Ease of Monthly Giving Key for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers

Every nonprofit wants to attract younger donors. That’s why it’s very exciting that monthly giving is so appealing to these younger donors. Why? Because they can support those organizations, they care about in a very easy way with a small amount that absolutely fits their budget.

Easy and small are the key words here. Easy because they can make a gift from their credit card, their bank account, and more and more from their digital wallet like apple pay or google pay.

I recently read this study from RKD, "The Nonprofit Marketer’s Guide to Generation X."

I highly recommend checking it out. I particularly loved this chart, because it showed the top reasons for giving, including the importance of the ease of monthly giving!

You can see how younger and older Gen Xers are coming up the giving chain even though they’re still lagging behind the Baby Boomers. Older Gen Xers are defined as those born between 1965 and 1973. Younger Gen Xers are those born 1974 and 1983.

They’re clearly motivated by the interest to make financial impact and believe in the causes they support. You’ll also see how they like the exclusive content, but they are less motivated by member-only benefits.

I’ve talked about ease of monthly giving before. Make it easy to find. A button in your email. A button on your home page or taking over the home page altogether. A testimonial in an e-newsletter. A tick box in your appeals. A match. A video from another monthly donor explaining how easy it is to set up.

Exclusive content and access to people in the organization does not have to cost much and they're a lot easier to create than member-only benefits.

I still see many nonprofits that fret about this. What should our benefits be? What should our name be? It often prevents them from promoting the ease of monthly giving to their donors and constituents, and that hampers the growth of their monthly giving and sustainable revenue.

I recommend that you think of just one or two things you can offer your donors or may already be offering donors in other giving categories and opening that up to monthly donors.

What would make them feel really engaged? What really shows how their gifts are making a difference?

It can be as simple as conference call with the executive director or an update from someone in programs. It can be a simple story via email or a message from a client clipped into an email.

It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be complicated. And it certainly doesn’t have to be expensive or something you must do every month — once or twice a year is just great!

And take a look at your archives. Maybe there’s something you’ve used on social media, but haven’t shared elsewhere. Go ahead and reuse it. Repurpose what you have. Make it easy on yourself as well to ensure whatever you offer as exclusive content is something you can do without a lot of heavy lifting. Your new monthly donors are ready for the picking.

Thank you, RKD, for doing this study. I’m always on the lookout for many more statistics and trends, so keep them coming.