PATHWAY TO PHILANTHROPY | PART 3:
Why Monthly Giving Builds More Than Predictable Revenue
By Angie Thompson
Nonprofit fundraising often operates in campaigns. We send an appeal, hold an event, participate in a giving day or launch a year-end campaign. Donors respond, we thank them, and a few months later we begin the process again.
There is another opportunity that deserves more attention: inviting donors to move from an occasional gift to an ongoing relationship through monthly giving.
The financial benefit is easy to understand. Monthly gifts create a more predictable stream of revenue, allowing an organization to plan with greater confidence. A donor who commits $25 each month provides $300 over the course of a year without requiring twelve separate solicitations.
But I believe there is something even more important happening.
Monthly giving creates an extended handshake between the donor and the organization.
The donor is no longer simply responding to a campaign. They have made a decision to remain connected. For the organization, that creates another reason to communicate, another opportunity to say thank you and another invitation to help the donor understand what their continued generosity makes possible.
From a Gift to a Relationship
A monthly-giving program is more than a recurring-gift checkbox on a donation form. In my experience developing these programs, the technology that receives the gift is only one piece of the process. The organization also needs the structure behind it: a way to receive and track recurring gifts, acknowledge them appropriately, communicate with donors and intentionally steward the relationship.
Those operational details matter, but they aren't the focus of this paper. What interests me here is what happens after we make monthly giving an intentional part of the organization's donor-development strategy.
Research from M+R Benchmarks and Neon One reinforces the potential value of doing so. Recurring donors demonstrate stronger retention and lifetime value than donors who make only one-time gifts. Research also suggests that many donors who have never made a recurring gift would be open to doing so.
Sometimes the missing step is remarkably simple: they haven't been intentionally invited.
That should make every nonprofit look at its donor file differently. Who already gives two or three times each year? Who has supported us consistently or responds to our annual appeal every December? Who gives modest amounts but has demonstrated remarkable loyalty?
Those donors may not need to be convinced that the mission matters. They already believe it does. Perhaps the next conversation is simply an invitation to support it differently.
Predictability Matters
One-time gifts will always be important, but depending entirely on one-time fundraising makes financial planning difficult. Every new fiscal year can feel like starting over, and in some ways the process can begin to feel transactional.
Monthly giving changes some of that equation.
A nonprofit that begins January knowing a group of donors has already committed to giving throughout the year has a base of philanthropic revenue it can reasonably anticipate. The larger that monthly-giving community becomes, the stronger that base becomes.
But building that community takes time. In my own development experience, monthly-giving programs didn't suddenly produce dozens of recurring donors. Sometimes we had only a handful. Perhaps we could have asked more consistently. That is part of the lesson: a recurring-giving program isn't created simply by adding a monthly option to the donation form. Donors need to be invited, reminded and shown why ongoing support matters.
And even a small beginning has value. Five donors giving an average of $25 per month provide $1,500 in predictable annual giving. Grow that community to 50 donors, and it becomes $15,000. One hundred monthly donors at the same average represent $30,000.
Those gifts may arrive in relatively small increments, but collectively they can become meaningful operating revenue. And because recurring giving is automated, donors don't have to make a new giving decision every month.
The Retention Advantage
Monthly giving becomes even more interesting when we consider donor retention. One of the persistent challenges in fundraising is that acquiring a donor does not mean we will keep that donor. Organizations can spend considerable time and money finding new supporters while losing people who have already demonstrated an interest in the mission.
Recurring donors behave differently. Research cited in the recurring-giving literature suggests that approximately 83 percent of recurring donors continue giving from one year to the next, compared with about 45 percent of one-time donors who give again the following year. Research also points to an average giving relationship of more than eight years among recurring donors.
The specific figures can vary by study, organization and type of donor, but the strategic lesson is compelling: monthly giving can help turn a transaction into a habit and a habit into a long-term relationship.
But retention shouldn't be something we expect simply because a donor's credit card is charged automatically each month. A recurring gift may be automated. The relationship should not be.
In my own development work, I believed recurring donors deserved communication that recognized them as ongoing partners in the mission. I invited them to coffees and dessert socials where we could talk about the work, share impact and help them see what their continued generosity was making possible. The dollar amount of an individual monthly gift wasn't the point. These were people who had chosen to support the organization not once, but month after month.
That kind of commitment deserves more than a receipt. It deserves stewardship.
Don't Call It a Payment Plan
There is a temptation to market monthly giving almost entirely around convenience.
“Give $20 a month.”
“It's only 67 cents a day.”
“Set it and forget it.”
Those messages may make the gift seem affordable, but if that's where the message ends, we miss an opportunity to give the donor something meaningful to belong to.
Instead, consider creating a Monthly Giving Society with a name connected to the organization's mission.
Membership doesn't have to come with expensive premiums or elaborate benefits. In fact, I would avoid creating a program that costs significant money to maintain.
The benefit is connection.
A monthly donor might receive occasional stories specifically created for Society members, an invitation to see a program firsthand, a brief note from the executive director, early information about something happening within the organization, or an annual gathering that brings members closer to the mission.
The organization isn't purchasing their loyalty with benefits. It is recognizing their loyalty with involvement.
Give Monthly Giving a Home
Monthly giving needs a welcoming home on the organization's website. It shouldn't exist only as a checkbox someone happens to discover after clicking the Donate button.
Create a dedicated page that explains why monthly giving matters and what recurring support makes possible. Introduce the Monthly Giving Society, share donor and impact stories, and help prospective members understand what they are becoming part of. Then make joining easy.
Rather than simply presenting dollar amounts, connect appropriate giving levels with mission outcomes whenever the organization can do so accurately. For example:
$15 per month helps ____________.
$25 per month provides ____________.
$50 per month makes it possible to ____________.
The purpose isn't to suggest that a particular donor's dollars are literally segregated for that expense unless they are. Instead, these examples help donors understand what different levels of support can mean in the context of the organization's work.
People Help Build the Society
Creating a place for monthly giving on the website is important, but a Monthly Giving Society grows through more than a webpage. It grows when people hear why others have chosen to participate.
In my development work, I regularly invited monthly donors to share why they had chosen to give that way. I explained that their story could help another donor understand why monthly giving mattered and perhaps inspire someone else to make the same commitment. With their permission, I shared those testimonials in donor newsletters and other communications.
Those stories did something an organizational message couldn't do quite as personally. Instead of the nonprofit saying, “Please become a monthly donor,” someone who already cared about the mission was saying, “Here's why I chose to do it.”
Board members can play a similar role without being expected to make traditional fundraising solicitations. Give them a simple invitation they can comfortably make:
“I've been supporting this organization because ____________. We've recently created a Monthly Giving Society for people who want to provide ongoing support. I'd love for you to take a look at it.”
Better still, invite board members to become monthly donors themselves. The commitment doesn't have to last forever. A board member might choose to participate for a year or for another period that feels appropriate. What matters is that they have personally experienced the program they are inviting others to consider.
Then they can say:
“I'm part of the Monthly Giving Society because ____________.”
I used this same approach with both monthly giving and legacy giving. When board members could speak from their own experience, the invitation became personal testimony about why the mission deserved their commitment.
Don't Stop Asking Monthly Donors
Recurring-giving research suggests that many monthly donors also make additional one-time gifts. That's important because organizations sometimes make the mistake of removing monthly donors from other appeals because we don't want to “bother” someone who already gives every month.
But monthly giving doesn't necessarily mean a donor has finished giving for the year. A monthly donor may also want to support a special project, respond to an emergency, participate in a giving day or help meet a challenge.
The difference should be in how we ask.
Rather than approaching the donor as though the monthly commitment doesn't exist, begin by acknowledging it:
“As a member of our Monthly Giving Society, you already make this work possible throughout the year. Thank you. Today, we're inviting our community to help with an additional opportunity...”
That approach recognizes the donor's existing generosity while still giving them the opportunity to do something more if they choose.
Monthly Giving Can Lead Somewhere Else
This is where monthly giving becomes particularly interesting as part of a larger philanthropy strategy.
The monthly donor who gives $25 every month for eight years has told us something important. They are loyal, they care about the mission, and they have made the organization part of their financial life.
That doesn't automatically mean they are capable of making a major gift, and it certainly doesn't mean we should immediately begin asking them for one. But it does mean we should know them.
Over time, some monthly donors may increase their recurring gifts or make additional annual gifts. Some may become volunteers, advocates or board members. Others may have the capacity and desire to make a major gift, and some may eventually consider including the organization in their estate plans.
Recurring-giving research also suggests a connection between recurring giving and legacy giving. That relationship makes sense when we think about how philanthropy develops. Legacy giving often grows from a relationship built over time, and a monthly donor has already begun building that history.
Think About “Society Giving” Differently
This is why I increasingly think about Monthly Giving Societies and Legacy Societies together. They accomplish different financial purposes: monthly gifts provide revenue today, while legacy gifts help strengthen an organization's future. Relationally, however, they have something important in common.
Both are extended handshakes.
When someone joins a Monthly Giving Society, the donor is saying, “I want to be part of this consistently.” When someone joins a Legacy Society, the donor is saying, “I want this to continue beyond me.”
Both decisions give an organization an extraordinary opportunity to deepen the relationship. That opportunity is lost if all we do is process the transaction.
Build the Pathway
Imagine the donor relationship not as a series of unrelated fundraising programs, but as a pathway.
Someone attends an event or encounters your organization through a friend and makes a first gift. You thank them, begin getting to know them and show them what happened because they gave. They give again, and perhaps, over time, you invite them to become a monthly donor.
As the relationship develops, you learn more about what matters to them. They may increase their support, become interested in a particular program, volunteer, introduce others to the organization or become an advocate for the mission. For some donors, that growing relationship may eventually lead to a major gift.
And after years of involvement, some may begin thinking about what they want their philanthropy to accomplish beyond their lifetime. They may become legacy donors.
Not everyone will travel that entire path, nor should that be the expectation. But organizations should create the pathway.
Start With the People Already Giving
If you don't currently have a monthly-giving program, don't begin with an expensive acquisition campaign. Start with your own donor database.
Look for people who have given more than once during the past year, donors who have supported the organization consistently for several years, people making multiple smaller gifts, and volunteers or board members who already contribute. These are people who have already demonstrated that the mission matters to them.
Then invite them to become part of something more intentional.
Create a simple Society with a meaningful name, give it a welcoming home on your website and make recurring giving easy. Just as importantly, develop a stewardship plan that gives you several reasons throughout the year to communicate with members without asking for another gift.
Most importantly, don't treat monthly donors as automated credit-card transactions. Know who they are. Thank them personally. Talk with them. Share impact stories that connect their generosity to the work. Invite them closer to the mission.
Predictable revenue is valuable, but the relationship behind that revenue may ultimately be worth considerably more.
Monthly giving isn't simply another way to collect a contribution. It is an invitation to stay connected.
A Conversation for Your Board
I would encourage nonprofit boards and leadership teams to consider:
- Do we currently give donors an intentional opportunity to become monthly supporters, or do we simply have a recurring-gift checkbox?
- Who among our current donors has already demonstrated the loyalty that could make monthly giving a natural next step?
- Could we create a Monthly Giving Society that gives these donors a meaningful sense of connection to our mission?
- What could we share with members throughout the year that isn't another request for money?
- Would members of our board be willing to join and personally explain why they chose to do so?
- Do we have a process for recognizing when a monthly donor may be ready for a deeper conversation about their philanthropy?
- Are monthly giving, major giving and legacy giving part of one donor-development strategy, or are we treating them as unrelated programs?
Resources & Further Reading
Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, Clairification. Proven Strategies to Make Monthly Giving the Natural Choice. Axelrad discusses developing a written monthly-giving strategy, intentionally promoting recurring gifts, creating a dedicated website presence and inviting existing donors to consider monthly support.
M+R Benchmarks. M+R's annual nonprofit digital benchmarking research tracks online fundraising, recurring giving, digital advertising, email, social media and other nonprofit performance measures.
Neon One. Recurring Giving Report. Neon One's research examines recurring-donor behavior, retention, donor lifetime value and the relationship between recurring giving and other forms of philanthropy.
As with any benchmark, national statistics should be viewed as directional information rather than expected results for an individual organization. Donor retention, lifetime value and giving behavior will vary based on an organization's mission, donor base and fundraising practices.
A Note About Professional Advice
This article is provided for educational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, financial, investment or estate-planning advice. Donors should consider charitable giving decisions in light of their individual circumstances and consult their own attorney, CPA, financial advisor or other qualified professional when appropriate.