Monthly Giving

I am so impressed with the power of a monthly giving program. Here’s why: It creates ongoing predictable cash flow. It’s low-cost and returns a high ROI. It takes your current donor base and pulls twice (or more!) as much funding from your wonderful donors. It’s relatively cheap — and painless. It’s how you create reliable, sustainable fundraising cash flow. It creates a wonderful prospect pool for planned gifts.

It seems to me that monthly giving programs should be a natural for small, even tiny nonprofits. Yet, many in the U.S. still don't use this form of giving. It may be that they think it is just too complicated. I just recently whizzed through "Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant," by Erica Waasdorp, and was gratified by her down-to-earth approach. Here are some tips that I gleaned from Waasdorp's book and her webinar with Pamela Grow.

Monthly giving has become such a critical part of Minnesota Public Radio’s fundraising approach that the organization doesn’t even mention the option of making a one-time gift during pledge drives anymore. Recurring gifts are also central to the broadcaster’s online fundraising. The results of that single-minded focus are impressive.

At the 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, Annalise Briggs, manager of Mercy Corps' monthly giving program, discussed the organization's monthly giving and data about monthly donors in the session "I Could Be Your Next Monthly Donor, So Call Me Maybe?"

For sure, monthly giving isn’t always easy. It takes an additional investment of time to implement a monthly giving program, to ensure gifts are processed correctly, to report on and fully understand your program metrics. But despite the challenges, your organization can’t afford to ignore it. Here’s why …

Use online and direct mail to start and grow a monthly giving program. Add telemarketing to the mix (if you can), and you have a truly winning combination!

So here's the latest in my semi-regular series of Fellini-esque dreams: My husband and I were trapped in a post-Apocalyptic nightmare set in a $3,000-a-night suite located in a high arch connecting two halves of a plush and elegant hotel somewhere in Dubai. Whatever it was that plunged our world into survival mode had turned…

Three fundraising professionals shared their "20 Big Ideas for Small Nonprofits" at the 2012 Washington Nonprofit Conference. Here are ideas 11-15.

In the fall of 2010, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview was looking to build a brand-new donor base through e-mail. Here are the results and lessons learned from working with KMA.

At the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation's 2012 Washington Nonprofit Conference, five fundraising pros shared their secrets to implementing and running a monthly giving program in their session, "25 Proven Monthly Giving Tools & Ideas Packed in 50 Minutes."