A strong recurring giving program enables fundraisers to spend less time and resources chasing last year’s donors. While new donors are still important, the focus shifts from bringing in new, one-time donors to retaining donors and creating recurring donors from the get-go. Data shows that recurring giving offers a host of benefits, including:

• Retention savings: When you consider the effort and resources needed to find new contributors compared to retaining them, establishing a successful recurring giving program can be a game-changing addition to your fundraising strategy. Research shows that nonprofits generally spend about $1.50 to acquire a new donor, while existing donors only cost about 20 cents to retain.
• Predictability: Your organization can plan your budget more confidently when you’re supported by consistent recurring donations. For example, you can expand your operations knowing you have the budget to hire new staff or plan a multiyear project.
• Higher retention rates: Blackbaud reports that organizations with established monthly giving programs have seen an 82% retention rate for monthly donors versus a 44% retention rate for individual gift donors.

• Greater lifetime value: Recurring donors outperform one-time or annual givers by as much as 600–800% over their lifetimes. They also stay active two to three times longer, reducing donor acquisition and retention costs. This leads to meaningful revenue over time. Consider calculating the average retention rate of your recurring donors to better understand the lifetime value of a recurring donor compared to a one-time donor.

A recurring giving program requires more than simply offering monthly giving options (we wish it was that easy!) Converting one-time donors into recurring supporters takes intentional design, clear communication, and the right tools. The following strategies can help you build a program that makes recurring giving feel both easy and rewarding for your donors.

1. Offer multiple payment options.

Think about the last time you abandoned an online purchase because your preferred payment method wasn’t available. Your donors experience the same friction. Make it easy for your supporters to give by clearly listing on your online donation form all payment methods accepted by your nonprofit. A few essential options include debit/credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, and ACH direct deposit.

2. Let donors manage their own plans.

One of the most common hesitations donors have about recurring giving is the fear of being locked in. If their financial situation changes, they want it to be easy to pause or adjust their donations. Put those concerns to rest by giving your donors the ability to change their own account details, such as payment information, donation frequency, and gift amounts. Supporters will feel much more comfortable participating in the program knowing they have the flexibility to make adjustments down the line.

3. Prioritize mobile-friendly designs.

Picture a donor who’s just attended your fundraising event and feels inspired to give on their way home. If they pull up your donation page on their phone and find it difficult to navigate, that moment of inspiration evaporates. More than half of nonprofit website traffic now comes from mobile devices, so your form should be fully responsive, use readable fonts, minimize required fields, and load quickly. A donation experience that feels clunky on a phone is a missed opportunity.

By leveraging optimized donation forms, the nonprofit organization, Seed Savers Exchange, saw the average donation rate increase by 61% YOY—from $112 to $181.

“I like the mobile-friendly aspect of Blackbaud’s Optimized Donation Forms and just how clean and streamlined the donation process is,“ said Kristin Eggen, gift officer. “Making sure donors have a seamless experience is important to us.”

4. Add a one-click recurring gift checkbox.

Adding an opt-in checkbox next to the donation amount field lets donors convert their one-time gift to recurring with a single click. That means no extra pages or extra steps. Keep the copy clear and benefit-oriented: “Make this a monthly gift and double your annual impact!” Simplicity can emphasize the value of their commitment.

5. Make recurring gifts the default display.

If you want to prioritize recurring giving over one-time gifts, show monthly giving options as the default on your donation page. You can offer an option for donors to toggle to one-time donation options if that’s their preference. It’s a small website design decision but defaulting to recurring gifts nudges donors toward the higher-value option.

6. Promote your recurring program across multiple channels.

Your donors aren’t all in the same place. Some open every email you send while others follow you on social media but rarely check their inbox. If you’re only promoting your recurring giving program through only one channel, you’re leaving a significant portion of your audience in the dark. Build a multichannel donor communications strategy that reaches supporters wherever they’re most engaged. The more potential supporters hear about it, the more likely it will be that they’ll participate.

7. Convert one-time donors through smart segmentation.

Email segment allows you to divide your donor base into audiences that share similar characteristics such as giving history, engagement level, interests, or likelihood to give.

Rather than sending a single recurring giving appeal to your entire list, craft messages targeted to likely recurring givers by using donor segmentation. You could send an upgrade request for active monthly donors approaching their giving anniversary, a conversion-focused appeal for one-time donors who’ve given multiple times in the past year, or a reactivation sequence for lapsed supporters who once gave regularly. Each message feels more relevant because it is geared toward a specific audience.

8. Share the why behind recurring giving.

Your campaign messaging matters. If you’re trying to get more one-time donors to convert to recurring donors, it’s important to share why. The reasoning could be that you’re able to receive more predictable revenue, which allows your organization to better plan throughout the year. You could be restricting the recurring revenue to a certain program. Whatever the reason, sharing why it matters will make one-time donors more likely to shift to recurrent giving.

9. Provide consolidated tax receipts.

For donors who give monthly, receiving 12 separate tax receipts over the course of a year creates unnecessary clutter. We have a hard enough time keeping track of general tax information! By offering a single consolidated annual receipt, you’re showing donors that you respect their time by making their year-end accounting a little easier.

Beyond the practical benefit, you can think of the annual receipt as a stewardship opportunity. A well-crafted year-end summary shows donors the total impact of their giving over the past 12 months, reinforcing the value of their ongoing commitment and opening the door to a renewal or upgrade conversation in the new year.

10. Create recurring giving tiers.

Once you’ve established a recurring giving program, take a look at the most popular recurring giving amounts and divide those amounts into tiers. For example, you could outline it as: Tier 1: $250/month, Tier 2: $100/month, Tier 3: $50/month. Each tier could receive a variety of benefits, like swag with your organization’s logo, special content, or invitations to exclusive events.

This gives your donor a natural path to upgrade their recurring donations over time. Incentives also might entice one-time donors to become part of your recurring ecosystem.

Even the best recurring giving strategy will stall without the right infrastructure behind it. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that can help you seamlessly drive recurring donations and bolster a recurring program.

• Donor management software: Consider the fundraising elements of a healthy donor network: marketing campaigns and analytics, research efforts, database maintenance, fundraiser performance tracking, and donor communications. Donor management software consolidates these time-consuming processes to make it easier for organizations to utilize donor metrics and effectively engage your donor base.

• Flexible donation forms: Donation forms are the last step in the online donation process. Making it easy to give ensures your donors follow through. Offering multiple payment methods, displaying recurring options prominently, and delivering a seamless mobile experience removes the friction that causes donors to abandon the process at the finish line.

• Credit card updater: When credit cards expire, it can be time-consuming to reach out to all donors and ask them to update their cards. If you can’t get a hold of the donor, it can lead to loss in revenue. Credit card updating tools work with the credit card provider and automatically update the card information when the original card expires. This saves fundraising teams time and hassle.

• AI-driven suggested ask amounts: Instead of having a donation form with static suggested donation amounts, you can leverage AI tools to adjust the gift amounts displayed depending on how much the donor is likely to give. The form updates the suggested donation amount for each donor, based on the individual’s device, location, browser data, etc. for each donor.

• Predictive analytics: With predictive modeling, you can identify the supporters with a high likelihood of becoming monthly givers. This helps you segment your donor base and create targeted campaigns that engage these potential donors.

Predictive analytics with Prospect Insights—included in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®—has helped the team at Vecova tag opportunities, create actions, and assign records to specific fundraisers.

“This has led to more personalized and effective donor engagement,” said Kathy Bhana, fundraising associate.

It can be helpful to see recurring giving tools in real-world scenarios rather than theoretical situations. Great example: The San Diego Humane Society wanted to enhance its recurring donor program by improving stewardship touchpoints.

With Raiser’s Edge NXT, they identified donors who already gave twice per year and reached out to these donors via phone calls. They also conducted an online marketing campaign using Blackbaud’s marketing solutions to increase awareness to a wider audience through social media. With these efforts, San Diego Humane Society has seen an incredible 500% increase in monthly donors.

Another way they’ve improved their recurring giving program is through Credit Card Updater, offered exclusively to Blackbaud Integrated Payments™ customers, to avoid time-consuming and potentially awkward calls to donors with expired credit cards.

“It’s something really simple, but every time we don’t have to pick up the phone and call a donor or email a bunch of times, we are really grateful,” shared Jennifer Grantham, Senior Director of Annual Giving.

In the first three years alone, San Diego Humane Society recovered 1,221 credit cards representing over $58,000 in what could have been lost revenue. The organization also saved an estimated 200 hours of staff time.

If you’ve been relying primarily on one-time gifts to fund your organization’s work, you already know the uncertainty that comes with it. There’s the scramble at year-end, the unpredictable gaps, and the donors who gave once and never came back. A strong recurring gift program addresses those challenges. It gives you the predictability to plan and the donor relationships to sustain your mission for the long term.

But strategy alone isn’t enough. The organizations seeing the greatest results, like San Diego Humane Society, pair smart donor engagement with technology that handles the operational complexity behind the scenes.

Blackbaud offers an integrated suite of fundraising solutions designed to help you build and scale a recurring giving program with confidence.

• Raiser’s Edge NXT gives you a complete view of your donor base, with the analytics, segmentation, and communication tools you need to identify high-potential recurring donors and engage them at the right moment.
• Blackbaud Donation Forms make it easy to present recurring gift options, accept multiple payment methods, and deliver a seamless mobile experience that turns first-time visitors into long-term supporters.
• Credit Card Updater prevents disruptions in recurring giving by keeping your donors’ credit cards up to date. If an expired card is on file for a recurring gift, the tool will update the card automatically when the card issuer provides a new expiration date.
• Prospect Insights uses artificial intelligence, predictive modeling, and public wealth and asset screening to provide fundraising recommendations within Raiser’s Edge NXT.

Whether you’re just starting a recurring program or you’re ready to take your program to new heights, recurring giving is worth the investment.

Learn how to maximize recurring donations with Blackbaud.