Your donors really do want to give you all the money they promised when they made their pledge. But life happens and they often forget.
How does that impact you? Well, if the national average on monthly donation fulfillment is 8.5 out of 12 months then your $30/mo. donor gives you $255 instead of $360 for the year, a loss of $105! If you have 750 donors in that category, your loss is $78,750 annually on money they promised to give!!
You need to help them. But rather than bombard them with “reminder” letters and phone calls, make their life really simple with electronic giving. They’re already used to doing that with mortgages, car payments, utilities, ISP’s and other ministries. Frankly, your younger demo-donor has a hard time even understanding why anyone would write a check, find an envelope, hand address it, buy a stamp, lick it, stick it and go to a post office to mail it.
The truth is all of us want and need more convenience when it comes to handling the responsibilities of life. Managing finances certainly is near the top of the list.
As part of your 12 Month Fundraising plan, set a goal to convert at least 10% of your check writers to credit card and electronic funds transfers.
Here are four easy ways to make that happen.
1. Get your monthly donors signed up for electronic giving during your next fundraising event. Most will be willing to do it on their credit card. For those who prefer EFT, make sure you get them to sign up as easily as possible either on the web or by a snail mail form you send to them.
2. Creatively use your web site all year long to sign up electronic givers online. Motivate them to become monthly electronic donors with a variety of creative appeals on the homepage.
3. Every snail mail communication that goes out your door needs to include an easy sign up form with a postage paid response vehicle and a clear identification of your website with step by step directions to help them sign up online.
4. If you really want to bump up your electronic donors in a hurry, offer them a sign up incentive. Free music or some kind of logo item often adds a little extra motivation to sign up now rather than put it off with good intentions.
Make their giving as easy and convenient as you can and you’ll experience these advantages when you convert your monthly donors to electronic giving:
• Increasing pledge fulfillment that goes directly to your bottom line without having to raise any new revenue
• Expending far less effort in trying to “renew” donors
• Serving your donors by making giving simpler and more convenient for them
• Saving the ministry money on check processing, postage, pledge tracking, lapsed donor efforts, etc.
The time and effort you put into serving your donors through electronic giving is the most efficient and effective way to raise more revenue immediately without any additional fundraising appeals.
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