🌟 From the Weekly Spark, my weekly email with one useful idea for nonprofit fundraisers. This one’s about finding monthly donors. Subscribe here.
At the Bridge Conference this summer, I spent much of my time helping people grab flying cash out of our machine (really!). Meanwhile, one of our clients, who was there as both a speaker and an attendee, sat in on a session from Blakely Fundraising and liked it so much that she shared the presentation notes with me.
One finding immediately caught my attention:
🌟 New donors are 3.5 times more likely to convert to monthly giving during their second year.
Not right after their first gift, which is when many of us might think is the right time to ask. During their second year.
The research also found that donors who have previously increased or decreased their gifts are three times more likely to become monthly donors than those whose giving has never changed.
How to Spot Monthly Donors
In other words, some of your best monthly giving prospects may already be in your database. You just have to pay attention to how they’re engaging so you know when to ask for a deeper commitment.
Who made a first gift last year and has stayed engaged?
Who changed their gift amount?
Who attended an event, opened your emails, or came back and gave again?
This is where agentic AI gets interesting.
Instead of pulling a list of one-time donors and treating them all the same, imagine asking your fundraising platform:
“Which donors are showing signs that they might be ready to give monthly, and how should we reach them?”
AI could identify the right people, consider their complete history, and prepare personalized outreach. But only if it can see the full relationship.
That’s why getting your data ready matters. It’s not about chasing the newest technology. It’s about recognizing the opportunities already in front of you and acting on them at the right time.
🌟 And if you, like many people I talked to at Bridge, are wondering what the heck agentic AI is (and why you should care), I wrote an article for Nonprofit Tech for Good that breaks it down in plain language.
Once again, it all comes back to data. The more complete the story it tells, the better AI can identify which donors may be ready to become monthly donors and help you reach them at the right time.
Update: Monthly giving expert Erica Waasdorp disagreed with this research, and she makes a strong case for asking much earlier. Read her take and see where we landed.
This first ran in the Weekly Spark, my weekly email with one useful idea for nonprofit fundraisers. No homework, no hard sell. Get the next one in your inbox.
