Monthly Giving: The Lifeline We Keep Ignoring
I’ve been cleaning house. Not the dust and clutter kind, but the harder kind—going through old photos, boxes of files, the decades stacked like cordwood. “Death cleaning”, the Swedes call it. You sit with what you’ve carried, sort through the weight of your working life, and decide what still matters.
In the midst of this, I found myself circling back to monthly giving, sometimes referred to as “regular giving”, “sustainable” or “recurring” giving. Whatever the label it’s that slow, steady river of predictable revenue running under all the flashier campaigns and emergency appeals.
I thought of Erica Waasdorp—one of the two veteran voices whose experience and research I’ve relied on, the other being Harvey McKinnon. (There are also bright new voices like Dave Raley and Dana Snyder .See some of their insights from this Monthly Giving Awareness Week panel.)
Erica, true to her Dutch roots, has always struck me as precise, practical, and down-to-earth so I picked up the phone to compare notes. She’s been looking back too, combing through her own decades of data and memory, charting what’s changed and what stubbornly hasn’t.
What Erica Sees
Erica points out the simple math that nonprofits too often forget. The sector’s average annual retention rate has limped along at about 46% for years. But when a donor becomes a monthly giver, retention jumps to 90%. That’s not a rounding error—that’s a different universe.
The value of that loyalty is just as plain. The average monthly donor gives about $25 a month. Over the course of five to seven years—the typical span—those “small” gifts add up to about $2,100. And those same donors are six times more likely to leave a bequest in their wills.
In short: monthly giving isn’t a sideline anymore. It’s the spine of a sustainable fundraising program.
What The Agitator Has Tracked
We’ve been hammering away at this truth for more than a decade. Back in 2013, M+R’s Benchmarks showed monthly giving revenue was up 25% in a single year—a surge that hinted at what was coming. By 2019, monthly giving accounted for 16% of all online revenue, growing 17% year over year.
Our May 2025 piece, The Thermofax Gospel of Recurring Giving, was less revelation than confirmation. Recurring giving is not fringe anymore. It’s the backbone And yet, too many organizations still treat it like the ugly stepchild. They’ll spend a fortune renting lists of people who once sneezed in the direction of another nonprofit, but won’t invest in upgrading the folks already sending them money and seek a gift every single month.
It’s the nonprofit version of buying a new boat while the roof leaks.
Fresh Data, Same Verdict
Blackbaud’s 2025 donorCentrics Sustainer Summit only underscored what Erica and the Agitator have been saying until we’re hoarse: single-gift donors are falling off a cliff—down 27% over five years—while sustainers are holding steady and even climbing, up 17% since FY20. In FY24, sustainers made up 23% of donors and 32% of revenue, with retention rates of 81% versus 46% for one-time givers.
What Hasn’t Changed
When Erica went through her old files, she found that the stages of building a monthly giving program—audience, solicitation, implementation, upgrade, recapture, measurement—have been in place for decades. The technology has improved: dashboards and payment systems make it easier than the days of pin-feed printers and manual spreadsheets. But the fundamentals are the same.
What hasn’t changed, she says—and I agree—is the reluctance of many nonprofits to do the hard, steady work of upgrading monthly donors or measuring the true value they bring. Too many are still chasing one-time gifts, mistaking noise for strategy.
The Bright Spot in a Negative Space
It would be dishonest not to acknowledge the shadows. Donor participation in the U.S. has fallen off a cliff—under half of households give now, compared to 65% in 2008. That’s the backdrop against which all this plays out. Monthly giving is a bright spot, but it is not enough to mask the erosion of broad-based philanthropy.
If anything, it makes the case stronger. In a time of shrinking pools, you hold tight to those who stay with you, month after month.
Bringing It All Together
So here we are. Me with my boxes of files and experience that runs back to 1971 when Morris Dees and I launched the sustainer program for the Southern Poverty Law Center… Erica with her Dutch practicality and decades of proven success… The Agitator with its long paper trail of benchmarks and blunt reminders. The findings line up:
- 90% retention for sustainers vs. 46% for single gifts.
- $2,100 average value per monthly donor.
- 6x likelihood of leaving a bequest.
- 25% revenue growth in 2013, 17% in 2019, 16% of online revenue today.
And still, the biggest failure: too many nonprofits refuse to invest in enlisting, upgrading, measuring, and honoring their sustainers.
Final Word
You don’t need to say much when the truth is this stark. I often compare types of fundraising programs to a farm’s crops produced in fields and orchards—the quick hit of spring hay vs. the long-term yield apple or peach trees. The truth in fundraising is the same as it is in farming; it’s the steady rain, not the sudden storm, that keeps the harvest alive.
Monthly giving is that steady rain. It’s not sexy or shiny. It’s probably not going to get you a flashy award. But it’s the rain barrel. And in this trade and in these time, if you don’t fill it, you’re going to be standing in the dust with nothing but excuses.
Roger
8 responses to “Monthly Giving: The Lifeline We Keep Ignoring”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Thanks so much for raising this. Yes, capturing donor information can be helpful for stewardship like newsletters, thank-you letters, impact updates. But how you ask matters. Forcing full data capture introduces friction that can significantly depress conversion, many donors may simply abandon the process. Beyond the friction itself, required fields also shift the emotional experience […]
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Unlike holidays that everyone already knows, Giving Tuesday is a created event. Many donors recognize the name but not the exact timing, so referencing it becomes a helpful cue. It serves as a reminder and taps into social norm activation (“everyone’s giving today”), which boosts response. However, we still want it paired with the mission, […]
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When a subject line leads with the match (“Your gift matched!”), it risks triggering market-norm thinking: the sense that giving is a financial transaction rather than an act rooted in values, identity, and care. This shift reduces intrinsic motivation and, over time, can weaken donor satisfaction and long-term engagement. It also makes the email indistinguishable […]
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There’s no evidence that QR codes suppress mid-value giving; all available research suggests they either help or have no negative effect. In fact, behavioral and usability research consistently shows the opposite: reducing friction at any point in the donation process increases completion rates and total response. And that has nothing to do with capacity and […]
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What you’re experiencing is very common. Resistance often isn’t about capability, but about motivation quality. If board members feel pushed into fundraising, that triggers controlled motivation (low quality motivation) i.e. obligation, guilt, or fear of judgment, which often results in avoidance. Instead, we need to create conditions for volitional motivation (high quality motivation) by satisfying […]
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That’s a really thoughtful question, and you’re not the first to raise it. Many of our clients have been cautious about placing the ask at the very end. To address their concern, we’ve tested both approaches, and the results are clear: when the ask comes last, even if that means it appears on the second […]
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Hi Roger,
Wise words as always.
It amazes me that so much of what we early(ish) pioneers were advocating five decades or so ago and proving so conclusively works so very well, is still not understood by most recent entrants to our sector. This I feel is entirely a consequence of poor leadership and inadequate investment in properly equipping new fundraisers for the crucial role they could and should be playing in attracting and keeping new donors. Maybe it’s a lost cause, and while some enlightened few see the light, the majority are condemned to persist in sailing in the dark.
Dave Raley has just released an interview he did with me recently, in which I describe how we started to move towards regular monthly giving on our side of the pond. It’s here:
https://www.sustainablegiving.org/podcast/episodes/back-to-the-future
Though it could do better, regular committed giving is now quite well established this side of the Atlantic. Amazingly, it does seem that our sector can sometimes see what Basil Fawlty famously called, ‘the bleedin’ obvious’.
Best, Ken
Ken—
You’re dead right. The “bleedin’ obvious” is sitting in the middle of the room like Basil Fawlty’s moose head, and half the boards and CEOs still act like they can’t see it. In my growing up days in Gettysburg we used to say it was as plain as the ass on a goat—and yet here we are, with leaders sailing in circles, arguing over the paint color on the lifeboats while the hull leaks. The tragedy isn’t that monthly giving is complicated. It’s that the people entrusted to lead can’t recognize a lifeline even when it’s wrapped around their ankles.
And by the way—the podcast with you and Dave is terrific, well worth a listen. His book ought to be stuffed into every board member’s back-to-school backpack, right next to the crayons and juice boxes, because some of them clearly need remedial lessons in common sense.
I really would like to change the thinking here from “monthly” giving to “automated” giving. Those monthly sustainer programs with high retention rates are built on automated giving, whether the donor setting up a monthly gift through their bank, or the nonprofit automating the giving from their end. What makes both of these have high retention rates is that the donor is not making a giving decision for each gift … they just set it and forget it. Those automated gifts likely also work for those who might give annually or quarterly.
For those of us who spent time in the child sponsorship world, monthly giving that relied on a donor having to write a check each month did not have high retention rates — really, the lowest rates of other types of giving. Why? Because each month that donor had to decide if they were getting value from this giving, if they still felt the cause was worthy, never mind the likelihood of simply forgetting to write and mail that check.
Hi Gayle,
You’re right, it’s really about sustained, or sustainable giving, with automation doing the heavy lifting whether for monthly, quarterly or annual commitments. Having lived through the manual era, I can say retention was high only when we kept in close touch. But even with automation communication matters as much as convenience. A pitfall now is expired credit cards, which makes smart (and preferably automated monitoring and card updating services) essential.
And yes, I remember the child sponsorship days too—especially how gifts dropped when that sponsored “child” suddenly became a teenager. Understandable, I suppose.
My working premise for long-term retention and donor value is that automation alone isn’t enough; donors still need to feel seen and special.
Hi Gayle (and Roger),
I hesitate to disagree with you Gayle, and of course all of the many descriptors for this kind of support — sustained, regular, committed, monthly, automated, and so on — all are accurate. But the UK experience is strongly that it’s monthly giving that the vast majority of donors opt for, because that’s what most easily fits with their lives. This is simply because, in the UK, most people are paid monthly. So it’s convenient, for them. They can even love it. Yet, that it’s automated doesn’t have much appeal. I’ve tried talking to people about being a sustainer, and they don’t get it. It is, after all, just a method of payment, so doesn’t excite most folks. Regular they get. But a light goes on when you tell them it’s a small, monthly amount that they won’t really miss when their paycheck comes in, that’s always doing good for a great cause. But we make a big mistake if we imagine we can “get it and forget it.” I support several nonprofits with monthly gifts and my most common reason for cancelling is the number of charities who write to me regularly asking for a gift, ignoring the fact that I give to them already, month after month, automatically, regular as clockwork. My experience is donors hate it when their monthly gift is forgotten, which it still is way too often, even in the UK. 🙂 Best, Ken
Great conversation and thank you Roger for shining a light on this. I’m advocating for a September = Sustainer month (just like August = make a will month)… How can we accomplish that?
Indeed, Ken, I agree. Setting and forgetting was the way it may have started out so many years ago, but nowadays it’s all about being recognized for making that committed gift and keeping me engaged with the organization. And with so many automations, as long as you create the right segment, it’s not that hard. It does take a bit of work to figure out how you’d like to engage your committed (sustainers/monthly/recurring, however the name of your choosing) donors during the year but once you map that out, (borrowing from and looking at some other midlevel or major gift programs), it’s almost set and forget at the organization. If monthly donors want to pay by check, great, try to convert them to EFT as that will make their gift go further. And that too can become part of the process. This will then create time for the fundraiser to reach out to those credit cards that have lapsed/declined… As I recently tested with a client, just adding a letter brought back 10% of those monthly donors… and that’s huge! Start tracking it for a few weeks or a few months and see the impact of bringing back just a few more recurring donors at risk. That does not happen automatically but so so worth it.
I am definitely NOT suggesting that the charity forget to communicate with their automated givers, just that once most givers automate their gift, they aren’t making giving decisions each month.
Ken, I’m wondering how those UK donors make those monthly gifts? Are they sending checks each month? As I understood from my European friends, even back in the 80s, that most givers were using debit cards which they set to send gifts monthly.
Apologies if I gave that impression Gayle, I just wanted to point out that monthly is hugely important for donors, at least in the UK. Nowadays in this country direct debit (which I believe works like your EFT, Electronic Funds Transfer) is widely accepted everywhere. Direct debit is where the would-be donor (in our case) authorises their selected charity’s bank to raise (on a specific regular date, eg 3rd of every month) an automatic deduction (usually a fixed sum but can be variable in certain circumstances), which their bank then takes directly from the donor’s bank account usually just after his/her regular pay check arrives. Prior to direct debit’s advent in the 1980s/90s payments in the UK were made by standing order. The difference (subtle but important) is that the less automated standing order is initiated by the customer through his/her bank, while direct debit is an authority from the donor (backed by a safety guarantee) for the recipient charity’s bank to reach in and remove a fixed sum each month (or quarter or half year) directly from that donor’s account. As I recall, regular payments by credit or debit card were and probably still are much less usual, and sending regular cheques (checks) month after month almost non-existent. Unlike DDs, cards change often, and when that happens the regular gift is almost always lost. When I started more than 80 per cent of donors opted for monthly standing order, and now, as it’s safe, convenient and easy, direct debit I’m sure is doing even better. The direct debit system depends entirely on public trust, which in the UK is high. It’s one of the reasons why integrity in public life is so important and, sadly, that can quickly decline without good leadership and a strong giving culture. Inertia does play a big part in monthly giving’s high retention rate. But most donors, if they think about it, find that very much preferable to having to write and post a cheque each month. Sorry to complicate things Gayle but hope some of this is helpful,
All best, Ken