Ep. 219: Monthly Giving Is the Wrong Year-End Strategy
EPISODE 219
Monthly Giving Is the Wrong Year-End Strategy
About the Episode:
Last week, I told you to ignore one piece of year-end advice: making monthly giving your year-end strategy. This episode is the why.
I love monthly giving; our clients have built programs with 100, 200, even 400 active monthly donors. But making it the centerpiece of your November and December campaign is the wrong move for most nonprofits. In this episode, I do the math on what that choice can cost you. I share the question a client brought to coaching after a road trip deep dive into monthly giving. I also walk through the latest data from Bloomerang, M+R, and Fundraise Up on what donors actually do in December. Plus, I answer the “yeah, but” I hear from boards, EDs, and CFOs, and explain when monthly giving should be your big ask.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why I love monthly giving and still wouldn’t make it the centerpiece of your year-end campaign
The simple math question that changes how you think about recurring revenue in December
How a monthly ask can quietly downgrade the gift a donor was ready to make
Why you can’t brand your way out of a fundraising problem
What millions of transactions reveal about how donors want to give in December
How to answer your board, ED, or CFO when they push for more recurring revenue
When to launch a monthly giving campaign so it actually works
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Don't make monthly giving the primary ask for year-end.”
“How much cash do you actually need this year, and what are donors currently primed to do?”
“December is our Super Bowl time.”
“Strong recurring giving programs are built; audiences primed.”
“Donors are telling you what they want to do in December. They want to give now. They want to give a one-time gift.”
“Think about what donors are doing in December. Donors are consumers; consumers are donors. They're shopping, buying. Meet them where they are.”
“Donors respond to urgency; they respond to what is happening in the world now.”
“If you need hundreds of 1000s of dollars before December 31, go raise that money now
“87% of donors say they're motivated when a nonprofit makes them feel part of something.” Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals Report
“89% of donors are counting on recurring donors to hit their financial targets.” Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals Report
“91% of nonprofit leaders said donor contributions will make up a bigger share of their revenue this year than last year.” The Giving Signals Report
“37% of nonprofits' annual online revenue comes in December; December 31st alone brings in 4%.” 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study
“The average one-time gift is $126. The average monthly gift is $24.” 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study
“94% of donors are motivated when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go.” Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals Report
“Recurring gifts make up 20 to 40% of donation volume.” Fundraise Up and Stripe
“In the U.S., 35.5% of all donations come during giving season.” Fundraise Up
“Last year, in a break from a long-term trend, we saw one-time revenue grow 17%, and monthly giving grow 12%.” 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study
Episode Resources:
The Giving Signals Report: 2026 Fundraising Trends for Nonprofits
Fundraise Up and Stripe: Pulse of the donor. Insights into online giving behavior
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 0:15
Last week, one of the pieces of year-end fundraising advice I told you to ignore was making monthly giving your year-end strategy. Yeah, that's right. Don't make monthly giving the primary ask for year-end. And I said I wasn't going to explain myself because it deserved its own episode. So here we are. Let's begin. Let me start with this. I love monthly giving. I love recurring giving. I know it's a huge trend. Our clients are building thriving monthly giving programs. We help them run recurring giving campaigns. Our clients have launched monthly giving campaigns that have brought in 50, 100, and more in one single campaign-a short burst at a time. Many of our clients have over 100, 200, even 400 active monthly givers. We've had clients just recently run dedicated monthly giving campaigns, even in August or September. So recurring giving is a big opportunity out there. It is one of the biggest opportunities your dorganization can take to grow your individual giving and to create sustainable year-round income. Right, and making it the centerpiece of your year-end strategy is the wrong move for most nonprofits. So let's dig in. Both things can be true here. Monthly giving has been having a moment and continues to have a moment, and for good reason. We live in the subscription economy: Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, software, meal delivery, memberships. Y'all, we are used to $19 a month, $49 a month, $9.99 a month, $99 a month. It makes sense. Of course, organizations should be thinking: How do we take advantage of this consumer behavior? Donors are consumers. Consumers are donors. Let's get in on this, and. And this is more than just a trend. And you're not imagining pressure of this trend. Bloomerang surveyed 400 nonprofits this year. 89% said they're counting on recurring donors to hit their financial targets. Y'all, that's 9 out of 10. So, if you feel like you're quote unquote supposed to figure out monthly giving, just get more monthly givers, right? Invite them in. This is for you. Everybody feels it, but that's exactly why you need to be strategic about it. Because so many organizations have come to me saying, "We need more monthly givers, followed by we tried it and it was crickets. It's not working. Here's where I see nonprofits get themselves into trouble. So recently, one of my clients came into coaching after taking a long road trip. She had spent the drive doing a deep dive on monthly giving. She was fired up, so she came in for coaching inside the club, and she had already figured out. Like she was ready to go. She had figured out what to call the program, some of the branding, the welcome swag for monthly givers, how they could position it, what it could look look like. That vision forward. We love that, right? These are all great ideas, but here's what makes us dangerous. The question isn't, is monthly giving a good idea. The question, and I'm so glad she brought it to the coaching call, was, should we prioritize monthly giving for our organization for year end? She said. I'm thinking about doing this for a year end. I'm thinking about making our November and December campaign all for monthly giving. Okay, let's answer that together. This is where having a strategist and coach in your corner matters, because you're going to encounter endless good fundraising ideas. Your board has them. Your staff has them. Hear them on podcasts, conferences. Maybe what you see another nonprofit doing. You hear recurring giving is exploding. You hear about SMS texting. Somebody tells you about a giving circle. Somebody tells you, "Hey, I'm going to solve everything. Good idea does not equal right strategy right now. So you need to run every good idea through your revenue plan. If you don't have a revenue plan, you need to get coached, and we'll get you one. So let's talk about running it through this before we do anything.
Christina Edwards 5:51
Before you take one more minute to go look at fun swag or a cool logo or idea about what to call the monthly giving program or circle. Here's what you want to know: How much do you need to raise this year? Annually where are you? Are you on track? Are you behind? Are you ahead? How much do you want to raise for Q4? How much do you need to bring in for your year-end appeal fundraiser campaign Giving Tuesday combination of both. You want to know your numbers. Big one. How much cash do you actually need, and by when? What is already producing revenue? What is declining? How is your retention rate? How is your new donor pipeline? Are new leads coming in? What are your donors currently primed to do? And this may be next to the cash question, the most important question. So, how much cash do we actually need this year, and what are donors currently primed to do? Those are big. That's how we reverse engineer the strategy. Most organizations don't come to me because everything is going beautifully, right? Y'all are telling me our fundraising has bulleted. Our donors are rolling off. We're asking the same group of major donors again and again. We're working harder for diminishing returns. Our event used to raise 50k. Now it's raising 35. Our Giving Tuesday campaign is flat. Honestly, yes, last year was a struggle. We are spending more than we're bringing in. We are dipping into reserves. We're pulling from the endowment. We've had to lay off staff. I have had so many conversations with CEOs, executive directors, fundraisers this year that are saying that so many, and here's the thing: it is showing up at every single level. The organization's raising $100,000. Those who have $100,000 annual budget, half 1,000,001, million, Multi-million, different organizations, different scale, same underlying problem. We need more money, and 99% of the time, we need it now. We need it soon, but we need it immediately. And it's just not my clients. It's just not people in my inbox. In that same bloomerang survey, the Giving Signals report, which we will link to in the show notes. 91% of nonprofit leaders said donor contributions will make up a bigger share of their revenue this year than last year. Meaning, individual donors are being asked to carry more of the load. That pressure is real. Some of y'all are saying that grant we used to count on for $300,000 a year, $500,000 a year, $50,000 a year. The one we were awarded, we're not getting anymore. Gone. That pressure is real. So what do you do? Of course, you're going to look to your individual donors, but that is a very different financial problem to solve than you know we want to increase predictable revenue, recurring revenue over the next 12 to 36 months. Very different. Do you see the difference? We're going to break it down. We're going to do some math today. Let's talk about why December matters so much. I want to anchor you in this. So if you're in my programs, you've heard me talk about December. It's our Super Bowl time. It is prime time. You don't get a second December 2026. Right. The planning, the prep, the campaign for year end is designed now. So according to the M and R benchmarks report, 37% of nonprofits' annual online revenue comes in December, december 31 alone brings in 4% That is why I love online giving. That is why I love email. That is why I love sprint campaigns. Is built for laptop fundraising. More than a third of your online revenue coming in in one month, and if y'all are listening and you're like ours isn't a third, we barely get any. It's because you don't have a foundational fundraising strategy to bring in more funding online, and if y'all are thinking that is us, and I am nervous, I am nervous that the version that we used to bring in will not match up this year. I'm nervous we're going to raise less. Then you need to get support.
Christina Edwards 11:06
So let's do some math. So if more than a third of your online revenue is coming in in one month. That is not the month to experiment with your core fundraising strategy. We're gonna make it painfully simple. Would you rather have $12,000 cash in bank December 31 or $1,000 on December 31, 1000 in January, 1000 in February,and assuming retention remains at 100% then collect $12,000 over the course of 12 months. Okay, so $1,000 over the course of 12 months in monthly payments, or $12,000 all at once in December. Let's make it bigger. Say your organization needs $120,000 by year end. Would you rather have $120,000 by december 31, or $10,000 a month for the next 12 months? Listen, I know recurring revenue sounds so enticing, but if you're sitting there thinking, Christina, I need that $120,000, or we're going to have to close a program. We're going to have to move to one day a week instead of five days a week. We're going to have to lay off staff. We're going to have to dip more into our reserves. Our reserves are getting depleted. I don't know what else we're going to do. Then go raise $120,000 now. Those are not the same financial outcome.
Now I know what you might be thinking. I can hear you in my mind's eye, right? And I'm gonna hit all those yeah buts here in a second. But here's the part get that gets missed. You may actually be downgrading the gift.
And meanwhile, you become so obsessed with recurring revenue that instead you say, "Hey, would you make?" $83 a month as a recurring gift. Great. Eventually, assuming they stay, yes. Now you have that $1,000, but your organization needed $1,000 now, and maybe they would have happily given you the $1,000 now. The M and R benchmarks report backs this up. The average one-time gift is $126. The average monthly gift is $24. So, if your goal is cash in the bank by December 31st, you know what to do. The one-time donor put $126 in the bank. The monthly donor puts $24 in the bank, So don't solve a lifetime value problem while ignoring a cash flow problem. That's not a strategy. That's just following a trend. I want to talk more to the established organization. You have hundreds of donors, 500 1000s. You know how to raise money, but lately you've watched fundraising stall. Monthly giving won't fix a foundational, broken fundraising engine. So maybe your annual event is declining. Appeals are falling flat. They're not. You're not getting the response you used to. Donor retention isn't where you want it. Communications inconsistent. Lapsed donors increasing. Audience growth, new leads in pipeline stalled. Then somebody says monthly giving. That's where the next 20% growth comes from. Maybe eventually, yes. But you can't slap a monthly giving campaign on top of a struggling fundraising engine and expect the word monthly or recurring to fix it, because if your message isn't converting, if your donors aren't engaged, if they're not leaning in, if your campaigns aren't compelling, if your emails are boring, if your communications are inconsistent, if you're struggling to get a donor to make one gift, changing the ass to 12,24, 36 gifts is not a magic trick. It is not the magic trick, and this is how nonprofits end up saying, "Well, crap, monthly giving didn't work either. On to the next shiny thing.
Christina Edwards 17:34
So, if you're earlier in individual giving, maybe you're founder led. Maybe you're raising $50,000 from individual donors. Maybe you're heavily grant funded. You're thinking maybe monthly giving is an easier entry point for new donors. I see this all the time. Listen, Christina, we're going to ask people to give $5 a month, $10 a month instead of trying to raise 5000 now, 10,000 now. It's such a common misbelief that's coming in. They don't want to give this. They want to give less money, but more often. Okay, maybe people are comfortable with subscriptions. They are comfortable with recurring charges. A smaller monthly number can absolutely feel more accessible, but you still have to get somebody to say, "I care about this. I care about what you do enough to give and to give again and again and again. You still need a compelling campaign, the right audience, strong messaging, a reason to act, follow up, a frictionless giving experience, a donation tool that works, stewardship to keep that retention there. So you can't just brand your way out of a fundraising problem, even a really cool monthly giving name, some swag or a logo, cool T-shirt, challenge prize. Those do not create donor demand. Here's what does move donors: 94% of donors say they're motivated when an organization tells them exactly where their money will go, Bloomerang tested it. So the vague appeal that said every dollar makes a difference versus the specific appeal: $50 buys a week of groceries for a family. Donors chose the specific one from 94% against 6% conversions. So a cute, cool program name doesn't answer that. Doesn't solve for that. But what does my $25 a month actually do? Does you need to know the answer to that question? You need to reverse engineer to ensure your donors are ready and primed to give on a regular basis. So let's talk about priming. This is a really important piece. You don't just wake up on a Tuesday or Giving Tuesday and announce we have a monthly giving program. It's called the Monthly Giving Circle. It's suddenly everybody's like, "That's the thing I was waiting for. Now I'm going to whip out my credit card. I'm in strong recurring giving programs are built. Audiences primed. They are ready. We've worked with clients inside the club who have gone from zero or a handful of recurring gifts, and grown their program to 50, 100, over 100 monthly donors. It is possible. You can do this, but people need to understand first why monthly, why now. What does predictable support make possible? Why should I be one of those people joining? What community am I joining? Is there a community? How are you communicating with me differently? Do I align? Do I belong here? Is this part of where I belong? That takes understanding. That takes planning. That takes strategy. That takes priming, which makes October and November an especially expensive time to decide you're going to educate your audience around a brand new giving behavior if your actual objective is to maximize your end cash. You with me? Now, this is one of my deeper dives in reporting. So I dug into a fundraise up report as well. They did with Stripe. So Stripe is the back end payment processor. So most times, with many platforms and tools, when you make a donation, Visa, American Express, whatever, Stripe is the processor. They have lots of good data. So they partnered with Fundraise Up and they looked at millions, m millions of transactions for most of the year, recurring gifts make up 20 to 40% of that volume, that donation volume. But during year-end giving season, lean in, come back to me. It drops to about 10% Why? One-time gifts surges that year-end. Donors are telling you what they want to do in December. They want to give now. They want to give a one-time gift. Think about that. And I'm going to go ahead and hit one of the objections I can hear in my head right now, which is, but if I ask them to make a one-time gift in December, then I have to wait forever to ask them to be part of our giving circle. No, you don't have to wait forever.
Christina Edwards 22:58
You don't have to wait long at all. Just because somebody makes an individual one-time gift in year-end doesn't hurt your future monthly giving campaign. So think about what donors are telling you they want to do in December. They want to give now. Think about that next to the bloomerang number: 89% of leaders counting on recurring donors. But in December, donors are overwhelmingly giving one time. So what leaders are counting on, and what donors are actually doing in December are two different things. You with me? Think about what donors are doing in December. Donors are consumers. Consumers are donors. They're shopping, buying, Buying one-time gifts for holidays, for teachers, for Christmas, for anything-milestones, birthdays, anniversaries, Hanukkah-all the things. That's what they're doing. Meet them where they are. but monthly donors are worth so much more over time. Yes, yes, they are. They have stickier, longer staying power. So your retention, your lifetime donor value does increase. They're very valuable over a lifetime. They stay longer. They're more loyal, even with average numbers, $24 a month is $288 a year. Yeah, that does beat $126 one-time gift. That is true, but that's if you have 12 months to wait. Do you have 12 months to wait? That's if they stay. So lifetime value doesn't help you make payroll in January, February. That q1, I know q1's tough for a lot of organizations. So we're not talking about whether or not monthly donors are valuable. We love them, want to welcome them in. Today's focus is about when you build them and what problem you need to solve for right now. And if you're thinking, "Yeah, but lots of people sign up for monthly giving at year end, Christina, I've seen it. I know it's a thing. I've read about it, heard about it. Yes, some do. More people give in December. Period. Remember that. Of all ways, shapes, and form, right? They give more. Period. It is about being a critical thinker around data. So, if I pulled for you and we found some data around how we see an increase of mailed checks coming in in the month of December, and I bet we do, I don't have that in front of me, but I bet we do. Would you then say that's it? We're gonna ask for paper checks this December because there is here we see industry wide more paper checks get mailed in in December. So that's what donors want. No, we're just seeing more is more in December. So yes, some people do sign up for monthly giving. Now Fundraise Up also cited that in the U.S. 35.5%of all donations come during giving season, So do this,Keep monthly as an option on your form. So whatever donation tool you're using, we want it on there. We absolutely want people to have autonomy and choice and choose to make a gift in the way that feels great for them. So you're going to default to a one-time gift, but monthly is there as an option because year end is a one-time giving season. Now you can offer an upgrade after or during that gift, depending on what tool you're using to collect donations and process donations online.
And if you're thinking, oh, but monthly giving is growing faster than one-time giving. I don't want to miss it. I want to meet donors with what they want. If this is happening now and I wait, I'm going to miss it. Okay, yes, it is growing. The data is there. We're seeing more and more of it. But last year, according to the M and R benchmarks report, in a break from kind of a long-term trend, we actually saw one-time revenue grow 17% and monthly giving grow 12% So donors respond to urgency, they respond to what is happening in the world now. That's what you need for a great, successful, profitable year-end campaign. That's what it's built on: urgency, story, repetition. Those are the pieces you need. And maybe you're like, oh, but my board, but my ED-they keep saying we need more recurring revenue. My CFO, right?
Christina Edwards 28:55
My financial chair, whoever it is, right? They're not wrong. They're just solving for the wrong problem, they're even asking the wrong question. Remember, 89% of leaders are saying the same thing. So the question isn't should we have more recurring revenue? Shouldn't we have recurring revenue? The question is what do we need now this year by December 31, and what is the fastest path to get it? Then bring them a plan when you'll build monthly with a launch date, with a goal, a true sprint. So you absolutely can do a sprint campaign for monthly givers. We've had so many clients do it, and it can be so successful. What I don't want you to do is again slap monthly giving on your year-end campaign and then say, "Oh, it didn't work, or "Oh, we are seriously in the red. Right? That's how you answer your board. You answer that question with, "What do we need now? and "What is the strategy and easiest path to get there? Or maybe my favorite: Can't we just? Both can't we just do both? Yeah, ish. You can offer both, as I said. It can be part of your form, right? But you only have one centerpiece. Think about it. There's only one tentpole moment. There's only one big thing that is your lead message, your primary ask, one place where your team's energy goes. If it's clicking and you're like, "Got it, one-time gifts for your end, but when should we do a monthly giving campaign. Should we do it at all? Yes, please do it, but give it the strategy it deserves. We have clients who are killing it with monthly giving. We've had clients who have deliberately run those campaigns, q1, q2, q3. They have done these at key points throughout the year. We have ones that have said we've never really tried before, but this is something we want to prioritize, right? We have ones who have launched their monthly giving circle from zero to nearly 100 founding donors. So what you want to do is you want monthly giving to be the strategy to be the key ask when it is actually the goal when the goal is to invite in grow build increase those monthly donors when you have a plan in place to prime, to launch, to steward those donors, not because you feel like you're like getting left behind. Remember, 87% of donors say they're motivated when a nonprofit makes them feel part of something. That's that community. Sometimes the word community is overused and ends up feeling just like word salad, nothing. But community is real when it comes to your monthly givers. That connection to your cause is real, and if you don't have that piece built out, you're not ready. You're not ready to put it out into the world. What I want to say is that doesn't take a lot of time. We can build that out in less than a month. You can have your monthly giving campaign very quickly, but don't do it out of frantic energy. Don't do it out of I'm trying to keep up energy. Don't do it out of this is what the gurus are saying. Energy, right? Don't do it out of have to energy. Make time to have a clear strategy for year end, and you can then launch the strategy and the support and the campaign if it makes sense for q1 or q2, because your community of donors who will become your monthly givers will end up being a pipeline for more givers. You've heard me talk about a social street team? They're great social street teamers, but they won't be social street teamers if they just feel like they have some sort of recurring revenue transaction on their monthly credit card bill. That ain't it, right? So when they feel connected to your cause, then they will bring in and be amazing part of your social street team, amazing part of your next monthly giving launch. And the reason why I wanted to dedicate a full episode to this is because I want you to hear this. If you're leading fundraising for your organization, making the wrong decision right now isn't theoretical.
Christina Edwards 33:45
If you need $100,000 by year end, and you redirect your donors, your team, your volunteers, your board, your audience, and your best fundraising window towards the wrong revenue objective, that decision can cost you 10s of 1000s of dollars, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, for a larger organization. You don't get another December 2026. You don't get another November 2026. So do not squeeze it into November because you're like, okay, got it. We'll just do it in November, really early. No. And this is why strategy matters. This is why having somebody in your corner matters, because you need someone to hand you more than a template or ideas or some cool case study of what you can try and DIY or Google or copy, right? You have ideas. I know you do. You need somebody who can look at your specific organization, your revenue goal. Your current expenses, your donor base, your retention, your communications, your capacity, your timeline, your financial reality, and say quickly yes, do that. No, don't do that. Not now. Future projects. That's a strategy that's amazing for August. Or that's going to distract you from the $100,000 sitting right here in front of you in your donor list. The value there isn't more tactics; it's making the right decision at the right time for the right audience. So this isn't one-time giving or monthly giving. Okay, it's not binary. I want both. This isn't short-term cash or sustainable revenue. Remember, we want both. The question is in what order, when. So, if you need hundreds of 1000s of dollars before December 31, go raise that money now with a compelling campaign, the follow-up asks, the urgency, the donor match. Then intentionally build the recurring revenue strategy because monthly giving isn't the problem. It's using the wrong strategy. But using the right strategy at the wrong time is, and if you're listening, thinking, okay, but what do we do now? This is exactly the work we do at Splendid Consulting inside my programs, the club, and the Sprint method. We're not throwing tactics at you, going saying "Go with it. These are cool. These are good. Go forth. We're building the fundraising strategy around your unique organization, your staff size, maybe it's just you. Your actual revenue goals, what you're bringing in, your donors, your retention, your capacity, your platforms. So you can go to splendidcourses.com forward slash apply if you want to connect with me, and you're like, help. What do we do? Where do we go? What's the right fit for us? Or you can always go to splendidatl.com forward slash start for details about all the things. We will link to all of the sources in the show notes. So if you're like, I kind of want to download that report or I want to read more about that, we will link to it in the show notes. So use this, share this with anyone who is really excited about monthly giving and telling you that's the thing you need to prioritize this year end? And you know, actually, we need cash in bank now. If that's you, share this episode with them. and if you found this episode helpful, do me a favor: go into Apple or Spotify wherever you're listening, and leave me a rating and review. You can share what you've tried, what changed, or the episode that really resonated with you. I read all the reviews, and I'm going to be sharing some in the upcoming episodes. I'll see you next time.