Don’t Overlook Monthly Donors: Build Personal Connections to Increase Giving

Go Beyond Fundraising: The Podcast for Nonprofits

How effective is your monthly giving program? Too often, nonprofits take a “set it and forget it” approach. But by nurturing monthly donors, you can build reliable and consistent revenue for your organization that has the potential to make a million-dollar impact. In this episode, we talk with Abby Trahan, who served as the Annual Giving Coordinator at the Houston Food Bank from May 2020 to March 2022. In this role, she revamped the monthly giving program and used relationship-building tactics to more than double the number of monthly donors and increase the program’s annual impact to $3 million. This success came at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the winter storm that crippled Texas in February 2021. So, how did Abby do it? Most notably, she recognized that monthly donors are some of the most important and loyal donors an organization has. By treating this core group as partners who want to know their gift is making a difference, Abby built a solid community of donors with a retention rate you won’t believe. Join us as we explore Abby’s best strategies for acquiring new monthly donors, forging personal connections in innovative ways, and creating meaningful touchpoints that relate to your organization’s mission. You’ll also hear Abby’s best advice for young fundraisers and why having someone dedicated specifically to cultivating monthly donors can make all the difference. Don’t send your most consistent givers another tchotchke. This episode is chock-full of ways to show your monthly donors the full impact of their gift.