Our research on behalf of our clients has shown us that the lifetime value of a monthly donor is higher than that of a single gift donor. Blackbaud’s 2013 Online Marketing Benchmarking Study for Nonprofits found sustainer giving grew by 27% last year, compared with overall online giving growth of 11%. Yet many organizations avoid requesting monthly gifts during the holiday season, since single gifts offer a higher average gift and nonprofits are counting on the huge year-end bump in fundraising the holiday season brings.

Here’s how to capitalize on the year-end surge in generosity and grow your group of supporters who invest in your organization during the holidays and throughout the year.

  1. Clear the path to organic gifts: Ensure your donation forms include the monthly giving option and that it is easily accessible on the page. You can likely use built-in functionality for this. Simply providing this option next to the single gift option will result in many “organic” monthly donors to your program. If you’re comfortable being a bit more aggressive, you could have the monthly donor option automatically selected or list the monthly donor option first.
  2. Send a dedicated email: Send an e-appeal specifically requesting monthly gifts during the holiday season. We recommend our clients send a dedicated monthly giving message at least quarterly. This message should communicate the positive impact of monthly giving on the organization, the convenience of monthly giving, and any benefits your organization offers. You may or may not wish to offer a premium. To alleviate potential givers’ anxiety, you should mention that donors can change or cancel their monthly gift at any time. During the year end period, your dedicated email could offer a special matching challenge. Consider working with a Board member or corporate partner to provide a matching challenge of $100 per new monthly donor, or a match for the entire first year of monthly gifts for new sustainers.
  3. Piggyback on what you’re already doing: Promote monthly giving in your e-newsletter articles in November or December. Include a monthly giving “buckslip” in your acknowledgement letters. Provide a monthly giving checkbox on your direct mail response form. You don’t have to go too far out of your way—just consider what you’re already doing and determine how to incorporate a sustainer ask.
  4. Increase your ask amounts: People are more generous during the holidays. Take a look at your monthly giving ask amounts and consider increasing them. You may also want to change the pre-chosen gift amount (the donation amount that is checked when the person arrives on the donation form) to a higher amount.
  5. Monthly donor upsell lightbox: The monthly donor lightbox allows you to retain your regular donation form. It adds a pop-up once donors press the submit button on their gift, offering to make their gift monthly. The lightboxes we build for our clients calculate an upsell based on the amount of the originally planned single gift, and they allow gifts over a certain amount to be processed uninterrupted (for example, $1,000 gifts or more). They also securely carry the credit card information through and apply it to the correct gift.  Click here to view an example from Share Our Strength.
  6. Update your welcome series: If you already have a welcome series, you should consider altering it for the year-end period (for example, eliminating a message to reduce the period of time people are suppressed from other messages). Many new online donors will be joining your email list, and many of them will receive the welcome series. Consider creating a welcome series specifically for new donors and adding a monthly giving appeal to that series. If you don’t have time to create an entire welcome series of messages, you could create a triggered email that is automatically sent under certain conditions; within a few weeks of an initial gift is a ripe period to ask single gift donors to become monthly donors.
  7. Get the data right: It’s important to get your target audiences and suppressions correct during the holidays. Ensure you are suppressing current monthly donors from dedicated monthly giving asks. Check that you’re on top of any suppressions you want to create for donors during year-end so they don’t receive another appeal immediately after making a gift. If you have a new donor welcome series that includes a sustainer ask, make sure you aren’t sending it to new sustainers.

Finally, don’t forget to ask your current sustainers to make an additional gift at Year End. You can re-purpose a message you’re sending to the full list to recognize that the person is a monthly donor and ask for a special additional year-end donation. Some organizations call it a “13th month” gift.

Wendy Marinaccio is an Account Executive at Donordigital, the online fundraising, marketing, and advertising company.