Moving your donors into a monthly giving program is one of the most high-impact, important things you can do. It completely transform the effectiveness of your program.
Here are some things you should know about building a monthly giving program, from the Charity How To Blog: The 7 fundamentals of Monthly Giving. Here they are:
- Understand how monthly donors are different. (They are often smaller donors who understand that methodical giving really adds up. Many are also very motivated by the ease and convenience of monthly giving.)
- Start your program with minimal resources. (Getting started online is a very affordable way to build a monthly giving program.)
- Create a monthly donor recognition plan.
- Define your ask amounts at the low end of the spectrum and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
- Market your program via email and social media.
- Annualize the value of your monthly donors when you present the results of your activities to others. (Average gift is not the point with monthly donors!)
- Plan for growth. (Commit to it, and you can make it grow.)
Here's the secret of why a monthly giving program matters so much. It's not because it increases the amount each donor gives -- though that often happens.
The really big deal is this: The retention rate of monthly donors is typically higher than 90%!
That's far better than even the best regular fundraising program. The impact of that high retention rate is phenomenal. If you don't have a monthly giving program in place -- get to work on it now!
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. 
