Penelope Burk is the queen of donor-centric fundraising and a determined surveyor of donor attitudes and behavior. Burk released her 2012 Cygnus Donor Survey last week, and it is chock full of interesting data.
What caught my eye was the information about monthly (recurring) giving. I'm a big fan of it from both the donor perspective and the nonprofit one.
Monthly giving is growing in the US, but it still lags behind other countries such as the UK and Canada. The Cyngus Survey found that 76% of its American respondents say they've been asked to consider monthly giving, but that stands in contrast to the 90% who said so in the Canadian version of the survey.
Also, Canadians of all ages seem to have been asked to become monthly donors; whereas in the US younger donors were less often invited to be monthly donors (66%) than other age groups. A clue to this difference may be in the prevalence of "street fundraising," so well described by Tom Ahern in his recent newsletter. Street fundraising, which is not nearly as common in the US, targets the young and pushes monthly giving.
In the US, 29% of survey respondents who were asked for monthly gifts say they are currently active monthly contributors, while 9% of them have lapsed from their monthly giving pledges.
Monthly givers in the US are more often women than men, but men tend to be more generous when they do give monthly.
Monthly givers reported a very high level of satisfaction, with 81% giving a rating of 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale. Retention among monthly givers is also quite high, with only 22% cancelling their commitment after giving monthly for a while.
Most of this is positive for monthly giving programs, but the Cygnus researchers found that monthly givers are not necessarily prospects for major gifts. They are no more likely than other kinds of givers to make additional single gifts, a planned gift, or a major gift.
It could be that monthly giving taps a certain niche of givers who like the fact that they can give a small amount of money each month that they might not miss, but that amounts to a rather significant amount over time. By setting up a monthly giving program, charities can turn a one-time gift of $10 or $20 into $120 or $240 over the course of a year. But, it seems pretty clear, that recurring giving is not going to replace other forms of fundraising.
If monthly giving is a form of low hanging fruit, it's puzzling why some US nonprofits still don't have monthly giving programs. Is it a systems problem? Do some nonprofits not have the online capacity to accept recurring gifts yet? Have some tried and been discouraged by dropouts or the need to follow up when a credit card on file expires?
Let me know what you think. For some excellent tips for encouraging monthly giving for your organization, see this Network for Good article, 3 Ways to Encourage Monthly Giving.
You can download the executive summary of The Cygnus Donor Survey here.
Related:
- Report Confirms Why Millennials Are Crucial to Future of Nonprofits
- Charitable Giving Improved in 2011, but Reveals a Slow Recovery
- Example of Email Thank You for Monthly Donation
- Why a $10 a Month Fundraising Appeal Works
Photo: Getty Images
Comments
I agree with you; why not ask for the monthly donation? It’s easier on the average donor to give $10/month than $100 annually. It helps the organization with cash-flow between “quarterly mailings.” Etc.
But, I did read an interesting argument against monthly giving recently. The main gist of it was that when giving is automatic – ie: a monthly charge on the credit card or auto-payment from checking – the donor becomes removed from the act of giving. The author of the blog felt that the actual conscious writing of the check was important in making the connection.
It was interesting, but I’m not sure I buy that argument completely. To the extent that there may be a point there, I think good stewardship – sending regular thank yous, newsletters, calls, etc. – can keep the donor engaged, even if the actual giving is on auto-pilot.
Yes, I’ve seen something to that effect too, Ken. I give monthly to several charities, though, and I find they are very active at keeping me in the loop. And that keeps me thinking about what I’m doing. The downside of keeping in touch is that it might make it easier for some donors to cancel their monthly contributions. In that article by Tom Ahern, I think he mentions that street fundraisers in other countries don’t stay in contact with those recurring donors just so they aren’t reminded, and thus withdraw. Some research I’ve read from Blackbaud also found that when recurring givers do drop out, it is really hard to reengage them. Another problem with recurring donations is that everyone’s credit card or debit card expires eventually and the donor has to be prodded into updating their info. That is a perfect spot for some donors to drop out. And chasing lapsed donors can take up time and money. I’ve gotten emails and once when I procrastinated I got a phone call. I don’t know how common it is for donors to provide recurring access to their bank accounts directly.