Sustaining Giving Campaign

Hi Jenny,

Rolling out a sustainer push in January makes a lot of sense.  A sustainer push early in the new year is a great way to convert one-time and year-end donors to a monthly gift.  We've had several Go! clients work with us to build out the last of their three campaigns, then hold off and actually launch the campaign on their own according to their own timeline.

On the question of campaign structure and whether to do a one-off appeal (as you mention) or a sequence of messages (as the Go! guides suggest) - I'll just go ahead and admit my bias:  I always push for a multi-message campaign.  There are cases where this doesn't make sense, of course, but generally, if you can create a compelling sequence of messages, the overall campaign will perform better from a donor conversion perspective than a one-off message.  In general, our research has shown that a three-part fundraising campaign raises nearly 4X as much from donors as a one-off appeal.

That said - the question is then:  how can a sustainer push be structured as a timely, multi-message campaign?  Here are a couple examples:

If you're offering a premium as an incentive to sign up as a monthly donor (a common, and effective tactic), you can create timeliness around the premium.  You can either have the premium offered for a limited time, and create a sequence of messages that build up to the end date of the offer, or you may have a limited number of premiums available, in which case you can use the sequence of messages to "count down" the number of premiums that are still available.  If I have 50 signed copies of a book by a popular, Oklahoma author that is somehow connected to OMRF and your mission (for example) that I'm using as premiums, I can let folks konw that there are only 10 more copies left - act now before we run out!

Alternatively, you might create a recognition program and have it apply to the first 100 donors, with a goal of raising at least $5,000 per month with their giving commitment.  You could publish those 100 donors names on your website, invite them to a special event at your facilities, or otherwise provide a meaningful way for them to deepen their relationship with OMRF as a special recognition for their commitment.  This gives you a specific goal to march towards that you can use as a way to report your progress over a sequence of messages.

Last, but not least, if you're only doing a one-time ask for sustaining support, it probably makes more sense to target that one-time message to individuals who gave a one-time (especially first-time) gift within the past 30 days.  As with your welcome series, you can use Convio to automate the message and target it to first-time, one-time donors.  That makes the ask timely to the donor - in the sense that right now, that particular donor is engaged enough to give and it may be the best time to ask them to make a bigger commitment to supporting OMRF.

-patrick