It’s not too late to take make adjustments to your monthly giving progress that will boost recurring giving returns in this year-end quarter.

Even if you’re overwhelmed and can’t take these key steps right now, there is a wealth of evidence you need to absorb and act on as soon as humanly possible.

In a remarkable and remarkably practical exercise the folks at NextAfterbecame “mystery donors” by making recurring donations to 115 organizations across 9 different verticals.

Their goal: to identify how to optimize recurring giving by looking at it from the donor’s perspective.

The results of this ambitious exploration have now been revealed in The Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study.

If you have a monthly or recurring gift program, or are in the process of launching one this study, jam-packed with valuable insights and recommendations must reading. You can download their findings here.

Even better, NextAfter, as a companion piece to their study, has also provided a Benchmark-Your-Organizationtool to help you determine how your recurring giving program stacks up against other.  It’ll tell you what to include (and exclude) on your donation pages…recommend channels and frequency of communication and cultivation…how to win back lost, stolen or canceled credit cards…and how to test each step of your recurring donation process. Check it out here.

Methodology and Summary of Findings

In this comprehensive study the researchers analyzed:

• 115 donation pages
• 4,117 email communications
• 534 direct mail letters
• 83 phone calls
• Plus, lots more which you’ll find in their downloadable report.

Here are some of their startling findings (at least I find them startling):

• 3 out of 4 organizations didn’t prompt one-time donors to give a recurring gift.
• Only 14% of organizations prompt donors to upgrade to a monthly gift.

• Only 13% called to say thank-you for the gift. Just 15 organizations called and only 2 sent text messages.

[ Editor’s Note: Once again, the power of the thank you, or lack of it, comes to the fore. Remember:  A donor’s second year value could be up to 40% higher if they received a thank you call according to Penelope Burk]

• Only 1 in 5 sent email communication from a real person. Most were from info@ or @support or at “no reply addresses”

(According to NextAfter research when a donor is thanked open rates on subsequent email communications are 28%-1301% higher. And, on outgoing emails the use of the recipient’s name increases clicks by 270%.

• 38% of organizations studied did not change their email strategy for recurring donors.

Digging Deeper

Beyond the takeaway points above, the NextAfter team dug deeper and note:

• It’s not that easy to find out where on a website to make a recurring donation. 1 out of 10 organization’s didn’t have a recurring gift option online.3 0ut of 4 organizations do not have a separate call-to-action for recurring donations.

NextAfter advises:  Try adding a specific call to action button for recurring gifts in your navigation

• Make the case for a recurring gift.  Few organizations go beyond the simplest of forms and fail to make the case.  “Why should I give a recurring gift to you, instead of a one-time donation.  And rather than to some other organization or not at all.”

NextAfter advises:The addition of a value proposition and different copy for recurring giving can increase conversion rate by 150%

• Landing pages. Most landing and/or donation pages request far too much information; had to answer questions that were too confusing (and often made mandatory). Credit authorization at payment processor set too tight and therefore higher gifts rejected. “Worst of all the number of times we had to prove we were human too often required to use Captcha which leads to the maddening game of “pick the street signs.”

NextAfter Advises:  Look carefully at the simplicity and usability of your landing/donation pages.

• Payment types. Not all payment types are equal.  The top 3 payment types in order of donor preference: 1) credit card, 2) EFT/ACH and PayPal.  However, only 1 out of 3 organizations accepted EFT/ACH and PayPal. Median retention rate points higher for EFT/ACH than credit card donors.

NextAfter Advises:  Try adding an EFT/ACH option

• Post Donation Action. “I just gave, now what? The researchers found that most organizations don’t offer a post-donation call to action. Such as…asking a single gift donor to become a monthly donor…asking donor to check with their employer for a matching gift possibility…sign up for an advocacy team, etc.

NextAfter Advises:  Don’t stop with the gift. Answer the donor’s concern: “I just gave, now what do I do.

In A Nutshell

Here are 7 recommendations for your consideration.  See if you can put sine or all to work in time for year-end giving:

1. Make sure you have a clear donate button in your navigation.
2. Add a specific call to action/button for recurring gifts in your navigation.
3. Add more value proposition copy (and different types of copy) for recurring giving on your donation page.
4. Add a prompt for recurring gifts before one-time donation completion.
5. Add EFT/ACH and PayPal payment options.
6. Make a donation to your own organization and remove confusing and unnecessary form fields and donation steps.
7. Ask for a recurring gift conversion ask on the confirmation page when single, one-time gift is given.

What year-end plans do you have for monthly giving.

Roger

P.S.  In addition to awarding a much-deserved Agitator Raiseto NextAfter, I wanted to update you on our inquiry into the problem many nonprofits are having with payment processors.

You’ll recall from our post Can Your Monthly Doors Be Held Hostagethat when moving from one CRM system to another many nonprofits have been blindsided by the refusal of their payment processor to transfer credit card and other payment information to the new CRM system.

It’s an outrage. Expensive. Time consuming. Frustrating. And, a rip off.

We’ve now interviewed more than 15 nonprofits who’ve encountered this problem. And interviewed and equal number of CRMs and payment processors. There are still some interviews and meetings with lawyers and government regulators yet to go.  We will publish our findings and recommendations soon.