can apply in your own organization.
With fundraising, it’s so important to always be learning from each other, but you must start in-house first. Join as a monthly donor yourself, and you’ll grow your program bigger than you’d imagined.
- Categories:
- 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.
