I’m thrilled to present a talk at the DMA Nonprofit Conference in Washington, D.C. this week alongside Rashad Brown of KQED. We’ll be discussing how to improve your monthly giving program – whether your organization is big or small, or your sustainer program has 50 donors or 5,000, we’ll have ideas for your nonprofit. If you’re attending the conference, you can find us Friday at 1pm for Monthly Giving Awesome-ization.

As most fundraisers now realize, monthly donors have better retention, lifetime value and donor value. Alongside those metrics, American donors are now trending toward sustaining donations at significantly higher rates than ever before. You can help your organization take advantage of this and help your donors make the best choice for your mission and their convenience.

Here are 5 ways you can improve your sustainer program overall—starting right now.

  1. Make the path to a monthly gift a fast and easy one.

It’s not the most exciting way to recruit sustainers, but it’s one of the most effective. Make sure you’re following solid web design and user interface fundamentals to boost “organic” monthly giving—donors who choose a monthly gift without being directly asked. Organic monthly giving typically generates most  of an organization’s sustainers, especially during year end fundraising season and when your organization is promoting big campaigns where there’s a lot of giving activity overall. The best way to improve organic giving is to make your main donation form easy to find, and optimize the form overall.

How you accomplish tends to be unrelated to your sustainer program, so you’ll need to collaborate with colleagues. Step 1: Get as much traffic as possible to your website via SEO, SEM and PR. Step 2: Make sure the donate button is supremely easy to find everywhere on your website and that the button directs straight to your main donation form. Step 3: Optimize the main donation form for the highest completion rate (more on that here and here). The more people who land on and complete your form, the more sustainers you’ll have.

  1. Promote monthly giving on your main donation form.

On your main donation form, make the monthly giving option equally as prominent as the one-time giving option. We have found that side-by-side toggle buttons are a great way to do this and translate well to smaller screens. This one change is likely to immediately increase monthly giving conversion rates.

Don’t make donors hunt for a small monthly giving checkbox as an afterthought—or click away from the main donation form to make a monthly gift on a separate form.



  1. DO have a dedicated monthly giving form and promote it appropriately

Although most of your giving traffic should still be directed through your main donation page, it’s important to have a dedicated donation form as well. Use this form for direct links from online dedicated monthly giving promotions like email and website lightboxes. Prospective sustainers should be taken straight to a form that does not distract them from the monthly giving offer.

Be sure that this form is optimized as well. We’ve found that often a different photo and introductory language performs best on a sustainer page than the winning elements from a main donation form, as prospective sustainers often need more information to alleviate anxiety about the monthly commitment. Investigate whether adding information about donor benefits and donor services contact information can help improve conversion on this form. Also include a link to the main donation form if people decide they wish to make a one-time gift instead.

  1. Promote the ease of changing or canceling a monthly gift.

It’s counterintuitive, but letting donors know it’s easy to change or cancel their sustaining donation makes it more likely that folks sitting on the fence will be willing to sign up as monthly donors. A sustained commitment evokes quite a bit of anxiety in prospective donors, who then often decide to take the path that seems most easy and convenient for them and simply make a one-time gift.

  1. …and then actually make it easy.

Ensure that a current sustainer is able to find the contact information they need to upgrade, change or cancel their monthly contribution. First, include a monthly donor services phone number and email address for on your website in a place that is easy to find. Also ensure your main phone line provides a way for people to reach someone to change their sustaining gift, as many people will call that number if they can’t find a donor services number.

Include contact info in monthly giving autoresponders, including when people make monthly gifts on main donation forms, and in monthly receipts (if your organization sends them).

Create an online method and a phone number for upgrading and otherwise changing monthly gifts. Many people do not want to call or are unable to call during your business hours. A simple online survey could gather the information needed to change a monthly gift. You may wish to push people to call in order to cancel their gift, but if that is your procedure, you should ensure it is easy for a donor to reach you by phone. Many organizations have a script they follow when sustainers call to cancel that guides them into smaller monthly amounts or pauses their gift for a few months.

Finally, create a suppression and communications strategy for sustainers who have canceled.

We’ll post our presentation deck and even more takeaways for your monthly giving program here once the conference ends.

Wendy Marinaccio is an Account Director at Donordigital, the online fundraising, marketing, and advertising company.  Contact: wendy@donordigital.com.