Ep. 118: Recurring Giving Trends: Unlocking Sustainable Revenue for Nonprofits with Abby Jarvis
EPISODE 118
Recurring Giving Trends: Unlocking Sustainable Revenue for Nonprofits with Abby Jarvis
About the Episode:
Abby Jarvis, Head of Content at Neon One, joins me to dive deep into the latest data on recurring giving—a sector that has seen significant growth over the past five years. What makes Abby's insights invaluable is her ability to break down complex data into actionable steps that won’t overwhelm you. Find out proven strategies for promoting and sustaining recurring donations, including personalized communication approaches and leveraging key opportunities like Giving Tuesday.
Topics:
Growth in recurring giving: Industry-wide, there was a 3.5% decrease in active supporters, but a 127% increase in monthly donors.
Retention and lifetime value of recurring donors: Ending the hamster wheel of giving to create something that is more sustainable and scalable
Organic growth and engagement: 50% of recurring donors in the study made additional gifts, including volunteering, serving on boards, and purchasing memberships
Beyond consumer choices: How to use the emotional decisions of giving to your benefit and other strategies to encourage recurring giving
Year-end fundraising and recurring giving: 12% of all recurring donations are initiated on Giving Tuesday, plus how to highlight the impact of their gifts and the urgency of your cause
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“If there is something negative, you have to look for the positives as well.” – Abby
“If you are looking at some of the headlines and you're stressing out, the thing that you can reassure yourself with is that there are people who are making big commitments to the causes they love, and they are there for you if you prioritize asking them.” – Abby
“The lifetime value of a recurring donor is so much more significant than a one and done donation.” – Christina
“Recurring donors are some of the most engaged, dedicated, passionate individuals in these databases and it's happening organically.” – Abby
“Once you understand what is inspiring your community to give that kind of gift, you can do a gift, you can do an even more efficient job communicating with them.” – Abby
“If you're a very busy fundraiser, having two way conversations with all the donors in your database is not reasonable, you can’t do that. But what you can do is invite people to talk to you, and then you can get a feel for your whole base and start communicating with them more.” – Abby
“If you keep trying and nothing works, start experimenting.” – Abby
“Regardless of the month, recurring donations initiated on Giving Tuesday account for around 12% of all recurring gifts initiated that month.” – Abby
“You're allowed to be scared, to do something that you've never done before. I hope that you know after listening to this, that when you are asking someone to make a monthly gift, you're not asking them to do anything onerous or unpleasant. You are inviting them to give regular, ongoing support to a cause they love.” – Abby
“Inner self-talk is what makes this entire work feel amazing and joyous and impactful or overwhelmed and hard and tight.” – Christina
“You can do hard things.”
About Abby:
Abby Jarvis is a writer, marketer, and speaker at Neon One, and she’s passionate about giving nonprofits the tools they need to connect with their supporters. Her 10 years in the nonprofit technology industry have been dedicated to understanding how and why donors support their favorite causes, studying donor trends and behavior, and sharing data-backed best practices nonprofits can use to build successful fundraising programs.
About Neon One:
Thanks to our friends at Neon One for sponsoring this episode. Neon One connects nonprofits with the technology and resources that empower them to build a community of generosity. Our platform is designed to manage the full range of nonprofit operational needs—from marketing and revenue generation to program operations and financial reconciliation. Learn more at neonone.com.
Connect with Abby + Neon One:
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 00:01
All right, everyone. She's back for round two. We've got Abby Jarvis, Head of Content at NEON one, and we're going to dig into the latest data about recurring giving. And one of the things that Abby, you do so so well, is distill the data so that I don't go into overwhelm going well, I think this chart that goes up into the right is good, but what does that actually mean for my organizations? We're going to dig into that. And the headline here is that there has been major growth in recurring giving in the last five years. Yeah, so dig in.
Abby Jarvis 00:35
All right, so one of the things that so this report is something I'm really excited about. It's something if you've met Tim Santonio, like you know how passionate he is about data. We started dreaming about this particular study before I even started working for neon. Once, when we actually started digging into it, we were really excited to see, I think, especially, some of the trends that we see in growth and recurring giving. And the reason that is so exciting is because of all of the negative trends that the industry, frankly, has been talking about for a little while. We've seen headlines about declining individual giving. We've seen all the headlines about how donor retention remains a struggle, and yeah, those are really important trends that we must pay attention to. However, I also am very much of the persuasion that if there is something negative, you have to look for the positives also. And a positive that we found in this research was that there is growth in recurring donors. And if you want to get down into like, the really nitty gritty specific we do. So alright, so for the purposes of this conversation, the study that we're looking at looked at patterns in recurring giving and some patterns in individual giving between the years 2018 and 2022 so it's a five year period. We included a little over 2000 nonprofits in this study. The reason it's 2000 and not more, is because we wanted to look only at organizations that had transactions every year in that time period. So it was a true apples to apples comparison, reflected in that is a little over 100,000 individual recurring donors. So it's a pretty significant sample size. What we found is that across the industry, the average nonprofits database of active supporters, so people who are actively giving either stayed the same or decreased a little bit. So industry wide, is a decrease of around three and a half percent in active supporters. So that's the bad news. The good news is that we saw 127% increase in the number of supporters who are choosing to make monthly gifts. And that's really remarkable. So if you are looking at some of the headlines and you're stressing out, the thing that you can reassure yourself with is that there are people who are making these big commitments to the causes they love, and they are there for you, if you prioritize asking this,
Christina Edwards 03:07
yes, yes, okay. And that, really, to me, is like, one of the big things we talk about is just retention, retention, retention. It's so hard, you know, so many donors are one and done, and so the lifetime value. Let's dig into that. The lifetime value of a recurring donor is so much more significant. So by the end of this episode, or really 10 minutes in, I hope that you're going to be like, this is a priority. We really need to make sure that we're starting or growing our recurring giving program. So let's talk about retention or lifetime value. Yeah, both. Let's
Abby Jarvis 03:39
do it. All right. So love, let's do the numbers first. All right, so the average recur or the average recurring donor, and you're going to hear me say the word recurring a lot, instead of monthly. I mostly mean monthly, but I'm pedantic, and there are a handful of donors represented in this set. They give on a different cadence. The vast majority of people are giving monthly. Some people are giving like every other week or weekly. That's why I tend to use the word recurring instead of monthly. You can inspire all right, when we look at retention rates for one time donors, it was around 36% across this five year period. When we looked at the retention rates for recurring donors, it was 78% so the retention rates alone are are something to celebrate. What I think is even more significant is how long those recurring donors stay retained when we looked at like a donor lifetime. So how long someone is actually engaging with a nonprofit. The average donor lifetime for a non recurring donor was 1.73 years for recurring donors, it was more than eight and for a lot of organizations. So we looked at the benchmarks across industry. We also looked at them broken down by revenue band. So we. Mid sized nonprofits that have annual revenue between one and $5 million it was more than 10 years these these people stick around for a really long time. And so something I hear a lot from fundraisers we so I'll see here. We see that, yeah, we have, we have recurring donors, but when they give over the course of the year, they give on an annual basis, much less than people who don't make recurring gifts, and that's absolutely accurate. So when we looked at retention rates and lifetimes, we also looked at annual giving patterns. And yes, the average non recurring donor gave a little over $2,000 a year. The average recurring donor gave just under 950 however, when we take that annual giving and look at it over a long period of time, the average non recurring donors, donor lifetime value is about $3,500 the average recurring donors is over it's almost eight so I know if you are a fundraiser and you are considering whether or not to launch a recurring program, there is absolutely the fear that encouraging someone to make this kind of gift will result in them giving less over the course of the year, and that may be the case, but they will be engaged with you for so much longer.
Christina Edwards 06:22
I have so many thoughts. It's like the instant gratification. It's like, well, I'd rather have $20 now than like 200 over a longer lifetime. And I do think there's something about the cost of time here, because the cost of a fundraiser, an executive director, a team constantly refilling the bucket of donors, because they're churning, because they're saying, I want the $20 now, and it's just that hamster wheel versus what if we actually, like, create something that's scalable and sustainable, and how that creates more time? Yeah,
Abby Jarvis 06:54
yeah. And one thing I actually so you said, create something more sustainable and scalable. And I wanted to call out something that I it just, I mean, it makes me sad, but also delights me when I'm looking at these numbers, from what we can tell, yeah, the growth that we're seeing in recurring giving, the lifetime that we're seeing in recurring donors, the contributions that we're seeing from recurring donors, seems to be happening without many of the organizations in this study having a recurring giving program, they're not a lot of the organizations in this set are not asking for recurring gifts. They're not intentionally building plans for those donors. They're not intentionally cultivating those relationships. People are electing to make these gifts without being asked. So if we're seeing this growth, what would happen if you did focus on creating something more sustainable and scalable? So another really cool trend that we found is that, and again, keep in mind, this is happening independent of people actually engaging these donors and building recurring programs. 50% of the recurring donors in this set made additional gifts. So you're not asking someone to make a monthly gift and risking never getting anything. That's right. And not only are they, they making additional gifts, they're volunteering, and they're serving in board members, and they're purchasing memberships, and they're going to events. These are some of the most engaged, dedicated, passionate individuals in these databases. And it's happening organically. What could happen if, if nonprofits really embrace this style of fundraising? It's, there's, it's so cool. Yeah,
Christina Edwards 08:36
exactly. It's. So I'm thinking about just consumers in general. And if you think about how much we are trained now on subscriptions and memberships, right? How many subscriptions do I have to Amazon and Netflix and just a trove of others, because we need this to watch sports. We need this for kids. You know, we need and it's like we are used to this monthly or some sort of recurring thing. And so it makes sense that people would organically default to be like, Oh, I'll give on a monthly basis. I'll just check that box. And so it does show the possibility of like, if this is what we're doing just in our daily life, like, what if, what if nonprofits actually intentionally tried to really put a powerful giving program out, yeah,
Abby Jarvis 09:22
yeah. And it's the intentionality that I really want to focus on. Because one thing that, who I was talking to Tim about this, yeah. So we were talking about, like, the subscription economy and this, and one thing that, so I do think you're right. We have been we are now much more open to the concept of setting up a return donation. Where I worry is. I worry that nonprofits will hear people like me talk about the subscription economy and how that relates to monthly giving, and think that. Setting up a recurring donation will be like paying for Netflix or paying your electric bill or whatever. The mechanism is the same, but the motivation is very different, yep. So I we did some really interesting research with this, with this recurring so we looked at benchmarks, of course, we also looked at like donor motivations and what we can glean from some of the notes they leave. And what we found over and over and over again, is that the decision to make this kind of gift is deeply emotional. It's deeply personal, and it's deeply tied to someone's sense of personal identity. Am I? Mine
Christina Edwards 10:37
just dropped? I don't know why. Hang on second. Can you hear me?
Abby Jarvis 10:42
I can hear you. Hear you, all right. You can hear yourself. It's echoing, all right, let
Christina Edwards 10:48
me put in actual That was weird. Sorry, that's okay. I yeah, I don't even know what that was, okay. Let's see here. Can you hear me without it echoing?
Abby Jarvis 11:15
Let's see, yes, check,
Christina Edwards 11:16
check, check, okay, cool. All right, where were we?
Abby Jarvis 11:22
All right, so I think I'm talking about, okay, I'm gonna start from like, I'm worried about that people would hear people like me talking about a subscription economy, yep, okay. I worry that nonprofits will hear people like me talking about a subscription economy. And think that because people are now more conditioned to create a monthly gift that we are giving to nonprofits in the same way that we pay for a Netflix subscription or an Amazon subscription. And the reason that concerns me is because of some other research we did as part of this study. So we looked at the benchmarks, looked at the data, but we also dug into donor motivations and why people are making these gifts. And what we found, and I can go into how we found it later, but what we found is that over and over and over again, donors are telling people, they're telling the nonprofits are supporting that their decision to make an ongoing gift is deeply emotional. It's deeply personal, and it is deeply tied to their sense of their own identities, and that's a really important differentiator, because my decision to pay for Netflix is not an emotional decision at all. Maybe I want to watch I don't know Tiger king, but it's Tiger King is an old reference. I can't think of anything, but it's not an emotional decision that is a consumer choice. It's not a compassionate choice, and the emphasis on compassion is really important. So yes, by all means, embrace monthly giving. We are very conditioned to make that kind of gift. Just if you're a fundraiser and you're listening to this, like, please remember, this is someone investing in something that they they care very deeply about. It's so much more beautiful than
Christina Edwards 13:12
a Hulu. It's not arbitrary, yes, while the back end. So it's like, top line, we're, we're, we're totally in agreement. It's, it is like, I don't know, a million years ago, you remember when like debit cards? I remember, like, certain people are like, I'm not having a debit card. Yeah. And now everybody does a debit card, right? It's so it's like, we do have now the like culture of it, of like, I'll just put this on, so that's good, but you mentioned identity and compassion and so for an organization like everyone who's listening, who's like, Yeah, but how do i Okay, so, how do I do that? I think one of the big questions is really, how do I create a monthly giving program, or grow my monthly giving program in a way that is sustainable, in a way that I do have that two way conversation with people, but I'm also time strapped, and I think that's one of the challenges that people experience, is like, what should be in it? What do they what do they get? Is essentially the question I'm asked a lot. Yeah, so what would you say to that? All right, so
Abby Jarvis 14:17
the first thing I'll say is that the advice I give to everybody who asked me this question, the first is like, just, just start. You don't have to have fully fledged, very intricate system for this. Start. Enable recurring gifts on your form. Just give people the option occasionally ask about it. Let people know it's there. Um, I would say, once you get beyond that, I would one, I would interrogate the what do they get? Question one, because I think it implies that people are looking to get something like a benefit or a service, and that, in a way. That may be true. So what are people looking to get? They're looking to be part of a movement or an effort or something that is deeply tied to something they love. That's what they're looking to get. You can give that to them in a few different ways. You can give that to them in the communications you send them, you can, I mean, tweak your thank you letters and tweak your newsletters and tweak those things so segment out your recurring donors, adjust the content you're already creating and sending to your broader donor base, and just make little adjustments to call out their generosity and call out their passion and call out their commitment, and then just communicate with them. One thing I have seen be very effective, because there is that desire to be a part of something larger than them. Yeah, we've seen nonprofits have a ton of success just creating a name for their recurring donors. Yep. If you look at the report, one of the organizations we talked to, they have their recurring program, and members of that program are called the Key Club. Yep. And when you're part of a named group, you're part of something special. So I mean, psychologically, we love it. That's why, when we all start clubs, when we're little kids, we want to be part of something, give it a name, communicate with those members, and just tell them what is happening and how they're helping make that possible. When I talk about understanding people's motivations, I think there are a few things that you can do, even if you are a fundraiser that's strapped for time when we when we looked at donor motivations and how their emotions and their identities influenced their decision to give. What we did was we looked at all of the forms that the 2000 somewhat organizations built for this, we found that a number of them had open ended fields on their donation forms where they invited their recurring donors to leave a gift or not sorry, I'm sorry, to leave a note as they are giving, explaining what motivated them to get, what inspired them to do this. And Christine and people poured their hearts out in these notes. It was beautiful. I I have a background in, like donation form optimization and whatnot. And when I found out that people were adding these fields, I was like, no, no, you're gonna ruin your conversion rate. That's right friction. Right friction. So what they did is they, if you do this, please don't make it a required field. Just don't do that. But what they did, and we found something like 13,000 notes left in these fields. So what we did as we cleaned them up, we scrubbed it of all identifying information. We used an AI tool to do a sentiment analysis. So we asked it to identify emotions, and we also asked it to look at identity markers, like demographics and whatnot. And you can do that you probably won't have 13,000 notes from 13,000 but you'll probably get a handful. And if you just take a few minutes every week to look at the notes that people leave you, you will get a feel for what is inspiring your community to give you this kind of gift. Once you understand what is inspiring your community to give that kind of gift, you can do a gift, you can do an even more efficient job communicating with them. So for example, say you are an animal shelter and you notice that a lot of people who are making recurring gifts are people who have adopted a pet through your shelter, you can then put together an appeal for recurring gifts and tweak it a little bit for your adoptees, adopters, adopters, and send that out. You can make sure you are sharing stories and updates about animals that were placed or received care through your program. I mean, you don't have to build huge, intense systems. Yeah, it's it. I mean, it'll take a few minutes every once in a while, but you
Christina Edwards 19:10
can, I think, for an organization too that has multiple programs, it helps people. It helps their staff understand a through line of like, why are people joining? Right? What is and then you're saying you can not only create some content for the people who did join updates, but on the front door, when you're trying to get more recurring donors in, you can start to create some content around that as well. Yeah, yeah,
Abby Jarvis 19:34
absolutely. What you're getting is, I mean, let's be honest, if you're a very busy fundraiser, having those two way conversations with all the donors in your base. That's not reasonable. We can't You can't do that. You will exhaust yourself trying. But what you can do is you can invite people to talk to you, and then you can get a feel for your whole base and start communicating with them more. Effectively, because, you know, it motivates them, and the longer your program goes on, the more that communication will probably change and evolve and improve. And I there's so much potential there. Yeah,
Christina Edwards 20:11
totally. So I'm going to give you another very common I want to call it objection, but it's not an objection as much as it is just like a now what Right? Which is we tried this. Like, no, no, we've got recurring giving, like, it is on the website, it is there, and we've got, you know, less than 10 people who've signed up, and it's mainly, you know, my aunt, my board member and my number one volunteer, and no one else has signed up. Like, how do I get more so what would you say? And it can be from a data perspective, it can be more strategy. What do you think?
Abby Jarvis 20:47
So I'm gonna come at this from marketing perspective, perfect. My background. So it's very easy to say. We've tried this before. It didn't work anymore. That's understandable. However, the data is telling us that that is not necessarily the case. People want to give this way, so I would tell you to start experimenting. What have you tried in the past? As much as I have, I'm going to contradict myself. I have said that we've seen this growth happen organically, and it's people are not asking that said recurring giving is not necessarily an if you build it, they will come kind of thing. And the reason I'm going to say that is because earlier, I cited that 127% increase, but I want to tell you the numbers behind that. When we looked at this set. At the beginning of the time period that we evaluated in 2018 the average nonprofit had 11 recurring donors. By the end of the set, they had 25 so yes, that is 127% growth. That is significant. However, this is an indicator to us that as people are turning this on and enable recurring gifts. People are not coming in the hundreds to make this kind of donation. Yep. So have it great. Have you been asking people about it specifically? Have you been making a case for why they should do that instead of making a one time gift, and if have you been making a case for why they should do it now and not sometime in an ill defined future? So one thing we talk about a lot in marketing is calls to action and value propositions and this and that, and you have to tweak your language a little bit when you're coming at it from a philanthropic, philanthropic perspective, yeah, value proposition is an upsetting phrase to use. Sometimes I think you have to use it. There's no better there's no better phrase. Why should your donor make this
Christina Edwards 22:49
gift? Yeah, what's in it for me? Why should I achieve? Yeah,
Abby Jarvis 22:54
and that's where I think things get kind of tricky, is coming up with that. So one thing we we did in this report is we had some experts from the industry talk about how nonprofits can really promote this. And one thing that came up, I think it was Dana Snyder talked about it, treat it like an event. You wouldn't throw up an event on a form on your site and expect people to give you're going to talk to them about it. You're going to invite them. You're going to tell them why it's
Christina Edwards 23:28
if you've got tickets to sell, you're going to talk about that like, often, yes,
Abby Jarvis 23:33
often. That's the other big thing. So something that I and I mean, I do this too, in my capacity as a marketer, when you eat, sleep and breathe your mission and your campaigns and your programs, this is top of mind for you at all times. So if you put together a recurring giving form and you send an email about it and you post about it on social a couple of times, and nothing happens to you that has taken up a huge part of your mental space to your your community that may not have stuck. Yeah, we know that when we are talking to in my marketing, we know that we have to talk to people multiple times same message in multiple channels for it to stick. If you have tried something and it hasn't worked, I would, can? I would encourage you to continue trying. And if you keep trying and nothing works, switch start experimenting. Switch up your messaging, um, switch up the images on your form. Yeah,
Christina Edwards 24:32
you went back to earlier too. Is like, do it? Did we even call it something? Because that's the first piece. Like, again, people want that identity, right? They want that piece. They also like if you did one launch one campaign, some social posts I honor. Yes, that took time, and yes, that took effort, and yes, that took brain space, and your organization is not yet known for this, like no one knows about your club yet you know. And as a business owner, I've seen that again and again. And again, like, I have to continually talk about it, and so it's a good reminder of, like, are those two boxes checked off? And then I think the last thing that a lot of organizations get stuck in the weeds on is the value proposition. Because what's in it for the nonprofit is very clear, sustainable revenue, monthly revenue, like, but what's in it for the donor? That's not a compelling why? And I want to talk about that for a second, because they're like, but Christina, that's like, that's the point, right? It's just like, no one's excited to donate for for operations and overhead. We know this. That's That's why some organizations, like Charity Water, have done this sort of other thing, but so we don't want to necessarily talk about the value proposition being well, it helps us have sustainable recurring revenue, right? So let's talk about what the value proposition might be. Yes,
Abby Jarvis 25:54
all right, so I'm going to use as an example an organization that I donate to monthly. Perfect. So interestingly, we found that a lot of the gifts that people give are not restricted, so they're not necessarily put toward a particular fund. So you are funding operations, fine, not compelling, like you said, yeah. I so when you have a monthly subscription to Netflix. You get something. You get access to all these shows when you make a monthly gift to your favorite cause, you do get something. You get to be part of work that is very important to you. So I give a monthly gift to conservation Florida, and what I get from that is I am part of a group of people who is work that we're working together to preserve Florida's natural places. I'm passionate about it. I camp and hike and backpack and do all the things. And they tell me all the time what my support is achieving. So I got, I keep it on my desk. It's actually fairly beat up, but I did periodic cards and postcards. And this one, they sent it to me. We are excited to announce the permanent protection of 1285 Highlands County acres.
Christina Edwards 27:20
Social proof. Y'all social proof what we're doing works.
Abby Jarvis 27:23
That's, yeah, that's the value proposition. I have no illusions that my monthly gift bought more than 1200 acres of endangered ecosystems, but I am part of, that's right, the group that did that. That's the value proposition. I helped. You
Christina Edwards 27:40
helped. And that identity piece too. Of of, I want to be someone who blank, right? I want to be someone who helps the environment right now, in my city, in my in my community, in my state, and leaves it at least better than than I found it right? Of that, that piece,
Abby Jarvis 27:58
and they have it, there's a line at the end that I really love. I mean, they talk a little bit about what actually went on and where where it is, and what kind of species are there they're protecting, but they said, We're incredibly proud and grateful to know that this land will never be a subdivision or development, and that's because of your support. That's the value proposition. That's it.
Christina Edwards 28:18
Okay? So that's a little bit of, I love that. That's a little bit of story brand, negative stakes. So I've talked about that a little bit on the podcast, of what will happen if you do, what will happen if you don't. And so what they just did with that is they gave you social proof of of like this is what we were able to accomplish, and without you, it would have looked like this, right? Yeah, that's so smart. I love it,
Abby Jarvis 28:42
and that's the value proposition. And you can do that with any mission, any vertical. You the value proposition is what your donors are helping do together. And I think the together thing is a really big deal, especially for monthly gifts, yeah, yeah.
Christina Edwards 28:59
So smart. Okay, how often or what do you think it should look like for an organization? I'm thinking about their 12 month calendar. Okay, so I'm thinking about they naturally have, maybe some events, some fundraisers, some online campaigns. How often should they be actually calling to become a recurring donor? Like, what does that look like in the overall strategy?
Abby Jarvis 29:24
So we don't have any data around how frequently you should be asking for these appeals, how much you should talk about it. Um, I think, and I'm being, I'm making this up as I go, because, again, like, I don't have data around this. Treat it like an event. And I would almost do it, I don't know, like, really emphasize it a couple of times a year. You're gonna have to feel out
Christina Edwards 29:53
how I love it. No, you're right on the money. You're right on the money. So I call these like, sprints or mini campaigns. But, yeah. Yeah,
Abby Jarvis 30:00
yeah. Like, yeah. Is it? But one thing I would say, like, look at what's on your calendar, what is coming up that would be a really good opportunity for you to have this conversation. So if you were a conservation group, is there a conservation month? Could you want the campaign? Do you have, in this case, do you have a piece of land that is being threatened with being turned into a housing development? Launch a campaign around that. So I don't think that there is necessarily a number you should ask for recurring gifts six times a year, right? You can do that. I think it should be regular. It should be intentional. It should be as natural as asking for one time donations. And I would encourage you to I keep Joe. I mean, I'm half joking when I use the word vibes, but like, feel it out what's what is appropriate, and you know your your supporter base, better than I do, and I don't want to give you a number, because then you'll Well, there
Christina Edwards 31:05
is no one right answer, and otherwise there would be one marketing book at the bookstore for us to all get. But I think that's a that's a great piece. And there's two piece, two kind of memories that I'm having. One is, we were just talking about this idea of like, are you known for it yet? You might not be known for it yet. And the only way to be known for your recurring giving program is to continue to talk about it, not 24/7 but to have some peaks and valleys throughout the year. The second one is, I had this flash of like, five plus years ago. There's an organization here in Atlanta, and they started every June. They were like 30 donors in 30 days for recurring and they did this, like sprint for it. And it actually started to do two things. One is it really reminded me, or I started to really have brand recognition for their recurring Donor Program. Right as I started to associate that, I was like, Oh yeah, that's what. That's what that is. Two is it got me excited every June. It was like, hyped up because they did a great social push for it. You know, it was like, day 21 all right, you guys, here's how many have joined. Shout out to, you know, Mary and Marco, and you know everybody who's joined. And so it started to also train me on, like, oh, that's what they do in June. So there's an opportunity there on. Just like, how do you weave it into, like, your greater calendar? Yeah.
Abby Jarvis 32:24
And one thing that I would say, when you're talking, when you're making yourself known about you don't have to make yourself known for asking all the time. Every time you talk about this, I have to, like, Give me $20 That's right. There are so many other ways you can talk about your recurring program without it being like, heavy handed. Probably isn't the phrase, but, you know,
Christina Edwards 32:45
yeah, call to action. Call to action.
Abby Jarvis 32:49
So say, I'm going to use this other I'm making, I'm going to make an allusion to the Key Club. I haven't seen them post like this, so the Key Club is again, the recurring giving like group from IPH. They're in the study. You can read about them there. Yep, you could do something as simple as check out this picture from this campaign that we did. Our key club did a great job supporting this. If you want to learn more about the Key Club and how to join here, Link, just talk about it. Or, Hey, did you see we got our 50th member of the Key Club? That's right, there's a group of people who give on a monthly basis to achieve this thing together. If you're interested in being part of this, here's where
Christina Edwards 33:33
even the postcard you just got could be adapted for an update for people outside of for current giving. Like, here's what this group was able to be a part of, right?
Abby Jarvis 33:42
So smart. So just showing them off, and you're doing two things. You're celebrating your most committed supporters, and you're signaling to people who are not yet part of that group, that you value those people, and they're doing amazing things, and you're creating a little bit of FOMO. I
Christina Edwards 34:01
love it. Okay, so before we shift gears and talk a little bit about your end, I just want to underscore and highlight that at no point in this conversation Have you said anything that feels like a lot of time in order for success, or anything that feels like a lot of stuff. Sometimes we're like but I have to give them hats and T shirts and and a crazy welcome kit. And I need to have a meet up for all my recurring donors. And I need to have a kick off of it. You haven't said any of that stuff. No,
Abby Jarvis 34:29
you can certainly do those things. Sure. And I would encourage you, if you're just absolutely killing the game, and you've got, you know, all the time in the world to get really but who does like totally don't let your donor surprise them. Send them a postcard. But I'll tell you this. This has been this postcard has been on my desk for months now, and it makes me happy every time I look at it and they it. You didn't have to send me a hat, and I don't. I haven't been to a party. I haven't. It's on my refrigerator. They sent me another card. They had a sticker in it. Like, I get, I get a message from them maybe twice a year. All of the other stuff is just frosting. That's right, it's cool, but it's not necessary. And the thing so I do, I do encounter this a lot fundraisers will be intimidated, like, oh, I have to give them special communications, and I have to send them postcards and stickers, and I have to do the things don't remember. These are people who there is data behind it. They are passionate about your cause. They are committed to the work that you're doing. And they are human beings. They will be gracious to you. Just try. Yeah.
Christina Edwards 35:40
So good. Thank you. Okay, let's dig into year end. Okay, so year end is when we see, typically, this huge influx of funding, huge influx of just all hands on deck for fundraising, right? And then we also see, sometimes, a huge influx of churn. So how does this conversation about recurring giving. Weave in to your end. What should we do? What should we look out for? Not do?
Abby Jarvis 36:06
Okay, so what should we do? Ask. So when we when we were doing this report, we wanted to look at when people are actually making these gifts humorously. And this has been the topic of many conversations with a lot of people in May, absolutely tremendous month for Recy. No one can agree why. We've had a lot of conversations about it. To no one's surprise, though, the other two most common ones for recurring gifts are December and November. Yep. So ask people are creating these gifts. Now, another thing that came up, a lot of people make recurring gifts on Giving Tuesday more than I thought, okay, when we looked and all right? And I have to be really clear about how I say this, because it's kind of confusing. So giving Tuesday always falls the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, but it can either fall in November, as it did last year or December, as it did does this year. That's right, regardless of the month, recurring donations initiated on Giving Tuesday account for around 12% of all recurring gifts initiated that month. So that's pretty significant. 12% is nothing to sneeze at. The other thing that we noticed, and this is new data, it's not in the report yet. I'm actually getting ready to start drafting a like addition to the recurring giving report that focuses on Giving Tuesday and year end. Some concern that I have heard is, if people create a gift on Giving Tuesday, does that mean I can't ask them for another gift at the end of the year? And the answer is no. This is these are preliminary numbers, so just throw that out there. But last year, so in 2023 80% of people who created a recurring gift on Giving Tuesday made an additional donation to the same organization before the end of the year. That is wild. Huge percent. That is a stat. I Tim showed it to me, and I was like, No, it didn't. Yes, they did. And so, so ask, that's the first thing. Now, the other thing I would tell you to do is update your donors. So thank them and update them before you solicit again. Yes, the virtuous cycle. There's the ask. Thank report, repeat. So make your Ask. Ask them to make a gift. Thank them sincerely. Do not send them a fast don't do don't do that when you send me a thank you letter and then ask me to give it. Yes, no good. Makes me so mad. Report back on their impact and then make an additional ask. Now here's the thing, put yourself in a monthly givers shoes when you are sending them an additional ask if I'm already giving you $50 a month, and ask me to give you another gift. That's fine, but I need you to tell me why you want me to give on top of my ongoing commitment. And remember, we have data that show that people will give to you again if you ask, but the Ask needs to be tailored to them. If I'm a recurring donor and you send me a one size fits all appeal that you send to everyone in your database, it's going to fall flat. But if you tweak just the first paragraph and so Abby, I know that you're a monthly supporter. We are in the last days, we're working to raise money for this thing, would you please consider making an additional gift because of blank? Yeah, of course,
Christina Edwards 39:48
that's that urgency piece. Y'all. That's the Why should I give now, right? And so really turning up the volume on that piece so it's compelling and also honoring and identifying like we see you, we see that you're. Already giving on a recurring basis, high fives. Here's what we're working on next. And those people want to help like those are, again, your most engaged people. So when you put yourself in the donor shoes, and I think about this for me, if I'm in that position, I signed up to give on a recurring basis. So if you're you're close, I want to help you go across the finish line. The competitive person in me is like, well, let's hit that goal. Like, what are we doing? So don't, yeah, keep going.
Abby Jarvis 40:28
I'm gonna put in the caveat Yes, because I just said it, and you just said it when you're asking me to give again, the reason for giving should not be, it's the last few days of the year. Yes, I don't care. Yeah, when it is. And some people like you and I, because of our backgrounds, may be really excited about hitting a goal. A component is not like, Hey, we're 5% away from our goal. Will you donate to get us there, like you and I would probably be stoked about that. Yes, let's get it. The average donor is probably not going to be super motivated by that. What would be much better is we're 5% of our way to achieving blank, yes, 5% outcome, result, the outcome. So we're 5% away from being able to buy this 12
Christina Edwards 41:15
and I think that's really important to think about, just when we're creating those appeals and those stories as motivation, right, which we've been talking about this whole time. And there are people like me who are going to be motivated. I'm like, I just want to get you across that finish line. I literally gave to my kids PTA yesterday because they were like, we're at 9000 15,000 is our goal. Here's where we're at. And I was like, let's go. Let's go. So there are those people, right? And what's more motivating than a physical, numerical goal is the outcome, the result, the aspirational piece? Yeah,
Abby Jarvis 41:45
yes, definitely. So I get all kinds of appeal. I mean, I pay really close attention to appeals, obviously. But like, oh, it's the last it's the last two days of the year. Like, please give to us because it's the last two days of the year. No, like, I'll give to you by the last two days of the year, because we want to do in January or whatever,
Christina Edwards 42:07
and you do start to blend in. We could talk about this forever. I the last three days of the year. I look at my inbox and y'all your email subject lines are all the same. Three days left, two days left, one day left. Stop it. Those are not compelling reasons, and we will link to you also did a separate email report. We'll make sure we link to that there, because that gets into like, what to do with email, what not to do with email anyway. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Is there anything else you wanted to share on your end before we wrap up?
Abby Jarvis 42:38
I just want to encourage you, if you're listening and you're like, you're kind of thinking about maybe starting a recurring giving program, but you're intimidated and feel like it's a huge mantra thing, first of all, that's that's allowed, you're allowed to be scared, to do something that you've never done before. It is intimidating. It is worrisome. I hope that you know after listening to this, that when you are asking someone to make a monthly gift, you're not asking them to do anything onerous or unpleasant. You are inviting them to give regular, ongoing support to a cause they love. They will be gracious with you. They will be supportive of you. The just see them. Thank them, invite them to stay engaged and watch what happens, because the growth that we're seeing here is tremendous, and that growth is happening independent of people. Asking your community is ready to do this for you. Give them the opportunity to do that, please,
Christina Edwards 43:43
just Yes, I like to remind people like they're already there. They're already there, they're in your CRM right now. Go ask them, and the people who are listening, who are like, Okay, I have 11 and I would I want 100 right? Go love on those 11 and watch the next 11 come in, and the next 11 and the next 11 come in. So we ask everybody on the podcast one thought they like to think, on purpose. It could be an affirmation, a mantra, anything that you would like to share with us today. I think you've already shared a couple of good ones in in the episode. But would you share one with us, just
Abby Jarvis 44:20
any Yeah. All right. So this is something that, it sounds very silly, but I think everyone, regardless of their job or what they're working on, could handle it. So my mantra that I have is this, you can do hard things, yeah, and the the thing I have in front of me, it's over there. I did, I am an avid hiker, and I did a timed hike with my best friend, and you did 20 miles in eight hours. Wow, and it was awful. It I was not having fun. It was hot, and the organizers ran out of water, and I like, I hurt myself. So. I finished, and I was in pain and anger and thirsty and smelled like a Sasquatch, but I did it, and I have the metal from that hanging in my office. And so when I have to do hard things that I am intimidated by, I can look over there and think, I can do hard things. I've done them before, and I can do hard things. So if you are, whether you're getting ready to launch your first recurring program, or you're, I don't know, getting ready for a board meeting that you're scared of, or doing whatever you need to do, look at something you have and remind yourself like I can do hard things. I've done them before, and I can do it again. That's right, so good. That's
Christina Edwards 45:38
inner self talk is, is the is what makes this entire work feel amazing and joyous and impactful or overwhelmed and hard and tight, right? Not that that it's always sunflowers and daisies, but that self talk is so, so important, and it's, it's such a good reminder. Thank you for sharing that with us. All right, How can everyone? We will link to the reports of the notes. But other than that, tell us all the places we can get connected with you and neon one.
Abby Jarvis 46:10
Neon one.com, is we? Where we house? A lot of research. We have more coming up. I'm already planning research for next year. It's gonna be really cool if you want to talk to me or I mean neon one, we're both on LinkedIn. I have been taking a hiatus because I live in Florida and it's extremely hot, but I do a lot of like Walk and Talk videos where I will take you on a hike with me, and we'll talk about a statistic and what it means for you. Neon one is always posting on our LinkedIn links to stuff like this, and invitations to, I don't know, talk with us and learn with us, and amazing, have fun. So do that.
Christina Edwards 46:49
Thank you so so much. I could talk for like, three more hours about this data and these trends. So this was so good, but I think this is what everybody needs to start or grow, recurring, giving and like that push, that boost. So thank you so much.
Abby Jarvis 47:03
Yeah, of course. Thank you for letting me get excited about this with you.
Christina Edwards 47:06
We love data. It's
Abby Jarvis 47:08
so cool, which is not a phrase I ever thought I would say to
Christina Edwards 47:12
me neither like from from a marketer, no, no. But we love data, the way that you did it, so the way that it is distilled works for my brain, and I know it will work for everybody else's too. So this is the way to do it. Yeah, I
Abby Jarvis 47:23
have a Literature degree. This is outside of my my wheelhouse, but it's so much fun, and it shows, I don't know, people are beautiful and they're generous and they're passionate, and the data show that, and that's a weird thing to think about, but it's really nice.
Christina Edwards 47:40
Love it. People are beautiful and generous. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.
Abby Jarvis 47:45
Thank you. Bye.