Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Checklist for Starting a Sustainer Program

Monthly-giving programs don’t have to swallow up staff and resources.

Anne Ibach, director of membership at Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), and Nova Hamar, president of the consulting firm LKA Fundraising and Communications, put together an outline of what organizations need in place to start a successful recurring-donation program.

Here is a checklist based on their suggestions.

• Assign a staff person to recurring donors. You want to have somebody who is ultimately responsible for the program.

• Set a budget. Calculate how much revenue you’ll take in monthly and yearly from recurring donors and how much you’ll spend on marketing and solicitation. Don’t forget to estimate how the recurring-donation program will affect other types of gifts.

• Put tools in place to accept monthly donations, such as:

  • monthly charge-card processing; this might be Paypal or another system.

  • electronic funds transfer (EFT) processing, which allows for the direct transfer of money from a donor’s bank account to a charity.

• Establish database functions that allow you to:

  • record monthly credit-card charges and EFT.

  • create codes for recurring donors and their contributions in a way that lets you track recurring donations and acknowledge these donors differently from people who give a single gift.

  • automatically renew sustainer contributions, monthly or annually, to ensure that the payments continue to be processed.

  • generate reports on revenue, gift analysis, and donor attrition.

  • generate a list of recurring donors.

  • exclude recurring donors as needed from other efforts, such as renewal mail or other appeals.

• Name the group of recurring donors. Think about what branding makes sense for your organization. Something simple like “sustainers” works for some groups, but other nonprofits choose names that are specific to their organization or cause. For example, monthly donors to OPB’s jazz station KMHD are called the “Rhythm Section.”

• Decide if your organization will offer special benefits for recurring donors, such as events, discounts, or public recognition.

• Write terms of agreement for recurring donations. OPB makes accepting these terms a requirement before donors can make their gifts.

• Prepare the materials you need for accepting donations online and add them to your website.

  • Clearly link to a recurring-contribution form from the home page and from the one-time contribution form.

  • Offer donation amounts that are appropriate for monthly gifts, as opposed to one-time gifts. Organizations should test what dollar amounts work best for them.

  • Set up a means by which recurring donors can increase their existing monthly contribution online.

  • Create online confirmation and email acknowledgments that are appropriate for recurring gifts rather than one-time contributions.

• Develop a way to get data out of the online system and into your organization’s database, with appropriate account and contribution codes to designate monthly gifts.

• Train customer-service and data-entry staff to handle questions and contributions from recurring donors.

• Put plans in place for:

  • performing regular quality-control checks on the data.

  • obtaining updated credit card information for declined cards. With so many high-profile data breaches leading consumers to replace their cards, it’s more important than ever to have a strong program in place to encourage donors to provide information about their new cards—using email, mail, and telephone reminders combined with the ability to enter information about the new card online.

  • following up on closed checking accounts or insufficient fund notices.

  • mailing each recurring donor a tax receipt at the end of the calendar year.

• Create a yearly calendar for:

  • acquisition: Plan how to attract more monthly donors.

  • acknowledgements: At OPB, thank-you letters are sent weekly, acknowledging all new pledges.

  • upgrades: Plan how and when you will ask donors to give more.

  • cultivation: Develop a plan to keep sustainers engaged.

• Examine your segmentation of donor communications and appeals. Be sure you tailor your use of these existing channels to give special recognition to recurring donors:

  • Web

  • Events

  • Newsletter

  • Annual report

  • Email

  • Social media

  • Direct mail

  • Telemarketing