Christiana Stergiou, Fundraisingologist with Moceanic, and Harvey McKinnon, Harvey McKinnon Associates tackle an important question from blog reader Bec:
How can I get more monthly givers without a big budget?
You’ll find the answers remarkably helpful. Because a big budget is not the most important key to getting those important monthly donors!
Please share your thoughts by leaving your reply below. We’d love to learn from your experience.
2 Comments. Leave new
How much do we thing obtaining a regular giver costs? What is our DAC “Donor acquisition cost” $400?
Hiya
Monthly giving cost per acquisition will vary by several factors:
* Country
* Saturation
* Channel
* Type of cause (puppy, overseas aid, environmental, medical etc)
* Value of gift (often associated with products like Child Sponsorship)
The more mature monthly giving is, the more expensive it will be. AU$300 (about US$260) is kind of normal for a $25 a month donor from face to face in Australia. But our wages are high. It may cost AU$500 for a similar donor through direct mail & phone. BUT the latter donor will be worth more over 5 years because of better retention.
So, to adjust for your market and conditions instead of just looking at CPA look five-year return on invest, including initial costs, one off-gifts raised when acquiring the monthly donor (from other, failed-sale, donors), value, attrition and a little bit for maintenance costs. You are looking for 2.0 at least. 1.4 is about what you would expect leaving the money in investments.
For many, 4.0 or 5.0 will be possible on low volumes of donors.
Another way is to look at how long it takes to recover your costs. I would make sure we expect to cover costs within 2 years at least. In newer monthly giving markets, it could be just 9 months for lower volumes.
The cheapest, decent volume monthly givers come from converting disaster donors. That doesn’t help most of us though!
Sean