How to Promote and Close Monthly Giving In Your Fundraising Appeal Letters
Erica Waasdorp, Monthly Giving Guru
Can you pull in new monthly giving donors from your regular appeal letters? Yes, you really can. It’s actually quite easy to generate new monthly donors via your regular direct mail fundraising program.
Today we have a Guest Post from Erica Waasdorp, Monthly Giving guru.
Erica Waasdorp is an international consultant, trainer and speaker with deep direct response experience. She’s author of Monthly Giving, The Sleeping Giant, an excellent guide to setup a profitable monthly giving program. Erica has directed acquisition, monthly giving, major-donor and planned-giving programs in seven countries: US, Canada, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and South Africa for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Her upgrade strategy for the monthly giving program in the UK won IFAW and their telemarketing agency the Gold UK DMA award and the Gold FEDMA Award in 1998.
Erica recently gave an Advanced Monthly Giving Presentation for us:
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These ladies could be your next monthly donors!
Here’s Erica’s guest post:
The two rules for closing monthly gifts via mail:
1. Ask the right donors
2. Ask the right way
So who are the right donors, you might ask? The most likely monthly giving prospects are are donors who just gave! They can be existing donors, but even new donors who just gave for the first time.
The most likely monthly giving prospects are the ones who just gave.
They are also donors who gave less than $100. They are not your big check writers. Timing is crucial. They are enthusiastic right now, just after they have given. They have given their support to your cause. They’re happy! Now’s the time to ask them to either join your monthly donor program or for that second gift.
Thank you mail — Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis
Ask for a monthly gift in the right way – even in a thank you letter!
If you ask the right way, you’ll be able to convert new donors as soon as they join your organization. Here’s an example of the approach to use, right in the thank you letter:
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Thank you so much for your gift of xx$xx to [name of organization]!
[Focus on why the gift is important for you and the impact it’s making on the people/animals/mission you serve].
That’s why I’d like to invite you to join a privileged group of special supporters, called [name of program].
[Focus on benefits and ease of program for donor]
Note, the benefits should really focus on the donor, how easy it is for them, how they can donate even smaller amounts, convenient. Then include a paragraph on how important it is to the mission you serve that the funds come in on an ongoing basis and that you can count on it. Print the text in large letters so it even looks easy and convenient from just looking at the appeal.
Where to make the monthly giving ask?
Include the option of monthly giving first on the reply form and add this option:
Make a one time donation.
Not everybody may be ready to join your monthly donor program but you will still receive donations.
I have seen response rates of 1.5 to 2% of donors joining the monthly donor program and response rates of 4 to 5% of donors making a one time gift in the thank you letter.
Consider doing a simple variation of this letter and send it to donors who just donated to your direct mail appeal.
What do you have to lose by starting to ask your donors to join your monthly donor program early?
They’ll stay with you a lot longer if you do!
Don’t forget to get Erica’s presentation if you want more help.
You can find out more and purchase the $49 webinar recordings here.
I’m afraid that this is just the sort of approach that is giving fundraising such a bad name in the UK at the moment. From my experience of meeting donors and potential donors at advice visits, I know that asking someone to become a monthly donor straight after they have made their first one off gift, very often goes down badly. You say that 1.5% to 2% of one off donors do respond to this approach, but what about the 98% who don’t – and do they actually bother to make a repeat (one off or monthly gift) at some point in the future? I’m happy to be proved wrong but my gut feeling is that they don’t. Read what Professor Adrian Sargeant has to say about donor retention – too many first time gifts become the only gift to a charity which is too fast to try and get the second gift. I’m just about to launch a telephone fundraising campaign and no one who has given this year (whether a one off or monthly gift) will be asked to make another gift or upgrade – but we will ring them to just say thank you. That way, when they get a call in a couple of years time, just maybe they will dimly remember that last call and be willing to up grade at that point – but not before.
I share your thoughts about this, Kevin. While capitalizing on a donor’s happiness is important, I feel that you are less likely to see a long term relationship with them if every communication feels like an ask, especially communications in sequence.
Hi Kevin, I appreciate your comment, and you make an excellent point. I think there is a happy medium. We never, ever want to be overbearing or pushy or rude with our donors. But I do think there is a nice way to say “make a monthly gift” without being “in your face” about it.
I would hate to see – because of the UK experience – fundraisers backing off from asking. The world is in such urgent need right now! Our causes need to money and people really do want to help.
For us, there needs to be the right tone, the right wording and the right timing. And always gracious good manners – striking the right balance between being “cheerfully aggressive” and being overly pushy.
Colin, I would never, ever support every communication feeling like an ask. As I mentioned above to Kevin, we have to strike the right tone with our donors, always.
But I am also happy with a gentle reminder to “make a monthly gift to support the cause you care so much about.”
I’ll track Erica down this morning to respond to these thoughtful comments!
Do you put credit card sign up info on the reply card? Or do you force the prospective donors to go to your website to sign up as monthly donors using credit cards?
hi, thanks so much for the discussion.
here’s the golden medium:
1. send a thank you note right away, within 24 hours to 48 hours.
2. make a thank you call if you can do it.(I hate to say it but some organizations just don’t have the resources but there’s again a golden medium: I just presented at a conference where we shared some results of the impact of subsequent giving after a live thank you call for those donors who make a $100 or higher gift and voice broadcasts to those who made a smaller donation.
3. then send a letter including a monthly giving ask.
key is that you want that second gift as soon as possible.. There’s a lot of research also indicating that the sooner you get that second gift, the more loyal the donors will become so that’s absolutely key. Well, how can you get that second gift if you don’t ask, so I recommend asking within the first month of joining… the longer you wait, the more likely the donor is going to forget and move on.
if you do the ask right and the thank you included and you make the donor feel special and feel good about the impact they have made and you are showing this in the thank you letter, you are NOT going to alienate your donors.
I think frankly what a lot of organizations are not good at is writing good thank you letters and sending them out as soon as possible..
I’ve been doing this for a very long time and raised a tone of money…
also, to clarify:
the 1.5 to 2% of donors respond to the monthly giving ask, an additional 4 to 5% gives another gift… that’s very much on par with what you’d get with a regular appeal…
if you do it right, the donors will love you and will love the opportunity to make another donation or join your monthly giving program.
and, the sooner you have someone on board as a monthly donor, the longer they’re going to be with you. and that’s what you want, right?
yes, you should put the credit card sign up on right on the reply card. Most people still like to respond in the mail.
Thanks so much for your excellent perspective Erica. You are really outlining just plain good fundraising too! :)
Erica, I completely agree with your first and second point, but not your third point. I think we will have to agree to differ on this.
by credit card sign up, do you mean a space where the donor can enter their credit card info on the reply card? are donors still willing to do this?
Yes donors are still willing to enter credit card info on reply forms. Happens every day!