6 Key Benefits of Recurring Donations for both Nonprofit Organizations and the Donors Who Give

Does your organization offer donors the ability to give scheduled recurring gifts throughout the year? If not, you are missing out on a variety of benefits to both your organization and the donors who give. Here are a just a few reasons you need to allow your donors to give scheduled recurring gifts:

Recurring Gifts Help with your Budget Planning.
One key benefit of scheduled gifts is the ability to make future plans based on projected revenues. When donations are scheduled to arrive each month, you can better anticipate funding that will be available at any point during the year, and you can make budgeting decisions accordingly.

Recurring Gifts Have Been Proven to Increase Donor Retention.
Did you know that donors who give regularly through scheduled monthly giving are far more likely to stick around than those who give an occasional one-time gift? According to Network For Good, retention rates exceed 80% for donors who give monthly for a full calendar year. Once they’ve given for five years, the retention rate increases to 95%. That means that once donors start giving to you in this manner, they are far more likely to continue giving over time than those who give a one-time gift from time to time.

Recurring Gifts Increase Your Donations, While Lowering Your Costs.
It’s not surprising that nonprofit organizations typically receive more funds from donors who give recurring gifts than those who give one-time donations. According to donorbox.org, “The average monthly online donation is $52 ($624 per year) compared to the average one-time gift of $128.” That’s a difference of almost $500 in donations! In addition to the increase in revenue enjoyed by nonprofits, these organizations are also able to enjoy reduced costs. For example, organizations will save money on marketing expenses for donation requests they would otherwise be sending regularly to these donors. Furthermore, organizations can also save on administrative costs associated with manually entering one-time donations or individual checks. In fact, the ServanTek donation processor also reconciles transactions, which saves even more time and money for your admin team.

In addition to the benefits to your organization mentioned above, offering scheduled recurring gifts provides a variety of benefits to your donors as well.

Scheduled Recurring Giving is More Convenient for Donors.
When donors decide to setup a recurring gift, they can simply set it and forget it. While they’ll see the donation on their credit card or bank statement each month, it takes little to no effort on the donor’s part to continue giving throughout the year.

Scheduled Recurring Giving Allows Donors to Plan Out their Giving.
Just as organizations enjoy the benefit of easily planning for expenditures throughout the year, donors can also better plan their monthly spending, when they know how much money they’ve determined to give to charity. Rather than receiving an emotional year-end appeal, and scrambling to figure out how to give to charity, while also purchasing Christmas gifts, your donors can feel good about the fact that they’ve given all year long in support of your cause. They will also have the satisfaction of knowing they were able to give a much larger sum over the course of the year than they ever would have been able to give at any one point in the year.

Scheduled Giving Often Provides Donors with Online Access to their Giving History.
When tax season rolls around, it’s helpful for donors to have an idea of the amount of money they’ve given throughout the year. Most online giving systems that offer recurring donations also allow donors to view their giving history online. This makes it easy for donors to find their tax deductible donations all in one place at the end of the year.

If you are ready to offer recurring giving options to your donors, check out the ServanTek Donation Processor, or contact us today!