Fundraising Tip: 10 Actions to Start or Grow Your Monthly Giving Program

Monthly donors can change your relationship-building and fundraising.

In all of my work leading nonprofit fundraising teams, and with all of my work working with clients at Altrui, my favorite way to fundraise has been creating monthly donor campaigns.

Whether you are brand new to monthly giving, have wanted to jump into it for some time, or have a thriving monthly giving program now, I hope some of these actions will benefit you and your organization.

This is one of those posts of mine that need a little more time. Please take your time with this list. I want to make sure you read all the actions so we can affect your monthly giving.

These actions are based on plans I have created and monthly giving strategies I have used for small to medium-nonprofit fundraising teams. They are not in any order.

1. Decide who will run your monthly giving program. You have a much better chance of success if one person is responsible for the program.
2. Get as many people on board to support the program as possible. I like to have every board member as a monthly donor if possible.
3. Invite everyone to participate. Everyone.
4. Create a landing page on your website just for monthly giving.
5. Make it easy to become a monthly donor. This goes well with #4 but also needs to be considered with any interaction with a potential monthly donor.
6. Read all you can about monthly giving. Some of my favorite books are “How to Create Lifelong Donors Through Monthly Giving” by Harvey McKinnon and “Monthly Giving Made Easy” by Erica Waasdoorp.
7. Add an option to become a monthly donor in every direct mail appeal remit.
8. Share the impact of your monthly giving program. Some nonprofits have their program support a particular program within the organization
9. Keep inviting people to join the monthly donor program. Consistency with this makes a difference.
10. Celebrate your wins, program growth, and the difference monthly donors make for those you serve.

Whew! As I said above, these are in no order.

Having someone focused on your monthly giving program is super beneficial and helps with the key to success which is consistency.

Let me know how it’s going!

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Take a risk. Be of service. Support your friends and colleagues. Be kind.