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Template: Write an amazing fundraising appeal
- Digital communications & marketing
- Fundraising ideas
- Nonprofits
- Fundraising
Recurring giving is when a donor chooses to make regular, ongoing donations to your nonprofit organization. These consistent gifts, known as recurring donations, help your organization achieve long-term fundraising success and meet your retention goals. Like monthly subscriptions to streaming services, recurring donations can provide a sustainable and reliable revenue stream for your nonprofit.
In this guide, we’ll look at the specific ways recurring donations can benefit your nonprofit and the tools you’ll need to implement a successful program.
As part of your nonprofit’s overall fundraising strategy, well-positioned recurring donation options allow you to increase both the size and volume of your overall funding.
According to 360MatchPro’s fundraising statistics, the average recurring donor will donate 42% more money in one year than a donor who gives a one-time gift. With a strong recurring giving program, longtime supporters can easily multiply their annual donations and make a lasting impact.
According to research on nonprofit giving, donors need to feel that their donation makes a difference in order for them to continue giving. A smart monthly giving program will help you reach new segments of your audience by showing donors how much more of an impact they can make by fitting recurring donations into their monthly budgets.
For example, although Millennials and Generation Z (Gen Z) may not be ready to give larger individual gifts, the Millennial Impact Report found that 52% of Millennials are interested in monthly giving as a way to donate smaller amounts on a more frequent basis. This makes monthly giving a unique opportunity to capture the interest of new donors and raise more over time.
Recurring donors will often become your most engaged supporters, actively volunteering, advocating, and fundraising on your organization’s behalf. A recurring giving program offers you the opportunity to regularly communicate with these loyal supporters, keeping them engaged, updated, and inspired by your purpose.
While new donor retention rates average less than 20%, monthly giving programs typically have retention rates of more than 80% after the first year and over 95% after year five. Ultimately, you’ll get a better return on your donor acquisition investment if you can encourage more one-time donors to become recurring donors.
Having more loyal donors directly equates to an increased donor lifetime value. According to fundraising expert Dr. Adrian Sargeant, a 10% improvement in your donor retention rate can result in a 200% increase in donor lifetime value. Since you only need to convert your recurring donors once—compared to having to solicit multiple, separate donations from one-time donors—your organization saves money for your marketing and programming.
Ready to start accepting recurring donations? The right online fundraising tools, like Bonterra Donor Engagement’s Guided Fundraising solution (formerly Network for Good), can make the recurring giving experience as easy as possible for both donors and staff. Choose a platform that includes the following features:
Before launching your recurring donation program, make sure you have these tools in place and ready to go. We recommend using an all-in-one solution that allows you to run your entire recurring gift program from a single dashboard.
Once you have the tools to get started, create detailed fundraising and marketing plans for your recurring giving program. Use these additional resources to optimize your plan to find and capture recurring donations:
Ready to Get Started?
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