Recurring Gifts: Keep Donors Engaged, Plus Reliable Revenue!

Donor retention — as highlighted with the recently updated donor lifecycle — is key to the success of your nonprofit organization. To help keep donors engaged, consider promoting recurring giving so they can automatically give a specific amount at regular intervals. Recurring giving programs not only help improve donor retention and the cultivation of relationships, but they also provide a reliable source of revenue — even during the traditional seasonal lulls in giving! As your organization develops its recurring giving program and appeals, consider these best practices.

Explain the impact to donors. To help convince donors to commit to regular giving, explain the difference their recurring gifts can make. When you design your appeals for recurring gifts, use suggested giving levels to explain what each amount accomplishes for your organization. Make the ask simple and detail the impact the giving has in terms of months (or days!), such as "For $15 a month (50¢ a day), you provide..." By highlighting the daily cost of a monthly gift, you show how affordable recurring giving can be.

Make it worth your donors' while. While donors may receive personal satisfaction and value in helping support your mission, they may not feel much difference between giving a one-time gift or committing to recurring, monthly gifts. To help encourage recurring gifts, create some intrinsic value — a special status or recognition, for example — to your recurring giving program. As you design your appeals for recurring gifts, include language that speaks toward the special community of regular givers and recognize the value of their extra support. Present recurring giving as entry into a exclusive group within your supporters, much like fees one may pay to join a country club or professional organization. 

Nurture your regular givers. Once you have your recurring donors, celebrate their support and keep them interested in your mission. To engage regular givers with targeted communications, segment them into a separate mailing list and exclude them from future appeals for recurring gifts. Reserve appeals for one-time gifts to only your major campaigns, and instead communicate with recurring donors — via a personal interaction or an exclusive newsletter — to update them on the difference their gifts made and emphasize the impact of their contribution. To help remind donors of the good they're doing and positively reinforce their giving, acknowledge each payment toward the recurring gift. Track all these interactions and use them to help cultivate personal, resonant relationships with recurring donors.

Track recurring giving. In Raiser's Edge NXT, you can track details about a recurring gift — including its status, payment schedule, and transaction history — from its record.

• At the top of the record, you can view the current status of the recurring gift, and when it became such.
• Under Recurring gift summary, you can view a synopsis of the gift, including its payment schedule and history, status, and any amendments.
• Under Recurring gift history, you can view details about the payments toward the gift, as well as any amendments or failed transactions.

For more information, see the Recurring Gifts Help, or download Sustainers in Focus Part 1 from the Blackbaud Institute!