How to Start a Monthly Giving Program (and Why Recurring Donors Are Worth the Effort)
Most development offices are quietly running a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You spend the first quarter of the year winning new donors, the middle of the year thanking them, and the last quarter asking them to give again before December closes the books. Then January arrives, the totals reset to zero, and you start filling the bucket all over again. It is exhausting work, and it is honest work, and for a lot of us it has simply been the only model anyone ever handed us. There is a quieter, steadier approach sitting right underneath all that effort, and it starts with a single shift: inviting your donors to give a little every month instead of a lot once a year.
That is what a monthly giving program is, and it is one of the more encouraging things I have learned about in fundraising. It does not require a bigger team or a new database. It asks you to change one question you are already asking, and it rewards you with the kind of predictable, loyal support that makes every other part of the job easier.
What the Numbers Actually Say About Recurring Donors
I want to start with the evidence, because the case for recurring giving is stronger than most of us realize until we sit with the data. The headline is retention. Across nonprofits, recurring donors are retained at a rate between 78% and 80%, compared with just 32% for one-time donors. Sit with that gap for a moment. Roughly four out of five monthly givers are still with you a year later, while two out of three one-time givers quietly disappear. If you have ever felt like you were losing ground no matter how hard you worked, that spread is a big part of why.
The longevity follows the retention. The same research found the average recurring donor stays engaged with a nonprofit for 7.77 years, against 1.7 years for a non-recurring donor. That difference compounds into real money. Measured over the full relationship, the average recurring donor was worth $7,288 in lifetime value, roughly double the $3,606 of a one-time donor. A monthly gift of $30 does not look like much next to a $250 check in the mail. But the $30 keeps coming, month after month, year after year, long after the one-time gift has been spent and forgotten.
And this is not a niche behavior anymore. Monthly giving now accounts for about 31% of all online revenue, up 5% in a single year even as overall giving stayed essentially flat. Nearly one in three online dollars is arriving on a recurring schedule. Your donors are already comfortable with subscriptions in every other corner of their lives. The organizations building recurring programs are simply meeting them where they already are.
Why Recurring Giving Works
The numbers are compelling, but they only make sense once you understand what is happening underneath them. A monthly gift changes the relationship, not just the payment schedule. When someone signs up to give every month, they have made a small but real decision to fold your mission into their ordinary life. They are no longer deciding whether to give each time you ask. They have already decided, and now they are simply living inside that decision. That is a fundamentally warmer place to stand with a donor than the annual scramble to re-earn a gift you had last year.
There is a striking finding that captures this. In one large donor survey, 58.6% of recurring donors set up their gift without ever being directly asked by the organization. They gave because they felt connected to the mission and wanted a way to express that on their own terms. That tells me two things. First, the desire to give steadily is already out there, larger than most of us assume. Second, if that many people are signing up without an invitation, imagine what happens when you actually extend one clearly and warmly.
This is also why recurring giving pairs so naturally with the work you are already doing to keep donors close. A monthly program is really retention built directly into the gift itself, and it belongs inside the larger annual giving program rather than off to the side as a separate project. The monthly donors become the steady floor that the rest of your fundraising stands on.
Building a recurring program is mostly a matter of good systems — a clear invitation, a simple welcome sequence, a steady rhythm of updates — run consistently over time. A few well-built prompts and workflows can carry a lot of that load so you can focus on the donors themselves.
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How to Actually Start a Monthly Giving Program
If you are convinced recurring donors are worth the effort, the good news is that starting is more approachable than it sounds. You do not need to launch a named society with a landing page and a video on day one. You need to make the option visible, make the ask, and then treat the people who say yes like the long-term partners they are becoming.
Start by giving the monthly option a real place on your donation form. Most organizations already offer it, but offering it quietly is not the same as inviting it. The evidence here is clear: forms that recommend the monthly interval, rather than defaulting to one-time, bring in dramatically more recurring revenue. The nudge matters. When a donor lands on your form ready to give, the interval you highlight shapes the decision they make in the next ten seconds.
Next, make the ask directly and give it a name people can join. Instead of a generic "give monthly" checkbox, invite donors into something with a small identity to it — a sustainers circle, a monthly partners group, whatever fits your mission. People join things more readily than they check boxes. And the ask does not have to be loud. A simple line in your year-end appeal, a note in your thank-you email, a single sentence from the stage at an event: any of these plants the invitation where a warm donor can act on it.
Then, ask your one-time donors to upgrade. This is the most overlooked lever in the whole program. A gentle prompt asking a one-time giver to make their gift monthly can produce a 64% increase in recurring donations. These are people who already trust you enough to give once. Turning even a fraction of them into monthly partners costs you almost nothing and changes their value to your mission entirely. The best moment to make that invitation is often right after a gift lands, while the warmth is fresh, which is exactly why your year-end thank-you is such fertile ground for it.
Finally, steward monthly donors differently than everyone else. The mistake I see most often is treating a recurring gift as set-it-and-forget-it on both sides — the donor forgets they are giving, and the organization forgets to say thank you. Build a simple welcome sequence for new monthly donors, tell them specifically what their steady support makes possible, and check in a few times a year with a story rather than another ask. A little intentional care here is what turns a twelve-month commitment into an eight-year one.
Some of your most loyal monthly donors have the capacity and the desire to support you in ways that reach far beyond a recurring gift — through legacy gifts and vehicles that can multiply their generosity over a lifetime. Opening those longer-term conversations is exactly what we help organizations do.
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Where to Start
If a monthly giving program has felt like one more thing you do not have time to build, here is what I would tell you to do first. None of it requires a new platform or a bigger budget — just a few small moves you can make this month.
1. Fix your donation form this week. Make sure the monthly option is not just present but recommended, so the donor most ready to give sees it first. This single change often does more than an entire campaign.
2. Add one monthly invitation to something you already send. Your next appeal, your thank-you email, your newsletter footer — pick one and write a warm, plain sentence inviting people to become monthly partners. You do not need a whole launch to make the ask.
3. Send one upgrade ask to recent one-time donors. Choose a small group who gave once in the last year and invite them, personally and gently, to make their gift monthly. Given how well upgrade asks perform, even a handful of yeses will prove the model to you.
4. Write a two-email welcome for new monthly donors. Decide now how you will greet someone the moment they sign up and what you will tell them their support makes possible. Getting the welcome right is what protects the retention that makes recurring giving so valuable, and it maps cleanly onto a steady stewardship rhythm you can run all year.
A monthly giving program is one of the few moves in fundraising that makes next year easier instead of harder. Every donor who joins is a little less ground you have to re-earn each January, a little more of your budget you can count on before the year even begins. Start small, make the invitation warm and clear, and let the steadiness do its quiet work. The bucket stops leaking, and for once you get to build on what you already have.
C.J. Bergmen is a pastor, licensed counselor, and fundraising strategist who helps organizations and generous individuals approach giving with honesty and long-term vision.