Wondering whether your organization should start a recurring donor program (a.k.a. sustainer or monthly giving program)?
To get it going, you’ll have to invest some time and money in the program, but these three reasons will help you understand that the work involved will pay off very nicely for your organization!
Reason 1: You’ll Definitely Improve Your Donor Retention Rates
Source:BloomerangYou may have seen this infographic already. It shows that the typical retention rate for organizations without monthly giving programs has dropped from 50% to 39% over the past 7 years. That’s pretty bad.
Currently, of every 100 new donors brought in, you will likely only keep 22.9% after the first year. And of those donors who have been in your database for one year or more, you’ll only keep 60.8% of them.
The good news is, starting a recurring donor program will definitely help improve retention rates.
Every year Target Analytics does research with organizations with recurring donor programs. What they found is that after two consecutive years of giving, the retention rate for organizations with recurring giving programs was 85%. And after 5+ consecutive years of giving, it was 95%! That’s almost 20% higher than those without a recurring giving programs.
Reason 2: Improving Your Retention Rate by Even 10% Has a Huge Impact
Source:Bloomerang
Research shows time and time again that improving retention rates even by a small percentage, means huge jumps in revenue. The table below shows the benefits of improving retention rates by just 10%:
Reason 3: Recurring Donors Generate Sustainable Long-term Revenue
Many organizations are asking themselves: what can we do to sustain our organization? How can we keep running our programs, helping the children, the homeless, the animals?
That’s where recurring donors come in. They truly generate sustainable long-term revenue. On average, donors make recurring gifts to an organization for 5 to 7 years, and in some cases they keep giving for 20 years or more. Furthermore, research shows that one out of seven recurring donors will leave the organization in their will.
Try out our Monthly Giving Calculators to see the benefits for yourself!
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