 Hello. Welcome. So glad to have you here. You're joining us for another episode of The Nonprofit Show. And today we have with us Erica Wasdorp, president with A Direct Solution. And you're going to hear more from Erica here soon. In fact, she's here to talk to us about small and mighty monthly donors. So I'm excited for this conversation, Erica. Before we do jump into conversation, we want to remind you, our fantastic viewers and our fantastic listeners, who we are, Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, is actually a way today. So you're only going to hear my voice with Erica and see my face with Erica. I think Julia might have had a little too much candy last night. She's enjoying some time away, but we're so grateful she created this platform. And I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group and honored to serve alongside as co-host each and every day here for The Nonprofit Show. We're also honored to have the continued trust and support from our amazing presenting sponsors, Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader, and The Nonprofit Nerd. If you haven't checked out these companies, I encourage you to do so. In fact, if I could assign homework, that would be the homework that I would assign. Don't do it yet though, because you don't want to miss what Erica is going to say. But in about 29 minutes, would be a great time to check them out, because they're here to help you elevate your mission truly. And again, if you missed any of our episodes, that's okay. We've got you. You can find us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, as well as Vimeo. And if you're a podcast listener, go ahead and listen to The Nonprofit Show wherever you stream your podcast. Erica, I always like to ask our guest, are you a podcast listener? Not as much as probably I should be, but I'm more like a video watcher. So I'll go on the video. Yeah. I got into podcasting during COVID as a listener, walking, exercising my dog, things like that. And it's like, oh, I want to listen to something besides my heavy breathing from being out of shape. So that was good for me. But yeah, you'll have to download it and share far and wide. So again, Erica Wastore, thank you for joining us. Erica is the president at A Direct Solution. And for those of you listening, the web address is adirectsolution.com. So welcome, Erica. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about you. We've had the chance to talk and I appreciate that. But our viewers and listeners haven't. So share us a little bit. Yeah. So I'm originally from the Netherlands. I don't know if you knew this, Jared, but yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to be celebrating 30 years come April, 30 years in this country. So really excited. Love it. Love it. Love it. Was a good move. And there, I got involved in monthly giving subscriptions. So when I moved to this country, I started working for a nonprofit. And that's where I took on the monthly giving program. And I've loved it ever since. I'm absolutely passionate about monthly giving because I can see the power, these small, mighty monthly donors that continue to support your mission, keep the lights on. And if nothing else, that's definitely what we've seen in COVID. Yeah. So true. Yeah. No, absolutely. So I'm excited to nerd out. That's what I call nerd out with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely check out the website, adirectsolution.com and, and thanks for sharing. I did not know you were originally from the Netherlands and you're coming up on a big 30 year milestone. So yeah, it became a citizen. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It became a citizen in 2008. So it's a little bit shorter than that. But yeah. Yeah. So in a voting citizen, correct? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, actually, they asked me to vote before I was a citizen, which was kind of interesting, but yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Can't do it yet. Yeah. Not yet. Not yet. Well, hey, let's dive deep. Profiles of a monthly donor. What does that look like? Like, how do we identify who these monthly donors could be or currently are? Give us, give us all you've got here. Yeah. So, so monthly donors tend to be like smaller check writers, you know, like smaller donors. They're not your big, big potential donors yet down the route. They may very well give, give a big gift, but they're typically like less than $250. They're your multiple givers. So if you have, you know, if you're reaching out to your donors, try to ask them for money multiple times a year. Those are your donors that are giving two or more gifts a year. But again, not the, not the big amount. So those are your prime prospects for monthly donors. If you look at what profiles, I mean, again, they're all over the map. They're younger, they're older, they're single, they're married. There's not really a, like a particular, like, these are your perfect monthly donors. But as long as they give more, more than once, if they've identified that, you know, then you know that they care enough. And then, you know, try to convert them to, to give monthly. I love that. And you're right. It's, it's the, the individuals, the constituents, the donors, the supporters, I tend to use that vernacular interchangeably. Yeah. They're the ones that do help to keep the lights on because throughout the year, when it's a high, high and low lows, it's like, but we know we can count on you. Yes, absolutely. And again, during COVID, man, we saw that those organizations that had monthly donors, they were like, wow, this is great. The money keeps coming, kept coming in. And, and even, you know, like people would call up and say, can I upgrade my monthly gift? What do you need? Oh yeah. Yeah. What do you need? How can I help? You know, so, so again, they're really committed, uh, loyal donors that are, you know, they're invested in your, in your organization. Okay. You caught my attention. Um, and you, you kind of already answered this, do monthly donors ever increase gifts? So what you just said, Erica, is yes, they do. And it happened often, perhaps during COVID. How, how does this come about? I mean, because I can't imagine all of the donors are calling and saying, I would like to increase my gift. No, so there's a couple of ways that you can do that, right? So in, in, um, so you can ask them for an extra gift. So especially now, hey, we're, you know, giving Tuesday, giving days, um, if you have a match, you know, something special, something that you say, Hey, I want my, I have, as a donor would want to know about this special opportunity that I can help some more, right? So, um, so to ask them, send them a request for a special gift at year end or at a match or giving Tuesday. Um, but make sure that you recognize them as a monthly donor in whatever you say. So you want to make sure that you say, thank you, I know you're already giving monthly, but I have this special opportunity. Uh, if you have a special project or a capital campaign, you can ask your monthly donors to participate in that. Um, and, you know, events you can, you can ask them for an extra gift. So that's one way of upgrading. The other way of upgrading is asking them for an upgrade. So, and hey, you know, everything's getting more expensive right now. So, uh, if you're a food organization, well, ask your monthly donors to say, well, food's become more expensive. We want to give more people, um, you know, special holiday basket or, or, you know, do something special for Thanksgiving for the, for the holidays. So can you consider a small, uh, increase in your monthly gift? What's the worst that can happen? People can say, no, we're not doing it, but 12% of monthly donors make, uh, upgrade when asked. 12, we love stats. We love data. Yeah. I think it's super sexy. So 12%. And I have to acknowledge, um, one of our thought leaders that's been on multiple times here on the show, um, and Macaulay Lopez, I'm going to call her out. She, and the chat box said, I give $25 a month to my alma mater and I increased. So this is, you know, 10 dollars per month. I'd love to increase again. Oh yes. I'm a sucker for extra gifts. Yes. That's, that's fantastic. So, so it's, so again, 12% upgrades when asked. And then 6% of monthly donors makes at least one extra gift a year. I mean, I work with organizations, they have like a pretty substantial number of monthly donors and, and, uh, especially religious or animal organizations, they tend to get a lot of extra gifts from their monthly donors. Oh, I bet. Now, how do you even start a monthly program? Because I unfortunately know many organizations that have not taken this path, right? Like, they really count on the year-end donors. So how might you establish this monthly donor opportunity? Well, yeah. First of all, I mean, you know, every single nonprofit has the systems now to do it. If you have a website and you have a donation platform, you have the opportunity to ask for monthly gift, right? So that's one, right? So you have the systems. I mean, when I wrote my first book in 2012, that didn't exist yet. Now, all these recurring giving platforms, these donation platforms, you know, you can work with the website, right? So start there. So take a look at what you have on your website now and then, um, create a, what I call like a monthly only page. So that way, like that's, they're very specific. That's where you want people to go to when you ask for a monthly gift to be really, really specific. And then take a look at what are some of your opportunities. If you have a welcome email series, which a lot of nonprofits are starting to create now, right? So you get all these donors from year-end, put them in a welcome email series, and then one of those emails will be an invitation to consider a monthly gift instead of just an extra one-time gift, right? So that's, that's one opportunity. Again, it doesn't cost you much money. It just needs, requires a little bit of time. Then take a look at your emails, add a button, linking to a monthly giving page. And again, literally I have clients who have multiple buttons in an email, give monthly, give now, and they're generating monthly donors because of it, right? But you got a link to that, that special page. And again, I know everybody's busy, so don't worry too much about doing it at year-end, but like come January, jump on it. I mean, maybe do a special Valentine's Day campaign, a special day of that, that fits with your organization, Earth Day, you know, environmental, something like that. We say, hey, I really want to build a little campaign around it where you have multiple emails, maybe a postcard, and perhaps even some phone calls. Again, remember, these are your smaller donors, right? So you want to get them to, to give more often and, and ongoing. So that's, that's what you're trying to get to. No, I'm curious and thank you for the permission to not do this right now at end of year. Yes. Yes. Don't do it. Don't worry about it right now. Just don't worry about it right now. But how do we take that data and the analytics, like how do we analyze it to say, okay, if we want to do this January, February, how do we take what just happened and the data from these annual donors to move them into monthly? That might be a curveball and I know I'm asking it on the fly, but can you address that, Erica? Yeah. So yeah, again, so you've got all these donors who just gave, you know, a year-end, right? So number one, you send them a thank you letter, right? You send them, if they gave online, they'll send a thank you email. Well, in, you know, like the stats and the research shows that the sooner you can get a donor to give monthly, the better off you are. So if you've got all these donors coming in year-end, come January, send them a special email inviting them to consider a monthly gift, send them maybe a special thank you letter in which you invite them to make a monthly gift. And again, take a look at those donors who've given you less than $250 and say, let me focus on those to try to convert them to make a monthly gift. So yeah. I was just part of an organization and a big ask and they wanted to ask, you know, the attendees to do $1,000 a year. And we, you know, say it said that is $83.33 a month. Exactly. Yes. You know, that's what it is. And so I love taking those $250 donors and under to say, you know, it could be $7 a month, it could be $10 a month, whatever that looks like. And then I've heard and I'm curious if you could speak to this, oftentimes when you move someone from an annual to a monthly, they actually tend to give more over. Oh, oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, if you look at the fact that on average donors tend to give like one and a half to two times a year, right? Even those organizations that have that mail more often. So, so if you can get them, like if you look at the fact that even an online gift is about $111 right now, right? So if the donor gives an online gift to $111, well, if you can convert them to $25 a month, now they give you $300. You know, again, if you look at like mail donors, they give, they might give on average like $58 bucks. So now if you get them to give $25 a month, $300. So you've just quintupled, six-tupled the value of your monthly donors by doing that, right? And the impact of that, right? Like the impact of that increased gift. Now, I'm going to flip the script because I've also heard from fundraisers that are nervous in doing that and actually feel that that's being disrespectful. Can we just like talk about the elephant in the room and say, and say like, okay, here's why we're doing this and we're not discounting their gift. Like, we're really just saying, we do see the value of going from annual to monthly and then even from monthly to an increased. But I've heard of so many people saying, I think that's really disrespectful. How do you address that? You know, it's interesting. I haven't heard that too much that they say it's disrespectful to go from an annual donor to a monthly because I think especially now, and monthly giving is really actually very donor centric because you say to them, look, I understand that you can't give as much money as maybe you used to or you would love to step it up, but it's really a hard time to do that right now. So consider a smaller monthly gift and that fits your budget. You don't have to worry about it. It comes in automatically. It helps support the organization on an ongoing basis. And so it's just a different way for them to consider making a gift in a smaller amount. So of course, if somebody says, no, I just want to continue to write my $250 at the end of the year, totally fine. But it's typically like the number one reason why donors want to give monthly is because they want to help. The monthly is just it's a way that's more comfortable for them. To your point is like they would love to write that $1,000 check, but they can't. So now $85 or $83.33 a month is something that they can get away with. And you know, like a lot of times organizations even have they look at their board and board members, some may be able to write the big checks, but not everybody, especially if you have a very mission focused board. So starting with a monthly gift is a way to say, oh, I can do that. I can do $25 or $50 a month. And it doesn't negate their value. What I love from that too is the cash flow forecast. That's where I also nerd out. It's like, but now it's more if you can forecast the income as opposed to one big lump sum at the end, you can really start to see what that looks like. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's what again, it's like, you know, I mean, I've been doing monthly giving for 30 years. So it's been well, but even for the organization I worked at, you know, that 9-11 happened. And, you know, all of a sudden they couldn't get out in the mail and they're like, whoa, this is great. All this money keeps coming in and I don't have to go out in the mail, you know. So and that's after after that, they really said, we got to step this up because this is a wonderful, wonderful program. And they had a lot of small donors, right? So I think if you're an organization that has a lot of big donors, you know, it may not be as relevant per se. But even so, there may be some major donors that says, look, I wish I could do more. Well, they may not be able to write the $1,000 checks every month, but they may be able to do $250 a month or what have you. But that's more like part of a conversation that you have them and they say, okay, well, how can I how can I do more in a way that's helping you keep the lights on and keep your mission going? I'm curious. And this just came to me with inflation, with, you know, we say pandemics plural. So much and just kind of gone everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And with the election and everything coming up, like, I'm curious if people are saying, you know, I don't know my finances, and if I can give this big lump sum, like, it would actually be a little bit more consistent for me, my own personal budgeting purposes from the donor. This is what I can commit to. Are you seeing that start to take place? Yeah, I see that as well. And I think, you know, like, there's a couple of organizations that have started to test, like asking for smaller amounts, you know, during this time. And what they're seeing is that, you know, like they're saying, well, okay, as little as $5 a month will make a difference. And then when the donor gets to the page where there's multiple options, they might still self-identify and say, oh, I'll pick $25 a month, right? But they're getting more people to go there and thus more monthly donors by asking for that smaller amount, like just as little as, you know, $5 or $7 a month can make a difference. So I think it's just a really donor-centric way of giving. Do you see that tied into any milestones? So here's here's an example, you know, 50th anniversary, you know, then do you ask someone to give $50 a month? I mean, I, you know, it could be one of the questions, but you're better off like saying just even as $5 a month or 10 or, you know, and then 50 is an option on the form. Because again, if we look at industry average, it is $25 a month. But there are organizations that are seeing $60 a month on average, you know, so, but there's also organizations like the ones, I mean, if you look at it, the public TV and public radio stations, they've been some of the, and some animal welfare organizations, they've been sort of like the leaders of the pack, if you will, and they're getting like $12 a month. So they're having more, but smaller amounts, right? So, but again, they, you know, they have grown tremendously. So we have a live question. And so I'd love for you to address this. Can you speak on best practices for processing these monthly gifts? Okay, that's a great question. So the big, the first question, though, is what's your system? Because there are so many systems out there. So take a look at your donor base, CRM, and your, and your donation platform. But in terms of processing, like, so you want to make sure that, and I always recommend that if you haven't done this in a while, test it first. So make, make a gift, make a monthly gift, and say, what is your thank you landing message say, then what is your thank you message say, is that as warm and fuzzy as you want it to be, right? All of those are built into your system. Okay, they're ready there, but you have to customize it a little bit, perhaps, to make sure that it's as warm and fuzzy as you say. And then I always recommend, no matter how somebody came in, that you have a thank you letter that you send out. I mean, some people call it a welcome kit, you know, it does, you don't have to go very shmancy fancy, as long as it goes out quickly. And that will have, sorry to interrupt, is that a digital or snail? No, that's a snail mail. So they're online, you know, the landing page and the the thank you message is digital in most cases. But no matter if they came in digital, I always recommend sending something in the mail that they can hold on to that has your contact information. And, you know, preferably an email, I don't send a phone number so that if they have questions, they know whom to find. So again, you know, because they may have questions about your mission or what you're doing, they may also have questions about their gift, right? So those are a couple of key things that I recommend that you have in place. You don't need to send them thank you letters in the mail every month. But I do recommend that you have a tax receipt in January for all of their gifts. So and again, yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, some systems will be able to pull that online, you can send it digitally, others, you may just have to send it by mail. Again, I'm still, you know, I'm old school, I love mail. So I still hold on to it. It's not an invoice, right? Like that's when we love mail. Exactly. Exactly. It's not an invoice, right? It's just an overview of your gifts and it's for your taxes. So it's a courtesy, it's a service that you're doing to your donors, right? So those are just a couple of things in processing. But, you know, at the end, I'll share my email address. So happy to, you know, talk one on one on that, because unfortunately, I wish they were the same, but they're not. Unfortunately, I don't know why, but every system is different. So and some systems do one thing really well and others, you know, not so much. So and I even work with like systems to help saying, these are some of the best practices. And then now here is how you actually implement, like, for example, with Blumerang, I've done work with them where we did an academy thing. So you can, if you, if you, you know, have Blumerang, you can go on the academy and there's the best practice piece. And then it's like, how do you now do it in Blumerang? How do you then process it? So how do you do it? We have another live question. You're very popular, Erica. So this one's very brief, but I think what they're asking is for monthly, do you recommend checking account debit card or credit card payments? All of them. Yes. Yes. All of them. And the reason is if you can get them to give you their checking account, your golden, your retention rate is going to be 95%. That's going to be one of my questions, because if you're having these monthly donors, I know credit card fraud happens, identity theft, you know, and I'm just as guilty that I get a new card and I forget to update it. Absolutely. Totally. Yes. So that's what, you know, so if you can get them to go checking account right off the bat, perfect, because people don't change their banks that often, right? You know, but then credit card, debit card, and, you know, PayPal is still, it's also very popular, you know, Google pay, Apple pay, that is starting to get more popular, but it's not quite there yet. So if you don't have it, if you can't handle it, that's totally fine. Just these people can always pay by credit card, right? So, but yeah, so because if you have credit card monthly donors, you need to make sure also that you have some systems in place to follow up. And this is where a lot of organizations, you know, they might miss out on those things because they think, oh, it's all processing great. And, you know, so I always recommend like having what we call like a retention day, once a month, take a look, sit down and say, how many monthly donors do I have, annualize the value? Whoa, geez, you know, we got a hundred monthly donors, they were $30,000, you know, it's a lot of money if you look at it, annualized, right? And then say, what is, what's the value at risk? How many monthly donors, their payment didn't come in because their credit card expired or declined for some reason, right? And then follow up, send an email, send a mailing, pick up the phone, you got to do all of the three things to really, you know, keep it going. And you're doing the donor service by doing that. It's not a nag. I know people are like, oh, I don't want to nag my donors. And it's like, you're not nagging, you know, because to your point is like, I'm, you know, I mean, who knows, you know, when their last monthly gift payment was taken out of their card, right? Even if you get reminders, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't like sink in, right? So, so yeah, so you're just like, you know, you just get given doing the donor service by saying, hey, it looks like your card payment didn't come in this month. Maybe you got a new card. And then if you talk to them live, they're willing to talk to, you know, give you their updated information. Sometimes they may need an email, sometimes they may need another email, right? Sometimes they may need, you know, like a letter. So, so do all of those things. Because it's kind of what they call like in subscription world, right? You know, so it's like, it's involuntary churn, right? So in other words, they didn't tell you that they wanted to stop, right? Their card payment didn't come in. So, you know, so it's really important to remember that. We're coping that commitment. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't want to forget this. And our time goes fast, Erica. I warned you. And I knew we were going to nerd out and just connect and have a great conversation. Give us your email address because we have your web address here. Yeah, directsolution.com. But what's your email? It's, it's Erica at a directsolution.com. Okay, Erica. Erica, E-R-I-C-A at a directsolution.com. So, but if you go to my website, you can contact me there as well. So, yeah. Well, I love this stuff. Lots of resources right there on the website. So download it, you know, so. I love it. The passion shows through. It's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's addictive. So thank you for bringing the passion. You're welcome. Yeah. And again, I always say this, like, I learned from nonprofits like you, because you're doing it, right? So you're coming with these questions like, Oh, yeah, let me write a blog about that. You know, or, hey, this is like, you know, or yeah, geez, I haven't thought about that in a while. So let me just take a look. You know, so one of the things I'd love to, to our, our viewers question is how do we get the bank account? Right? Like, how do we move them from debit credit card into bank account? Because I'm thinking, you know, maybe that's not our first ask if they are not so easily giving us that. But after a long term, you know, commitment, how might we move them to that? So. Well, again, most, you know, most systems are starting to add it now. So it's, it's, it's on there. You know, and you know, sometimes organizations have like, they have like checkwriters that they have to send reminders or whatever. Well, again, that's a perfect group to try to convert them to say, Hey, well, if you know, you did this via ACH, electronic bank transfer, we would save a lot of money and more money can go to help the animals or the clients or the individuals we serve, right? So. Great information. Do you check out a direct solution.com and check out Erica Erica at a direct solution.com. Thank you so much for that. It's been a pleasure. Julia is probably still snacking on the Snickers or at least she is, but I've enjoyed this conversation. I'm Jared Ransom, of course, the nonprofit nerd. And we, of course, also want to honor our amazing presenting sponsors. Now's a good time to check them out. In fact, Blumerang, American nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy at the National University, Be Generous, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, as well as the nonprofit nerd. So thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to our guests. It's been such a pleasure. And I appreciate you spending some time with me. Yeah, you're welcome. Go get more monthly donors. I know we've got to do that. And I love that you said not now, but not now, January. Yeah, January, February. So for all of you that joined us as we end every episode, we ask you to stay well so you can continue to do well. I appreciate you, Erica, and I hope to have you back on. Yeah, we're welcome.