What Metrics Will Convince Your Board to Start a Monthly Giving Program?

By Erica Waasdorp, co-author of DonorPerfect Monthly Giving Starter Kit, Author of Monthly Giving. The Sleeping Giant, and President of A Direct Solution

If you’re like a lot of organizations, boards (and sometimes other bosses) drag their feet on starting a monthly giving program. They worry that the metrics are not compelling enough to warrant investing the time, money and people. After all, monthly donors are just small donors, right? Yes, but here’s the great news: the metrics ARE compelling, if you’re looking at the right ones!

Let’s look at two examples using conservative estimates that you’ll be able to convert 3% to 5% of your donors to give monthly in very short order (we’ve seen many organizations convert even more of their donors to monthly giving).

Example 1: Say you have 2,000 donors who gave on average less than $100 in the past two years. If you can convert 3% of them to give $20 monthly, that means $14,400 annually! If you’re able to grow that percentage to 9%, that’s $43,200 annually. Nothing a board can sneeze at, right? And once you bring them in, the cost to maintain is virtually nil!

Example 2: What if you had 10,000 donors who gave in the past two years? These metrics are just astounding!

Even if you minimally invested and generated 300 new monthly donors (3%), you’d generate $72,000 annually in the first year! Again, minimal maintenance cost and the money will just keep coming in…every month.

Ask your board “What’s not to like about these metrics?”

What I see happen every time is that once your boss and board see these metrics, their eyes start to shine a lot brighter. Even if you’re like most organizations and you have a lot more small donors to reach out to, starting a monthly giving program makes a lot of sense.

If you use DonorPerfect and would like to do this calculation on your own, run a report with a selection filter for donors who have given in the past two years (Last Gift Date >= 6/1/2013).

Then, download the Monthly Donor Calculator. Now, you’re ready to plug in your own numbers and see what the potential is for YOUR organization.

There are more compelling statistics and resources within the Monthly Giving Starter Kit to help you convince your board. After you prove your case, they’ll be more than willing to give you the time and some resources to start building this program to the potential it can have for your organization. And, when you get your approval (and I know you will), simply use the tools and tips in the Monthly Giving Starter Kit, which includes some links to great down-loadable templates you can use right away to get started.

We’ve truly made it easy for you to start and grow your monthly giving program, but if you have any questions at all, simply contact Erica Waasdorp via DPConnect.

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