A Plan for Growing Your Monthly Giving: Making it Happen in 2024

Lori Skibjak 00:03
Okay, good afternoon. Today we welcome fundraising expert Pamela grow to discover the
transformative power of monthly giving programs. named one of America’s top 25 fundraising
experts. She is a veteran fundraiser with over 20 years of Read More

Lori Skibjak 00:03
Okay, good afternoon. Today we welcome fundraising expert Pamela grow to discover the
transformative power of monthly giving programs. named one of America’s top 25 fundraising
experts. She is a veteran fundraiser with over 20 years of coaching experience specializing in
nonprofit fundraising. She is the author of simple development systems successful fundraising
for the one person shop, and the creator of basics and more fundraising resources. In today’s
webinar, she will explore monthly givings pivotal role in establishing consistent revenue
streams, enhancing donor engagement and unlocking giving potential for sustained nonprofit
growth. You’ll walk away with practical strategies from implementing recurring payment
options to stewarding donors effectively. So before we get started, just a reminder that there
are handouts in the handout section of your control panel. And the webinar is being recorded. It
will be sent out later this week. Okay, so Pam, it’s all yours. Oh, awesome.
Pamela Grow 01:11
Thanks so much for that introduction, Laurie, and thanks so much, everybody for being here
today. Can everyone see my screen? Alright. Super super.
Pamela Grow 01:27
Well, welcome to a plan for growing your monthly giving, making it happen in 2024. Laurie
already introduced me but I’d like to share a little bit about my experience I work with I’ve
worked with nonprofits all over the world. Someone says they’re not able to hear me make sure
that the sound the volumes up. Can you hear me, Laurie? I can, yes. Okay. Can everybody else
hear me? It might be on your end, Linda. Excellent. Excellent. So I’ve worked with nonprofits
from all over the world. I’ve also worked with the Veritas group. And as Laurie said, I’m the
founder of basics and more fundraising and the co founder of Veritas group training. I’m also
the host of motivate Monday, weekly webinars sponsored by Donor Perfect and this is a 30
Minute, every Monday, little it’s, it’s short. It’s it’s brief. It’s succinct. It’s a really great little
session for kind of starting your week off right, consultant copywriter and coach and the author
of simple development systems, successful fundraising for the one person shop. I always like to
introduce a little bit about myself personally too, so I’d like to share that I am the mother of two
wonderful daughters and I That’s my youngest daughter there. Abby and I see we’ve got a
number of Abby’s on board today with her new husband she just got married last summer. My
other daughter is represented by this picture of a taco truck in Philadelphia she manages
burrito Felice A, the the best taco truck in Philly if you ever happen to be in Philly. This is my
grand puppy Wally. And just last year, I moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia Kennett square
gorgeous Kennett square, I’m like a stone’s throw from Longwood Gardens if you’re familiar
with that. And every New Years, they actually do the great mushroom drop in the center of
town. Quick note, before we get started to just turn off distractions, I always find a lot of times
when I’m presenting a webinar or kind of imagine everyone out there kind of flick flipping
through a gazillion windows and this will you’ll get the most out of this when you can turn
everything else off and just kind of focus today. And today’s webinar, you’re going to discover
how and why you need to oops trying to get excuse me, for one second, let me get this out of
the way I can’t read to make your case for monthly giving support and that’s that’s something
that sometimes oftentimes actually goes goes on done, which donors you’re going to want to
target for your best results how to make your donors feel great about their giving online tactics
for rapidly ramping up your program, including utilizing giving days. And of course, this is the
best way that I learned is lots and lots of examples.
Pamela Grow 05:04
and stay with me to the end because we do have some handouts that can help you implement
what you learned today. I’m going to stop right now pause right now for a quick poll to find out
where you all are in terms of your monthly giving program. Let me go ahead and launch that
poll.
Pamela Grow 05:29
And if you could take a couple quick seconds to respond. So what describes where you’re at
today in terms of your monthly giving program for your nonprofit, maybe you have some
monthly supporters, some people who have just gone ahead and selected the option to make a
recurring gift, but you don’t specifically specifically have a program. Or maybe you have a
monthly giving program. But it’s kind of languishing. It’s just not growing as quickly as you’d
like. And you’d like some ideas today for how you can you can ramp it up. Maybe you have a
robust, robust and growing monthly giving program. And maybe you don’t have a monthly
giving program at all, or maybe something else entirely. Go ahead and respond. We’ve got
about 74% voted 75 give you a couple more seconds 779 Can we get 80? Excellent. So this is
interesting. And this is what I see a lot of times 49%, almost 50% answered, we have some
monthly supporters, but not a program. Oftentimes, when I go in and work with an
organization, they’ve got maybe, maybe 10, maybe 15 monthly givers, we have a monthly
giving program, but it’s languishing gay, we have a robust and growing monthly giving
program. If that’s you go ahead and chime in throughout this webinar, if you’ve got some tips
to one on how to grow your how you’ve grown your monthly giving program, and 11% do not
have a monthly giving program. Super Oh, and I should have mentioned at the beginning. If
you can keep your questions till the end, we’ll get to everybody’s question but it’s a little easier
for me to just kind of go through this. So let’s get started. Before we even talk about monthly
giving, I want you to really think about what you want your community or your supporters to
do. And I’m going to walk you through a short story if you are one of my regulars. You’ve heard
this story before because I use it to kind of illustrate the donor experience. And this is one
donor story. I like to call her Amy. Amy is a professor at a small liberal arts college here in
Pennsylvania. She owns her own home she she has a rich life. She’s she’s got her dog, Max.
She loves watching Great British Bake Off euphoria and our secret guilty pleasure Hallmark
Christmas movies. She travels a lot with her niece that’s her niece. They’re in the picture. She
loves theater, she loves music. She loves cooking and entertaining. She loves hiking reading.
And like a lot of us she she really wants to give back she feels it’s part of her DNA really. And
she’s also a donor. She’s a regular donor to a number of organizations right there in her
community. She’s very community focused. She is a monthly donor. She’s a monthly donor to
about six organizations, including two national organizations and the others are local. She is a
major donor she donates to her university. And she also donates to the local library. And they
don’t know it yet, but the shelter where she adopted Max a couple years back will be the
recipient of $125,000 legacy gift when she passes away. So just for the sake of our story here,
we’re gonna say that Amy, Amy stumbled upon your organization, maybe a friend dragged her
to your event, somehow she she became acquainted with your organization and she went
online, and she made a gift and she got a receipt and then silence About a year passed. During
that time, Amy vacationed in Peru. She helped plan her niece’s wedding, she took a French
pastry making class. And she made a $10,000 gift to a local arts organization. And then one
blustery winter day in late December, your fundraising appeal landed in her mailbox.
Pamela Grow 10:32
To be honest with you, she’d forgotten all about that original donation. And before she had a
chance to remember, she tossed the appeal in the trash. I’m just trying to illustrate with this
story that Amy is one of hundreds, if not 1000s, of wonderful donors, who would love to support
your mission. And all you have to really do is make it incredibly easy to make them feel good
about their giving, and to make them really understand what kind of impact they’re having
through your work. And that’s kind of simple. It’s your organization’s ask thank report, repeat
donor communications model, which is what we work with is essentially it’s the engine behind
your fundraising. It’s the engine that’s behind all individual giving from your, from your major
donors, to your legacy givers, to your mid level donors, to your monthly donors, how are you
communicating with them? And before we get started, too, I want us to just kind of think about
about the science behind behind human communication and and what’s going on right now in
the fundraising world. And why do donors stop giving 53% of the reasons donors give for failing
to renew their giving is because the organization failed to properly communicate in one way or
another. 46% of donors leave for reasons tied to a lack of meaningful information or or a feeling
that they’re giving is not appreciated. 60% want impact and success stories and they say their
decision to give again, hinges greatly on the organization’s ability to show exactly what it can
accomplish. That’s why monthly giving is such a smart fundraising it really pays to have a
strong monthly giving program. It is reliable. I love this quote from I interviewed Harvey
McKinnon, author of hidden gold, the monthly giving Bible that was really the first book that I
read that introduced me to monthly giving and helped me launch my very first monthly giving
program, you can really depend on 1000s of dollars coming in every month, whether it’s a
summer month or a month where everybody’s on vacation. It’s an incredibly helpful cash flow,
it helps predict what’s going to come in the following year. I like this he says we can usually
predict within one or 2% for every one of our clients. And these include some really large
clients how much they will give for monthly giving because there’s so little attrition and
remember this for later on in this presentation, especially if they’re direct mail recruited
monthly donors very easy to predict and you’ll also lower your fundraising costs in the long run.
The great thing about monthly don’t monthly giving is that your donors are already really
familiar with monthly doing things on a monthly basis. You know I don’t know about you but I’m
a member actually of Planet Fitness. So every month that $25 comes out of comes out of my
bank account. i What about Netflix and Hulu and Max and Disney not to mention Amazon Prime
or maybe even subscription boxes. But our donor retention our sector’s donor retention
continues to be in the toilet and I don’t have the actual latest numbers. But what I saw last year
was that it was at 42% which they were seeing was the lowest donor retention rate ever
recorded since they started recording. But get this and this is true of a Not just Donor Perfect
users. But I’ve heard this from Erica was last OHRP as well that your monthly monthly giving
program will enjoy about 90% donor retention. And they stay with the organization an average
of 10 years, that is going to really really cut your fundraising costs. Monthly giving programs
build strong relationships, and monthly donors are six times more likely to leave you a gift in
their will. 40% of millennial millennial donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program. And
60% of donors under 35 give monthly. And I really think it comes back to that whole that that
slide a couple slides back, you know that younger folks are really very, very much used to
monthly, little monthly expenses. I wanted to put up this link to the monthly giving calculator
so you could kind of get a picture of what it would look like to to you know what kind of revenue
you can expect. When you start your monthly giving program. They’ve got a terrific calculator.
Pamela Grow 16:30
Your solid monthly giving programs they build a nice monthly income that your organization
can rely on, month in and month out. Imagine starting out every month with a nice sized
deposit in the bank. It is actually one of the very few strategies you can use in the nonprofit
fundraising world to provide your organization with predictable income. I’ve seen nonprofits
with strong monthly giving programs starting each month, with 2500 to 25,000 in income and
larger organizations bringing in as much as $100,000 or more a month, from monthly giving, it
is a great way to start each month, we have even had students who have had donors who are
giving $1,000 a month through the monthly giving program. But before you get started, it’s
really important to have board and staff buy in. And one of the things I’ve always done when
I’ve worked before I worked as a consultant, even, I would get one or two key board members
involved in the monthly giving program. And even making a monthly gift because it’s a perfect
opportunity for your board members to stretch their giving. So let’s move on to launching your
monthly giving program. And I wanted to actually put this slide in about 10 times throughout
this presentation because it is really the most important thing for you to be aware of. You need
to be intentional. And by that I mean you really need to, you really need to focus on monthly.
And that that involves more than just adding the option to to give monthly adding the option on
your donate form on your website to include a reoccurring option. It includes focusing all the
time consistently throughout the year on your monthly giving program. Intention is one of the
most powerful forces there is what you mean when you do a thing will always determine the
outcome. The law creates the world word. So let’s talk a little bit first about your monthly giving
infrastructure. That engine behind monthly giving. It’s super important, super, super important
to have a strong monthly giving case for support. And what do I mean by that? It doesn’t need
to be a five page document. It’s really just a couple sentences. It’s donor donor oriented donor
centered written for your donors. It clearly illustrates your or your organization’s mission and
your vision for the future. It tells your donors why you need their funding and what outcomes
you’re seeking from their investment. And it offers strong reasons why prospects should make
gifts to your organization. Can you see how simple this one is? help build a future for chain of
hope by setting up a regular donation. It couldn’t be more basic than this monthly donations,
no matter the size, help us save children’s lives
Pamela Grow 20:20
you need a reoccurring billing processor and or EFT. And if you could type into the questions
box, can you let me know any of you who actually offer EFT payments, which is electric funds
transfer?
Pamela Grow 20:45
I really like you have to because the beauty of it is that there’s no credit card expiration dates.
It’s really seamless, but setting it up can be more complicated. And you’re really going to need
to check with your organization’s bank to see if EFT would work for you. The languaging
sometimes trips people up too. That’s why I’m sharing this particular example from why why?
How would you like to make your donation and they’ve already pre selected direct debit EFT
with this very small case for support easy for you best for why why? And as you can see, it’s
super super easy to set up. I think a lot of people get tripped up on the languaging just make it
as simple as possible. Make your donate page as simple as humanly possible. offer as many
options as possible. Offer offer Google Pay offer, Pay Pal offer credit card offer EFT whatever
you can offer to make it easier for your donor and then of course we get to your donor file
those leases How are you branding or naming your monthly giving program? If you have a
monthly giving program can you write into the chat and let me know what the name is
Pamela Grow 22:20
oops and I’m going to take a look and see a
Pamela Grow 22:31
Farm Radio International just says we offer EFT and push it on our donation forms and appeal
verbiage I love that just I’d love to see your example
Pamela Grow 22:47
we do it Bucks County Opportunity Council Hi Amy. PayPal and Stripe excellent excellent EFT
three Donor Perfect yay. Also no fees yeah great point great point Jennifer no fees with EFT.
Pamela Grow 23:17
Hi, Michelle, it’s nice to see you again. Yeah As Michelle notes we do EFT we worked with our
local bank we keep 100% of the donation excellent the tributary club names oh I love these
names. Excellent heartbeat of hope. Champions for health water guardians these are terrific
vision society mountain movers hearts of honor Oh I love it. Hi Karen gem give each month I
almost use your yours as an example because I loved it and I just didn’t didn’t have the space.
Excellent super well thanks for your input you guys. Oops. So this is this is actually from our
class the name should reinforce your mission. And I should make it clear that these this is a
really special group of people, right? A group they too would want to join their their special
Habitat for Humanity calls its monthly donors, the hope builders and food for the poor calls its
program angels of the poor. Be creative, but keep it mission focus with a slight air of
exclusivity. And it should be actually in the control box that you should be able to download.
We’ve actually got a naming cheat sheet that’s derived from a donor perfect post that’s going
to help you out a lot in naming your program. You don’t have to name your monthly giving
program but I recommend it. So then you’re going to be setting ask the mountain benefit levels
is going to be very very dependent obviously on your organization on your mission, but I love
this one from inCircle $10 A month provides 12 LGBTQ youth with access to weekly friendship
circles 35 A month provides therapy $50 A month provides 18 youth with access to world
Weekly World Class programming every year. Target your monthly giving ass now what do you
think should get your monthly giving ask Go ahead and type into the questions box, who do
you think should get your monthly giving us all your donors? Certain donors. Obviously, you
want to go with your current donors. Your goal is to get the supporters to give more every year
pledge on a monthly basis and your best prospects are going to be those who give every year
and even better multiple times a year. This is another reason I’d like to start with the board
members too. And that being said, you should probably target your initial mailing to everyone
who has given to your organization at least twice over the past three years. In other words, the
Amy’s in your donor in your donor database. And the next thing you’re going to be working on
is creating a monthly giving launch letter or an email series. For example, this was one of my
favorite students, Jody Joy Keefe. She works for an organization called Beth called Bethany it’s
actually a retirement facility a Catholic retirement facility in Massachusetts. She launched her
first first monthly giving program. She did it in a super small way. She did it by direct mail,
because most of her donors are older and they are still giving through the mail. What’s really
great about this particular example is she’s got very specific ask them nouns that paint a very
clear picture of what the donor is funding. It’s easy for the donor to give either by returning the
the reply device or going to an easily found URL. I believe she had about half half they gave
online and half they gave gave through the mail. It presents a really strong case for monthly
giving support shows gratitude for the recipients past support. That’s pretty important. And the
naming speaks to the history of the organization and adds a touch of exclusivity. You want to
also keep your monthly giving front and center and all your email communications. This is one
of my clients. They run us they run a webinar series that runs I believe they have one, one or
two webinars that are open to everybody a month and so they send out numerous emails
announcing the webinars they also have a newsletter. So they they keep this at the bottom of
every newsletter, please consider becoming an embrace race monthly donor. They’ve grown
their program exponential exponentially over I’m gonna say about the last three four years
since it was first introduced. This is a terrific one from Best Friends Animal Society. You can see
in the subject line alone it just immediately as speaking to the donor, your role on the road to
no kill
Pamela Grow 29:10
this one leads with a really strong vision that your supporter can share and this includes the
name program of course their their name is terrific to guardian angel I’ve always loved. I’ve
always loved this organization best friends. And it outlines as well precisely what various gifts
amounts accomplish $10 A month can provide for newborn kittens with bottles for feeding $25
Can neuter a cat and that’s lovely. 100 a month can provide care for one special needs dog or
cat. When you click on any of the links in here it leads to a brand new one Unlike giving page
very consistent with the ask very consistent, makes it easy to give offers the opposite option of
credit card, Google Pay PayPal or bank transfer includes 12 links to join in the email. This is a
particularly great example. And features a very strong close and an even offers. I didn’t have
the whole email in here, but it offers the supporters the opportunity to mute the campaign.
Let’s say you’ve sent it to a donor and they’re just not interested. They just want to give their
$50 a year and that’s it. It offers their supporters that option to mute the campaign so that they
don’t hear any more about this particular campaign. Excuse me, which brings me to another
really important point about email is that email is one email does not make a campaign. Right?
Make it a match. This was a terrific terrific asked from one of our students Becky straw over the
adventure project. They’ve got an exciting opportunity what I love about Becky’s emails, and I
would strongly recommend that you subscribe, just to see how she does her fundraising
because she’s she’s terrific. And she’s always learning and she’s always trying new things. But
they have this this $50,000 opportunity to reach the full 50,000 We estimate we need 117
people. If you have the capacity to join us, would you be willing to be one of the 117 people?
Yes, I can help not now. Super donor centered language. I love this no matter what you can
give your impact scales quickly. If you join at $50 a month you’ll help 250 people this year, very
cool. A named monthly giving program there’s a simply called collective donor testimonials. I
love donor testimonials. And I know that several of you had mentioned that you you had you
fell into that first part of our poll where you had like a handful of monthly donors. Call them up,
find out why they asked see if you can get a testimonial from them. Lets the donor know to
what to expect coming up that they’re going to get this particular donor communication. To
calculate your impact slider is a brilliant addition. And you get this you get a very real sense
with Becky’s communication that with all of her communications that all their donors are
valued. This was a terrific one, this is just was the homepage. From Orbis, they are always
constantly constantly changing their sight but really focused on monthly giving. And this was
obviously another match. Now this one is is from you know over a decade ago, but it’s still one
of the best monthly giving letters I’ve seen this came over from from John left over at agents of
good. And this was a very special invitation to join their monthly giving program partner against
hunger. And what I love about agents of good about all their work is how simple they make it
for the donor. There aren’t a gazillion options. There’s not a $10 month a $25 month $15 A
month or however much you want to give. And if you want to do the EFT the bank draft, these
just include a check mark Boyd
Pamela Grow 33:56
super simple, super, super simple. It’s also very, very segmented. With a lot of gratitude and
this one and then this one I included in today’s downloads because this is one
Pamela Grow 34:18
from one of my best students intervale center in Vermont. And I believe they do a strong
monthly giving him being every year. And it usually consists of anywhere from five to seven
emails and you’ll find that all the emails are in in the download. Because when you’re planning
a monthly giving email campaign say you’re going to do this solely through through digital
because you maybe maybe you can’t get approval to spend the money on a direct mail
campaign. The important thing to remember is that email is just here and gone. You want to
segment it carefully and then send three to seven emails. else over a period of just a couple
weeks, I mean even more, you might need even more, every organization is different. Then
you’re going to be dropping your monthly giving launch letter email series. And what’s the most
important thing that you are super, super, super, super intentional. If you want to grow your
monthly giving program, you really got to work it. So these are just a couple of examples of
communications donor communications plans that I put together for clients. As you can see,
this one has four monthly giving us within the year. One direct mail, one email, but they’ll
they’ll also be talking about monthly giving in the in the donor newsletter. They’ll also be
highlighting one of their monthly supporters in their annual report. This one for us well. It’s that
intention that is really going to grow your monthly giving program in ways you can only
imagine. So what next? What are you going to do that? You really want to throw out the
welcome mat for those brand new donors. And thank often I love this from wiki. I just got this
just the other day. I’m a monthly supporter to Wikipedia. And I want you to just notice how
tailored this is. It’s your ongoing generosity. Your reoccurring Jeff. They make it clear, they’re
not just saying thank you to anyone they’re saying thank you to me for my monthly gift. Thank
you for being there each month Pamela
Pamela Grow 37:11
this is something you’ll want to avoid. Every every month for I think the two years that I
donated to the Humane Society of the United States, I got this very same email. You want to
put a really human personal touch on it. And you don’t need to thank your monthly donors
every month. You don’t you can make them feel special in other ways. Now some of the best
advice and I got this Gosh, it’s been probably 10 years ago since I got this from an interview
that I did. Lisa Sargent, who’s one of the world’s best copywriters as well as is really donor
retention experts. And I use this whenever I’ve created a monthly giving program her advice
and I’ve never come across better advice. Don’t stop communicating. And I don’t think this
happens so much anymore. But But when monthly giving was kind of first taking off in the US, I
would find that what I would give a monthly gift to an organization. And then I would fall into
this black hole and I wouldn’t hear from the organization. And you know you They worry that if
a stray ask creeps in that mutiny would fall when in fact the opposite is true. Relevant, regular,
well crafted assets have been shown to increase engagement to stewardess sustainers she
says you can and should keep sending appeals. And I always do too. I have a very, you know, I
might have 5678 different segments. But I always want to send an appeal to my monthly
supporters with some very special language letting them know how much they how much they
matter and asking for an extra special gift. And I love this to your monthly donor in your
organization has a huge emergency. Who are you going to ask if not your most committed
supporters. And you’ll also want to offer the chance to upgrade your money monthly giving
them out often and don’t forget those requests appeals. And this will help you like kind of
repurpose materials that you might might be using differently. For instance, you send out a
newsletter to all your donors, right. Maybe you send out a quarterly newsletter and it goes to
all your donors four times a year. Segment, pull out your monthly suppress them and send
them a personal handwritten note To make it really feel like insiders and thank them a lot.
Periodically offer them special opportunities, events, guided tours, presidents breakfasts, make
it clear it’s an exclusive event and send Special thank yous. I know when I when I worked with
embrace race we hit they have these core, just gorgeous fridge magnets that we would send
out to the monthly donors. Always always segment. Keep it up, keep it up bill momentum
behind your program, I wanted to share my little my little experience as a donor because in
addition to, to being a mom and a fundraiser and blah, blah, blah. I’m also a donor I give to a
lot of different organizations throughout the year. And I’ve made a lot of lot of monthly gifts.
And this is what happened. When I got this email last year, I guess it was I became a supporter
in 2014, you’ve donated more than three times. This makes you one of the rare exceptions,
who chooses to support a project that’s helpful to everyone on the planet. Thank you for
believing that it’s up to each of us. Now keep in mind, I had made a gift and several years. Can
we count on you again, please renew your $20 donation? I took the liberty of emailing you a
second time? Because I wasn’t sure you got a chance to read the first email. Apparently I didn’t
because that’s the only one I remember. Another reason why you should send way more
emails. And then it just really spoke to me. So I clicked through to make a $35 gift which to be
honest with you was probably the biggest gift I had ever made to Wikipedia. I love this
languaging here, which is why I wanted to share it with you. This is this is great writing right
here. We know people circumstances have changed a lot in the last year. How are you
acknowledging to your donors that you know what’s going on? You know that they that they
might be having a tough time, some might find themselves less to spare. But the lucky few
happen to have a little more if you’re one of the lucky ones where you give a little extra. So I
made a donation of $35. So what happened then? Then I was greeted with a pop up monthly
giving us add a $6 monthly donation starting next month. You know what, as a fundraiser at
the time I made this gift I don’t know that I was that committed to wiki but as a fundraiser, I
was really curious to see what would happen next. So yeah, I went ahead and I added a $6
monthly donation. You might not like these these light boxes, but they work. They definitely
work. And I have been stewarded very well ever since not every month, I would say every two
or three months. This is one that I got. I think it was last year, late last year it was during their
urine campaign. And they very specifically told me, you know, you might have already seen the
banners and the banner banners kind of drive you nuts because they hit you every time you
visit wiki. But they told you how to hide the banner. And they specifically told me that because
of how they did things, you know, in terms of in terms of their tracking, that they couldn’t they
couldn’t really do anything about it. And then they asked for an additional gift. So you don’t
want to ask for upgrades regularly and make that a part of your communications plan for the
year. This was a piece that I got from Southern Poverty Law Center. They sent this very very
interesting little not a brochure sort of a letter on the 1619 project and asked if I would like to
make a special gift or increase my regular pledge How many of you have used Giving Tuesday
specifically for monthly? This is one of our students. MOLLY Oh look. Pina I think It is she’s the
founder of founder of autism, which is a global autism project. They put together a campaign
forgiving Tuesday, they were they were totally totally focused on monthly donating donors
only. And they actually brought in over 300 new monthly donors. They used a multi channel
approach both direct mail and lots and lots and lots and lots of emails
Pamela Grow 45:44
so consider the use of a lightbox if you haven’t already. And I’m going to actually pause this for
just one second and take a look and see if we’ve got any questions. Lots of great names
Pamela Grow 46:09
I like that thank you. Just says this is a fun punchy blurb on our remittance forms. Did you know
recurring donations require fewer CFC step hours and resources more of your money goes
directly to the river that’s terrific really making it a solid case for support for your donors.
Pamela Grow 46:45
Lauren says they we don’t use Giving Tuesday at all we feel like it’s become too crowded I
agree. Interesting. Kill to
Pamela Grow 47:08
so go ahead and download it’s actually in the the box there. The control box, your step by step
my monthly giving ask. This is a template that I’ve used for years. It’s funny since I since the
advent of AI, I’ve started kind of experimenting with experimenting with it in terms of
copywriting. And to be honest with you, I still find templates more helpful. You’re going to
always start by showing your appreciation for bass support. You’re going to issue an invitation,
you’re going to bring out the benefits of monthly giving your case for support and how your
donor makes it possible. They ask and then thank again. Always be willing to test and measure
and begin to incorporate monthly asks, such as adding donate buttons to every single email,
adding a monthly giving out to your donor newsletter. Has anybody tried this try testing
defaulting to monthly giving on your donate page. I think that’s actually how I became a
monthly donor to roll by World Wildlife Federation. These are some terrific terrific additional
resources, hidden gold, which is pretty much the Bible on monthly giving. And then of course
you absolutely don’t want to miss out on either one of Erica was Starburst books monthly giving
the sleeping giant and monthly giving made easy. Let’s go and go ahead and recap. We talked
today about how and why you need to make your case for monthly giving support which donors
you want to target for your best results. How to make your donors feel great about their giving
online tactics for ramping up your program and including utilizing giving days and examples. So
I wanted to ask you guys now Have you have you come up with anything new you’re gonna try
after you leave today’s presentation. Go ahead and type your questions into the chat. How will
you be more intentional? In 2024 Because this is tomorrow’s the last day of January. We’re
already going to be going into February How are you going to be more intentional In 2024,
about growing your monthly giving program
Pamela Grow 50:23
Andrea says she’s going to build the case for support. Sally is going to add more links through
the emails. Lisa says she’s going to add a monthly giving option in the newsletter Diane you’re
going to test the pop up the light box I love it
Pamela Grow 50:55
so excellent Suzanne is going to start with a name yes going to do a more intentional welcome
to all new monthly donors and apply the Ask thank report repeat to all our comms excellent
Pamela Grow 51:35
Rachel says she’s gonna look into EFT options. biggest takeaway? It’s got to be quick and easy.
Yes, yes. It’s got to be asking the bottom of the weekly newsletter default to reoccurring
monthly. Yes. That’s a good question Francesca. Francesca says, Is there a recommendation of
which percentage of my annual giving donors should be converted to monthly donors each
year? I would say it depends. But I’d actually also hit Erica wall store up with that question. So
you can you can contact her through her website. And I’ll ask her to Demetrius asks, How long
does it take to build up a monthly giving program? Well, of course it depends. It really depends.
Are you putting a focus on it? Or are you just offering the option to give monthly Are you really
are you really making a case for support? Are you really focusing on it with intention? I would
say the best thing you can do in 2024 is to really focus on monthly giving on growing it
Pamela Grow 52:55
Yeah, I like that too. Gosh, there’s so many I can hardly keep up. The challenge is coming up
with 12 months of stories that’s interesting because um, I would actually recommend a really
good book I just read it is called Story find and it’s by Kristin. So curl, it just came out last year
or either last year or the beginning of this year. It’s excellent
Pamela Grow 53:41
excellent, super. I never thought about branding, our recurring Donor Program 20% of our
donors are recurring that’s awesome. It’s taken two years she says he says Ramin and
Pamela Grow 54:03
John makes a good point he says as a UX and marketing professional I should warn about
defaulting to monthly giving given the user experience nightmare at can create if donors can’t
easily cancel
Pamela Grow 54:22
story find Katie asked what was the name of that book by by Kristen story find it’s excellent. Me
see can I know I can’t type in there
Pamela Grow 54:46
There you go. Oh, I’d love it. Send it. Send it to me Cheryl. Cheryl says I’m going to strengthen
our case for support in an upcoming Valentine’s Day campaign. for monthly donors, which I
have to create this week, I love it. I can’t wait to see what you do with that go ahead and shoot
me an email
Pamela Grow 55:24
ah crit asks, How do we sign up for the motivate Monday Donor Perfect webinar series? Let me
super quickly run and I’ll get you the I’ll get you the link
Pamela Grow 55:48
next week’s isn’t live yet, but it’s always at the same link
Pamela Grow 55:58
there you go.
Pamela Grow 56:14
Hey, Jane. Jane asked, Should we include major donors and re recruiting monthly donors? That
depends? Like I said, I’ve had students who have had donors who are giving $1,000 a month? I
think I think I would, it would depend I don’t know what your major gift threshold is. I don’t
know what kind of amounts we’re talking about for some smaller organizations. You know, for
some organizations $10,000 as a threshold for a smaller organization, maybe $500 is the
threshold in that case, you know, maybe maybe a donor could would be more would be inclined
to give $100 a month.
Pamela Grow 57:07
This is a great question from McKenzie. This is very, very specific. But if the person in my
previous position, I actually can’t have this happen to me. And my previous position never
reached out to people who donated a significant amount to our organization a couple of years
ago. Is it worth it to reach back out to them? Or would they be offended that it took so long?
You know, it’s never ever ever too late to say thank you. And that’s exactly what I did. And ya
know, it’s never too late to say thank you
Pamela Grow 57:52
oh, I love that crit says I’m aiming to launch a monthly donor campaign for February and
thinking of naming it for the love of the club. I like that. I’m thinking it would be nice to send
handmade Valentines from Club kids after people commit to becoming monthly donors. I just
love that. Anytime you can do anything handmade from the kids, you can’t go wrong Oh, that’s
that’s an interesting comment. Jane, if you’re still on justice, I just had this conversation with
several major donors may have many of our major donors for forgiving through foundations or
CTFs. Making monthly giving not ideal for them.
Pamela Grow 58:46
Susan says does Christine’s book cover arts organizations I’ve had trouble getting good advice
in the past. I’m not necessarily certain I’m not really certain that it does. But if you if you’re with
an arts organization, I always recommend all my arts organizations. I always recommend
subscribing to Mary Collins materials because she has worked with a lot of Oregon arts
organizations and has written a lot of good materials that will be helpful to you. I was super Oh,
that’s interesting. Kristen says we actually have a donor who set up monthly giving through
their DHF interesting.
Pamela Grow 59:40
Oh, Tamarin says and this last question because unfortunately I’m going to have to we’re at
we’re at the hour so we’re going to have to end the webinar, but she says we have a very large
volunteer pool. How would you ask them to join your monthly Giving Program? Well, that’s
awesome. I think first, I would really stress how grateful you are further further further help. A
lot of a lot of organizations don’t even ask their volunteers feeling like they already give up
their time. But your volunteers are actually your best, your best. Your best target. So yeah.
Pamela Grow 1:00:33
Well may see us Ah, that’s my timer. Let’s see. I don’t see Laurie, but I’m gonna have to I’m
afraid I have to go. I’m going to quick put up my, my slides. And if you would like to contact me,
my email is right there. Reach out Pamela, Pamela grow.com. And if I didn’t get your question
answered today, I’m happy to answer. Just shoot me an email, give me a day or two. Laurie.
Lori Skibjak 1:01:08
I’m here. I’m here. I was just, you were going through questions. And I know a lot of people
were anxious to get some answers. So I was letting you go for a minute or two. But it was nice
that you had a timer there in the background.
Pamela Grow 1:01:24
Well, you know, I turned everything off. So So I want to always be aware of of how much time is
going because I could talk and talk as
Lori Skibjak 1:01:32
well. And they were willing to listen, because a lot of them seem very excited and happy with
the information that they got here today. So it’s all good. But we will be we will be sending out
an email later in the week it will have the link to the recording. And if we can include it. We’ll
include a link to the slides. We had a lot of people asking for those as well. Awesome.
Pamela Grow 1:01:55
Well, thanks so much for being here, everybody and make it a great rest of your week. And
thanks for having me. Oh, this was a lot of fun. Our pleasure, our pleasure.
Lori Skibjak 1:02:09
I hope everybody has a great rest of their day. Thanks. Bye bye