And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Happy Groundhog Day. This show is going out on February 2nd. Groundhog Day Let’s hope the groundhog, I don’t know, is the groundhog male or female? Does it matter? I don’t know. Well, it doesn’t matter whether they see their private parts. It’s just the whole shadow overall. Let’s hope, uh, He, she, or, uh, he or she, uh, yeah, just he or she, uh, does not, does not see, uh, does not see his or her shadow because, uh, that means, that means a shorter winter. Shorter winter for those celebrating Groundhog Day, uh, just in the US and Canada. It’s an auspicious date. My thanks to my brother for bringing this to my attention, that it was Groundhog Day for this show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be forced to endure the pain of ascarisis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, with what’s going on. Hey Tony, we’ve got Monthly Giving Matters. First, Dana Snyder shares info on the Global Monthly Giving Summit later this month. Then she shares what she knows about how to launch or grow your monthly sustainer fundraising, how to convert one-time donors to recurring donors. What to name your program, when to ask your sustainers to upgrade, what to give your sustainers. Storytelling, the importance of consistency, and more. Dana is the founder of Positive Equation. On Tony’s take too. Creativity robbing AI. Here is Monthly Giving Matters. It’s a pleasure to welcome, I call her the maven of monthly giving. She can, she can tell me if she objects to that. Dana Snyder, she speaks and trains on the subject, and she hosts the Global Monthly Giving Summit. She’s the founder of Positive Equation and author of the book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind. The company is at positive equation.com. And Dana Snyder is active on LinkedIn. Welcome, Dana Snyder. I love your energy and enthusiasm. Well, thank you. Are you OK with Maven of Monthly G? I, I, I love the alliteration. MMM. Let’s go. Uh, I, I’m a big fan of alliteration. Yes, listeners know, I’m a huge fan of alliteration, so. Uh, it’s not good. OK, uh, we don’t, we don’t have to carry that through the conversation, but you don’t, you don’t mind being the maven of monthly giving. You got monthly giving all over. I mean, you’re, it’s clear what you, you know, let’s, let’s open, let’s open with talking about the monthly giving summit before we talk about how we can all be doing monthly giving better. Of course, you’ll learn more about that at the summit because you’ll be attending, but let’s, let’s open with the, what do you got coming up, uh, February 25th and 26th for us. So excited. It’s the 3rd annual monthly giving summit, and I’m sure Tony, we met in person at a conference and I’m sure over the years you have attended a plethora of nonprofit conferences. I’ve been to a few, a few, a few, and so have I. And there has never been An event purely dedicated to helping orgs grow recurring revenue. Monthly giving is normally like a workshop, maybe a session, but never in its entirety does it bring together a community to do that. And so, I, in 2024, in the fall when I released my book, I was like, maybe this would be something a few people would be interested in, and I just, for anybody who’s just kind of put something out there. Wondered if if, I mean, like our podcast, right, we probably just put them out there hoping that we would get a couple of listeners way and it blew my mind. Um, the first year had 2700 registrants from about 40 countries. Last year. In February, it was 4700 registrants from 58 countries and right now we’re almost about to surpass 3000 and our goal is 7000. So about a month out when you and I are recording this right now. So, quite the appetite, um, for it, and I think why it’s very much peer-led. I didn’t want it to be a bunch of consultants. Like myself, like just out like me, like you and me, yeah, like us, although our, our insights are great. I, I, I, I, I hope we’re adding some value. I mean, we got, we got, I, there are people listening to this show. I, I hope they’re getting something from it. They’re not just squandering time totally. And I, but I think, but that was not your vision for the, for the global it wasn’t, yeah, it was, I want to amplify the voices of the. Hundreds of thousands of orgs that are doing this all the time and, and especially within recurring giving and monthly giving, a lot of the glorified examples we see are very large organizations and that’s not a true representation of our sector. And so the summit. We’re, we’re, we’re here for the other 95%. That’s right. And so those stories are told, like how they’re growing from 0 to 50 monthly donors, right? Like that might not be appealing to the large organs, but that’s a majority of people who are just trying to get started. And so we tell those stories, we bring together like panelists from The practitioner side, from a tech tool side of like how it actually happens into sports. So it’s very hands-on. My favorite sessions are the peer-led case study rooms. So there’s like pre-launch, if you’re 0 to I think 500, 500 to 5000 and 5,000+, and you can pick. Where you fit in there. What are those numbers? Those are number of donors or number of monthly donors, monthly donors. And so you’ll get to hear two case studies in each room and get to ask your peers questions. So it’s, it’s really fun. The community just again blows me away. Everybody who’s participated. And Tony, just for Virtual events standpoint it’s like the show up rate is like 60% live. The event is 2 half days, so it’s only 1 to 4 p.m. Eastern time, so it’s very manageable in the day, and people stay for of the 6 hours, 4.5 hours. So when they’re there, they’re there, it’s, it’s just, it’s very different. I, I can’t, it’s hard to express with the energy and the chat is on fire, just like supporting each other, giving examples, and it’s just, it’s truly like why. The book I coined like the mastermind is because I believe there’s so much learning amongst each other that just needs to be elevated. So where do we go for info on the monthly Giving summit? Monthlygiving summit.com. Easy peasy. It’s aptly named. It’s free. The URL is aptly named. Oh, it’s free. It’s free. All right, that’s the best part. Just monthlygiving summit.com, not global, or global monthly summit, which is it? Nope, just monthlygiving summit.com. Monthlygiving summit.com, but the event is global. You said it is scores of scores of countries coming. All right. I ended up, which was nuts, that event and in the book, I ended up speaking in Italy last summer. How cool is that? Outstanding. Things that you would never, ever, ever consider or that I never considered. Was that with Valerio Melandri by any chance, the Festival del fundraising? It was. I did. I, I’m not, yeah, I did that many years ago. He’s great. Valerio and, and Julia. Yes, yes. This was more, more than 10 years ago because I’ve lived here at the beach 10 years and it was before that I was living in New York City at the time, so. Do they still do it at the, at the like a little, at a conference center on near the lake? This was near the beach. OK, OK, they moved. All right. It used to be, when I did it, it was near the, in the lake, the Lake District, Northern, uh, near, uh, Lago de Garda, I think. But anyway, beaches, no, but beaches, no, forget, come on. I live on a beach. I’d rather have a beach than a lake. I mean, beach, ocean type beach. To me, a lake doesn’t have beaches, it has sand, but oceans have beaches. So no, fantastic. Congratulations. Valario’s terrific. Hilario Melandri. Yeah, outstanding. Congratulations. You got the, you got an international gig. All right. Help us out with monthly giving. What, just like, you know, big view, we got plenty of time together, but what are we not realizing? What could we be doing better? Start, start us out and then of course, we’re gonna dive in because I like tactics, things people can do, start thinking about, but we’ll get there. We’ll, we’ll get to the, we’ll get to the details. Big picture, what why is it valuable? What could we be doing better about it? Oh my goodness, so many things. So, I have just been reading the independent sector report that came out last year alongside doing research from Giving Tuesday in 2025. Also reading the recurly. Data report, which is a subscription, like in the for-profit world subscription report that comes out that does an analysis of, I think it’s 35 million subscribers, and so I’m always looking at the subscription economy as consumers, how does that influence what’s happening in our sector. And a couple of things that really stood out from like the independent nonprofit sector report was around the 32%. Of nonprofits have less than 3 months of cash on hand. OK, so like that’s, that’s one thing. We talked about the majority of orgs. The 95% right underneath a million dollars budget, and the, the problem that we’re seeing is there’s risk. And what’s one of the top ways to mitigate risk. And if you’re dealing with that low cash on hand, then that’s any type of friction in a donor’s journey is difficult and recurring giving. Has Notoriously had a wonderfully healthy retention rate. Right, of 80, 85, 90%, in some cases, 98% of orgs I’ve spoken with. And if you can have a higher percentage of your overall donations be a recurring monthly, monthly is the most common, which is why I talk about monthly, but obviously there’s quarterly or annually, but monthly is the most popular. Then imagine what that does to your forecasting. Look at what that does for your budget. If you could say that 40% of our budget is recurring supporters. What Runway does that give you that maybe would have never existed before, and that changes the whole dynamic of planning of programming. It changes the dynamic of the staff and the team that you can have. It changes your board discussions, like, it, there’s a lot of implications that are on the positive for it. And in years prior, I think it’s definitely been a tactic, like monthly giving has been like, A piece, maybe like a PS message, it’s great if it happens, but it hasn’t been core infrastructure. Two organizations. And that is a big change when you consider infrastructure of a of it being monthly giving. So, uh, we can dive more into that, but I think largely for predominantly smaller mid-size, I mean, all size nonprofits, but really the small ones having that sustainable base of funding is so crucial. You’re right about planning and, and forecasting. If we just know we’re getting. $10,000 a month or, or $4000 a month. What, what does that mean, uh, when we can reach those kinds of retention rates that you were talking about, you know, how does that, how does that help us plan? Um, all right, so, How do we get started? Suppose we’re, suppose we’re like 0 to 5, you know, we, we, we, no, 0. Like we have no infrastructure. We don’t have technology set up, um, for, for monthly giving, for processing. I mean, we process gifts online, but the, uh, there, there’s additional technology may be needed or support, gift processing support. Where, where, where do we need to, like, where do we need to start if we say, OK. I, I hear Dana Snyder, the Maven, Monthly Giving. Uh, I worked it in one more time. That’ll be the last time. I, I heard the Maven, I did, I’m sorry. I heard Dana and I, I, I, I see the value, but what do I do first, second. So first off, I would again. Have the mindset that it is now core infrastructure and you are going to treat it seriously. Cause if you don’t do that from the beginning, then you’re never gonna bring it up, it’s not gonna be talked about, it’s not gonna be at the forefront, it’s not gonna have a budget line item. I will give an example. So for the past 4 years, I have run a monthly giving mastermind program. So that is working with organizations who are at 0, usually at 0, and building monthly giving programs from scratch. So one organization, this was last summer, last spring. That I worked with the Picnic Project. They’re a local food-based organization in Sanford, Florida. There’s a nice alliteration, Picnic Project, the Picnic Project, um, and they had never focused on monthly giving. They had, they had a handful, I think maybe 8 or so, and I was like, look, if you’re, if we’re doing this, we’re gonna go all in, right? So we changed their home page of their website to have the button on the main homepage is to join the plenty. So we named their monthly giving program. That is the call to action. When they click that button, we built a monthly giving landing page. That all of the value propositions, the copy on that page is why you should give monthly to this organization, why you should join the plenty, why it matters, what you’re going to receive when you become a member, what, what difference it provides instead of giving one time. they’re using Give butter in this case. The form is monthly only donations, so that’s very clear. You know where you are. You cannot give one time on that page. The dollar amounts are impact-based, so $44 equals this. I’m making this up, $24 equals this, right? You know what you’re, you, you know what you’re buying, what you’re, what you’re supporting each month, yeah, correct. And Very within 2 weeks. So, homepage change. Landing page up, branded name of program. We worked with them on an initial acquisition like email series, which was 4 emails that went out to his existing audience. Doubled his monthly donors in 2 weeks. Fast forward, I think they’re up to like, what you said like 10,000. Well, they started with 8, so they went with 8 1st month they got to 16. That’s right. And then it was like it’s compounded, yeah, yeah, tremendously compounded. All right, all right, so that is, that is from like a very, it, there was a desire to focus. On this being the key call to action for donors. Like you want to support us, this is the main way we are asking for you to do it. OK, there’s a bunch of stuff there. Naming it. Now, naming, he had the Plenty, the Picnic Project Plenty. Oh, OK, that’s enough with that. All right. Enough with the Maven, enough with the illiterate. No, but I gotta call these things out because I love, uh, you know, you, you’re stuck with a lackluster host. That’s the, that’s the problem. That’s the problem with this podcast. Um. So that’s very different than, do you wanna give, is this a one-time gift or is this a monthly gift? Monthly, this is a monthly gift. That doesn’t name anything. You just, you became a monthly donor, but you, there’s no name. How important is the naming? I believe it’s very important because we are called into Be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and it, what it allows you to do is it creates branding, it creates identity, it makes it not sound transactional, which is everything we’re trying to get away from. You are a part of community by doing that. Um, it makes a, I have launched through the program 29 and all 29 of them have a name. It is core to the new monthly Giving Builder that is coming out in February, which is very exciting, um. I I love names that speak to the mission of in the transformation that this group is really trying to make happen. So the plenty is such a perfect example, right? You want to have plenty of food. Um, there’s countless wonderful examples, um, of different naming, but I love that as just a an intro because it calls people in. You mentioned what you receive. Is that, is that important? Do you, what, what, what kinds of things should our monthly givers receive? So this can really depend on, it goes back to what’s meaningful to the end user, but at a minimum, it can be, you’re gonna receive monthly communication from us. They get a separate email, even if it’s your traditional newsletter, but it’s got a spin on it and maybe it goes out a couple of days before. And it’s specifically curated to this group of people. What are they making possible? This email could also celebrate, we’re welcoming 5 new members of the Plenty this week or this month, right? So it’s something that’s a little bit curated for this group. Um, I give monthly to 6 or 7 nonprofits right now, and, uh, another example is Swag. So if you join, I just became a member of Surfrider Foundation because I really believe in ocean conservation. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for, yes, I, I live on one. Thank you, very important. The ocean is very crucial to our survival and the animals in it, and So they had an opt-in where it was like, because you became a member. We would like to send you a t-shirt. What’s theirs called? I just got it yesterday. What’s theirs called? Do you remember? I don’t think Surfrider actually they didn’t, they haven’t been listening to you. All right, well, we’ve talked about it. I think it’s just literally becoming a Surfrider member, which, which this is a great example to bring up though, is confusing because they technically call any donation. You’re a member. Membership, yeah, all right, they’re not, all right, they’re not adhering to the Maven’s best practices. All right, I’m not quitting with I’m not quitting. What I love about a shirt or like a swag item is that now I am representing, and especially if it’s cool gear, but they allowed me to opt in. It wasn’t like a you will receive a shirt, it’s like you, you can if you’d like. And then there was an email series on that, which then I gave my address after the donation. So you, I mean, there’s t-shirts, there’s emails, there could be webinars you host, maybe they get exclusive access to events that you have. These can all be largely tweaked based upon if you’re hyperlocal, or if you are national, right? I know one organization in my book, which is so cool, they’re an arts organization, and they would invite their monthly donors to go to the theater with them. So they would have an outing, right? You can do that if you’re very hyperlocal. It’s a little bit different if you’re national, but like the Trevor Project, for example, they have a curated webinar series with their leadership team for their monthly community that they get to ask them questions, they get to hear the impact that’s going on. It’s like a sneak behind the scenes, so you can get really creative. OK, OK. Uh, technology, uh, so now we don’t, we’re not even at, uh, picnic, was it picnic party? No, picnic, picnic project. We’re not even at the picnic project level with 8. We’ve got, we’ve got 8 fewer than 8. So we’ve got 0 technology. I know you mentioned Give butter. We need some kind of, we need a platform to, Do this for us. Yes, yes. OK, what are we looking for? So something that is definitely mobile friendly. Some, if you’re doing monthly, I would say monthly is either pre-selected or if you have a monthly giving landing page, it is. Solidified to be on monthly. And I think the donation form is so important, like so important. If it’s a long, daunting form, and it has like 8 different fields, and it’s really tiny to check the box on if I want to cover the fee, or if the dollar amounts can’t be tweaked, like there’s so many different elements that can make A It’s the best way to say this, to honestly, to make the that form feel like the most exciting thing they’re doing that day. Like, if you were to audit, if you were to audit your form right now. Does it feel good? Or does it just look transactional? Or is it actually generating the excitement that should be happening in that moment of the gift? Like when somebody’s signing up to be a monthly donor, that’s a commitment. Like they’re saying, I believe in not just what you’re doing today, but I believe in the vision that you have. Does your form replicate that feeling? And then, Tony, this is so important. So in the recurly data, this is two things that are so important, 2 things that are so important. All right, go ahead. The front end, the front end, feel good, look, how do people integrate, interact with it. The user interface, user interface, yeah, yeah. The second is after the gift. The donor portal is crucial, and this is something that is slowly being Improved on platforms, but not enough. So if you hear this conversation and you’re like, What is she talking about? donor portal, go ask your provider if they have it, because that’s where you go in afterwards to manage your gift. Normally, in our space, the only option is either you can’t access it easily, it’s like so confusing to figure out like what’s my email? Do I have a password? And then you log in and it looks transactional, and then the only option is to cancel a gift. In the recurly subscription report. Over 50%, this is massive, 50% of people, when provided with the option to pause a subscription instead of cancel, decided to do that, half. Can you imagine? Imagine what our retention rates would be if we uh in our tech platforms, and trust me, I have been talking to all of them about improving this because it takes all of us to proactively ask for new features and functionality from our tech platforms. I think Fundraise up is one of the best at doing this with their donor portals, but it, all of them can still be improved, um. is to make sure that we don’t. Make people feel guilty or bad if they have to pause and or downgrade. A gift. And I think that’s not talked about a lot, um, but is that you truly, if this is a relationship that’s happening, you want to make it. Easy to do what they need to do, um, along their journey with you. I love, um, there’s an organization that’s actually They have recurring first is their whole mentality. It’s actually very difficult to find how to give once on their website, which is amazing. And they call people who pause or cancel surfers. And they’re like, Oh, that’s cool. Oh yeah, they’re surfing in. They’re surfinging in. They’re surfing out, take a break. They’re laying in the sun for an hour, then they go back in and surf. Yeah, they’re surf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, celebrate the fact they sent emails saying thank you so much for being with us. We’d love to welcome you back when you’re ready. Yeah. It’s wonderful. It’s time for Tony’s take 2. Thank you, Kate. I got an email notice. That the. Artificial intelligence tool, uh, decipher at decipher.AI. Had captured. One of our episodes, it was the one from uh. It was in October, the one with Russell James, where he was talking about tax law changes. So I, I clicked the link and there before my eyes. is everything that a host or a producer could want about the show. Uh, it, this decipher had, I don’t know where, I don’t know how it had gotten the audio, but it had scraped the audio from somewhere and Uh, where it resides or, or some other link, or some link to it. And, uh, on this page, There were show notes, episode summary, 15 sample tweets, 10 sample title suggestions, 6 quotes from the show, a full article, a couple 100 word article with takeaways, uh, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram posts, and more. Everything that a host could possibly want about the show. And I reject it. I reject it all. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I don’t, I, I don’t want it. I don’t want to use it. Now, it came after the show. I mean, the show was already, uh, has already been promoted, etc. So, it’s not that I needed it. But even if I had gotten it the instant after we had recorded it somehow, Russell James and I, I would not have used it. Because this is, this is exactly my concern that if you’ve been listening for more than Probably 3 weeks, and you’ve heard me say, my concern about artificial intelligence is that it robs us of our creativity, that the act of staring at a blank screen and creating, whether you’re creating text or art or music. That is the most Creative act. That we can, that we can perform is, is from nothing, working from nothing, and it’s just our brain that creates. So I don’t wanna be reduced to the role of a copy editor of the decipher, uh, show notes and episode summary and everything else. I, I don’t wanna be a mere copy editor of my show. I wanna be the host. So, I’ll produce. The show notes and the episode summary and our excellent social media social media manager Susan Chavez will do the 15 sample tweets and the Facebook posts and Instagram posts, and I will manage the LinkedIn post as we’ve been doing for years. I don’t, I don’t need AI to synthesize for me or to create for me. I don’t need AI to listen for me to our guests. I have good listening comprehension skills. I don’t need to have the episode synthesized for me artificially and broken down. The, I think, I think one of the main things a host can do is to be a good host, is active listening. Listening. And if you, if you just see that and say, oh, I don’t really need to listen, uh, decipher will create the show notes for me. I’ll just ask a bunch of questions. You’re removing yourself from the conversation. You’re removing the humanity. From Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio or whatever content form you work in, whatever art you work in. You’re stripping the humanity and the creativity away, and you’re ceding it to a, A tool, a bot. We’re not doing that here at nonprofit radio. And that is Tony’s take 2. Kate. I don’t know where I heard this, and I maybe this is not true, but I’m hearing that there might be a downfall of AI because how they’re training these bots is by using human-made work. So they’re giving these bots human-made work, but apparently we’re running out of strictly human-made. Whatever to train these bots we’re running out, we’re running out of human content, because they’ve got everything apparently that’s what I don’t know if I saw a video or maybe the teachers said it, but I heard somewhere that we’re gonna start seeing a downfall of AI and it’s just gonna keep getting worse. Because the humans can’t create content quick enough or, or in, in abundance enough in sufficient quantity to, to feed the, feed the monster. Well, uh. That wouldn’t, uh, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings. I, I wouldn’t be upset about that. We’ve got Beu butt loads more time. Here’s the rest of Monthly Giving Matters with Dana Snyder. All right, so the donor portal, I mean, you need to be able to, you don’t, you mean you don’t have to call to, to update your credit card when, when you get a bounce or no. All right, the donor portal, uh, for, for monthly givers. Wow, so they can upgrade. They can downgrade. They can pause. They can upgrade, change their card, I guess you can change it, yeah, upgrade, downgrade, change your card. You wanna shift it to a different card. You don’t have to cancel and then start up again with a different card. You manage it on the donor portal. All right, so now. So you mentioned a couple, let, let’s, we can shout out some folks and, and, they should be sponsoring nonprofit radio this episode at least, but that’s all right. I used to know, I, I know Floyd Jones used to be at, uh, I know he’s not at Give Butter, hasn’t been for a couple of years, but I always loved Floyd Jones. So you mentioned Give Butter, you mentioned Fundraise Up. Other, other platforms worth looking at because we’re gonna go from 0 to 10 in our first month, and then we’re gonna, and then we’re gonna take a picnic party and we’re gonna go from 10 to 20, and then we’re gonna be having $5000 a month soon. So, where else should we go besides those two? Where, what, what other platforms are worth looking at? I mean, there’s so many, there’s plenty, right? If we’re talking about the smaller orgs, I would imagine many listeners are with Bloomerang or DonorPerfect or any of those platforms. And what I would say is, There are enhancements in all of these platforms that just sometimes aren’t turned on. So I would go back and if you haven’t met with the team or looked at their updated things that you can turn on or change, just start to be curious. Like, go to your website after this podcast, look it up on mobile. Do a full audit of your process. Redo a test donation. Like, how difficult is it? I know sometimes it’s like we’re just going through the motions, things are really busy, but a lot of the platforms now in 2026 have been doing improvements. It’s just that we haven’t. Changed What we have live on our sites. So, check that out, and if there’s certain things that I mentioned that aren’t possible, like, is it difficult for someone to choose. To cover your processing fee. Do you not have the ability to write in impact amounts, right? This amount equals this. Um, if there’s not a great donor portal and if, if they’re very clear and like that’s not on our roadmap, that’s not something we’re working on, then maybe you should look elsewhere. OK. Is it, are, are, are there platforms that you can add into your existing platform or it needs to be part of your, your overall gift processing? Oh, well, no, I mean, there’s definitely like. And talking about just give benefit or is that maybe that doesn’t exist. Uh, uh, you can say no, it doesn’t. There’s definitely, I mean, there’s definitely separate front-end platforms that then integrate and connect with the CRM so it doesn’t have to be that your CRM is your front-end tool. Yeah, for sure. What are, what are a couple? Can you shout a couple of those? Yeah, well, I mean, Givebetter is one. You don’t have to. Givebetter can be your front end but not your back-end CRM. Fundraise up is not the CRM, right? Um, you can definitely have different, yeah, for sure. All right. This is, it’s an investment. It’s an investment in the future. I mean, that’s what you, you, you, you know, you opened with, this is. It, it’s, it’s an, it’s an initiative. It’s a serious initiative. It’s not a secondhand thing. Like, you know, we’ll get to about like major, major gift. Major giving has always been, there’s usually a role for that because it’s serious, there’s budget line items, there’s quotas for that. Sustainer roles are now popping up. If you’re serious and your program starts to grow. And whether that’s a part-time person, a contractor, it needs, if it’s infrastructure, it has a budget, it has goals. There’s a person, associate or a team that then grows like that all happens and continues to grow when it’s treated as such. If it’s always, there’s, I was speaking actually at the Sarkey’s event, someone had. Read my book, and they’re like, we’re changing everything to be monthly giving a focus, and then it was end of year was coming up, right? And I mentioned, that’s fabulous. Tell me about your end of year strategy for recurring. And it was deer in the headlights. They’re like, we didn’t think about making recurring part of our end of year ask. And I was like, why not? And it was because it’s always kind of been how it is. And I was like, well, you’re going to start right back over in January asking the same people to give again, why not ask them for that recurring gift at the end of the year? And it, it’s just a shift in Mindset. It’s a shift in how we think about fundraising and If we want, and I, it’s so interesting because I think there’s this fear around a nervousness around it sometimes where I’d really rather get that $100 one-time gift right now because we need it right now versus having that person give me. $10 a month, even though that’s $120 over the course of the year. You know what I mean? Like, the rationale, some, a lot of times hasn’t. It’s a short term, like it’s a short-term mindset, you know, this is something we’re in for a, a longer term. You, you’ve talked about consistency, you know, consistency of marketing this over, over time. And that’s why we’re stuck where we’re at, quite honestly. That’s why like you’re not having cash flow on hand, having smart, like that’s why we are stuck in this place because we are kind of like. Doing it to ourselves. And last year it was a crazy one with all of the grants being canceled. And all of a sudden, it’s like, whoa, we need to have Our owned diversified revenue streams and it’s not the first time that it’s happened. I mean, there was an organization I wrote about in my book that went bankrupt in the 80s. Because they actually went, they were very individual donor-heavy. Then they completely switched to being, they were in Chicago, called the Whole House. They went from being very grant-heavy federally and locally, and they couldn’t pivot fast enough when the funding got cut and they shut down. Yeah, yeah. I would, I just want to let listeners in, uh, the Sarkeys. Event that, uh, Dana mentioned, that was the Sarkey’s Foundation Leadership Summit. We, we met there in October 25. It was in, uh, Oklahoma City. Sarkey’s Foundation only funds Oklahoma nonprofits. And they put in, uh, a biannual every 2 years. I think biannual, if it has a hyphen, it’s every 2 years, but if it doesn’t have a hyphen, it’s twice a year. Since, since I’m talking, I’m not gonna say bi hyphen-annual, you know, so, uh, twice every 2 years, they, they host a summit, and that’s where Dana and I met. Well, we had known each other on LinkedIn, but that’s where we met in, in person. Um, how about converting our one-time donors? Into recurring or monthly donors. How do we, what, what’s some strategies around that? Some will and some will never. And we need to be OK with that. Um, there’s a very different type of person, I think that gives to anyways, in a recurring first fashion, um, with your one-time donors, offer it. Always offer the option. Make it a clear difference again of that value proposition of why monthly matters. If you look at your data and you can see very clearly that there are specific donors that are giving to you multiple times a year, have been doing that consistently for a while, that’s a great warm group of people that you might want to offer that to, to invite them in. Um, and then, and then others might not, and that’s why it’s really important to keep refreshing, refreshing the audience, having audience consistency, consistency of message. That’s right, consistency of message and making it. Really speaking to why it matters and being, I think sometimes we try and be so stoic and professional in everything that we say in the sector, and it’s like, be honest, be transparent, be Why does this actually make a difference? Paint the picture. I, I love my movies, is what I call them, and it’s where you are providing such elaborate. visual sensory words and language in your emails, and social posts where I can depict. What’s actually happening, and I can see it. Are we letting people see it? The ones that are not going to be able to come to the, the office or the locations, or it’s international and they’re never going to be able to travel there. How do you really from a sensory perspective, bring them into the realities that you’re That you’re facing, um, and that’s really, really powerful way of moving people through. What’s in your background that drives you to this? Like, are you, are you a consistent person or like, you were, were you an OCD child or, you know, what brings you to this consistent monthly recurrence, recurring? What, what do you think? What, what, what’s in your background that brings you to this, this type of work? I mean, I grew up going on mission trips ever since I was a kid, so there was that. And then in college, are you familiar with dance marathons? No. I can imagine what they are based on the, based on the phrase. I have a, I have a capacity for learning what dance marathon might entail. You’re welcome to describe it because I want your, I wanna know how you got to this monthly thing, how you became the maven. How’d you get to be the not just how you came to nonprofits, but how’d you get to this focus, this maven. Focus the specific, yeah, well, it was like philanthropy was kind of like always ingrained. Dance marathon was in college. I was on the exec board for UCF. Goodnights, and UCF was it University of Central Florida. Correct? Very good, very good. Um, Children’s Miracle Network is what the dance marathon supported. And then, I, digital marketing is really my background and so I love audience analysis. I’ve loved digital. I grew up in the age of social media entering business. So that was naturally part of what I did, um, in my career. And then I started Positive Equation in 2017, so nine years ago, focused on digital marketing, and I love tech, and I’ve always been very adapt to and curious to what’s happening in those channels. And then really, In 2020, 2021, I was fascinated by the subscription economy. I was buying all the boxes. Yeah, we were right, we were all subscribing. We were all buying all the things, and at the same time, I was consulting with nonprofits. And a local one that I loved had just launched their monthly giving program and I joined. And then it made me look at all the nonprofits I was consulting with, and I started to ask, why don’t, why don’t you guys have a monthly giving program? Why don’t, why haven’t you considered a monthly giving program? And it was all the same answer. It was, don’t know how to do it. Where’s the education on that? We don’t have the resources. like the same things over and over again, and I was like, hm, OK, but there’s something here. Like the subscription economy is blowing up blowing up, yeah, people are getting boxes. People are subscribing on their TVs, streaming, that people are not owning anymore. They’re streaming with services that they’re subscribing to, and they’re paying high prices in some cases. The only like very notorious subscription in nonprofit was child sponsorship. That was like definitely the oldest version or tithing is another version, very right. But nothing definitely as like new age as what we’ve seen now. And so I really just dove in and started researching and talking to the platforms and organizations and took my background in marketing and built out this five-step framework, which is what I teach in my book, and in my mastermind program. And It just skyrocketed from there, and, and the other aspect that I loved was personally. I, and because I was still newer to entrepreneurship, was like, I don’t have $5000 10,000 dollars where I could just like give to an organization, but $25 a month, I felt like a micro philanthropist. I knew that my $25 a month gift compounded by hundreds of others, that’s actually going to move the needle. I felt very Like giving a one-time $50 gift doesn’t Do anything for me. Because I feel like it just kind of falls flat. And I mean, I know it makes a difference, but like, I always want to say to the like, I’m in, like you can count on me. And if I to really do what you’re trying to do, and that I still give to that organization six years later, um, the same. gift and to all the other ones, and it’s very different causes that I’m passionate about, but I always give a recurring. Amount. And so, it’s been two-sided. It’s like, I want to help orgs grow sustainable revenue and know they have people to count on to do their work and plan. And then on the other side, like the consumer side is, God, Tony, imagine if we all felt empowered that we were micro philanthropists making a difference and actually moving the needle in this wild world. Like how different would that just change society? I love micro philanthropy. So that’s a, that’s a, no, it’s a great idea. And, and it is, you know, people are saying, I, I, I want a relationship with you because I’m, I’m committing for, I’m committing indefinitely. I mean, no, no, no monthly giving program asks when do you wanna stop, which month and year would you like to stop? Nobody asks that. So I’m committing indefinitely, and then how do you, how do you average lifetime is 8 years. 8 years average. That’s outstanding. But, so I’m committing. I’m not thinking 8 years. I’m just, I’m, I’m thinking indefinitely. But then how do you, the nonprofit, come back now that I’ve said I want a relationship? I don’t wanna just write a, even, I don’t wanna just write even a $5000 check. I wanna be with you long term because I just made a long-term commitment with no end. There’s, there’s no, it’s not fine. There’s no end. So what are you now gonna do with me, not notice I didn’t say for me. What are you gonna do with me now that I’ve extended my hand in friendship and relationship? I get my hand in the, there it is, frame for the, yeah, what are you gonna do with me. In, in, uh, in exchange, you know, in reaction to my hand being extended indefinitely with you. What are you gonna do? That’s the recurring value. That’s right. I mean, that’s the transformational stories, that’s sharing the improvements of what’s happening. That’s the, the true behind the scenes. That’s the talks with the leadership. That’s you’re, you’re along for the ride. You’re part of the team. Um, and I think what we forget sometimes, I just had a great conversation, um, with a previous ED who said they had a monthly donor who had been giving $150 a month for years and went unnoticed. She finally sat down and was like, oh my gosh, I’ve never talked to this person. And just emailed them and I was like, I’d love to take you to tea or coffee, and they said, no, it’s not necessary, and she goes, no, no, no, like, please, please let me come meet with you. And they met this $150 a month donor that I’ve been giving for years, ended up giving a planned gift. Oh, that’s fantastic. Yeah, well, planned gifts, of course, my work, but yeah, they went, right, they went from something that we perceive or incorrectly as, as transactional, but, but we’re, you and I are agreeing, it’s the beginning of a relationship. I’m saying I want a relationship with you. So they went from something that we’re perceiving misguidedly as, as transactional, and then they put them right alongside husband, wife, partner, children, grandchildren, and maybe dear friends in her will. That’s right. And how interesting is that when we think about any other type of relationship, if you like just in dating, if immediately you went from You are actually dating, you are in a relationship, you’re engaged, which is basically what a monthly donor is telling you, versus somebody who just goes out once and then maybe ghosts you for a while. But yet we put so much emphasis on the people that ghost us. Yeah, right. What did I do? Yeah, it’s. But it’s true. It’s so funny when you think about it. Um, there, I mean, look, there’s a reason that the subscription economy, I mean, I’ve subscribed to my doorbell, right? There’s like a subscription for literally everything. And there’s a reason why companies doorbell in the, I know, I know, of course there are, yeah, yeah. Ring, ring, it’s called ringing or or something else. But yeah, right, I subscribe to my doorbell. It’s very good. So why not subscribe to the world you want. Yeah. Uh, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna quite end yet. Uh, even though that was a beautiful end. We’re gonna have to come up with another beautiful end, uh, for the, to be the real end. Uh, because I wanna ask about, you know, how often, how often do you ask somebody to upgrade? Hm, so, my usually rule of thumb is if they’ve been giving to you for 9 to 12 months, um, unless in every, like, that’s kind of like you walk them through a campaign to do that and you make it really exciting and you make it an experience and there’s a reason for it. That’s also where tech comes into play. How easy is it to upgrade your gift or is that a really clunky experience? So that’s another great question to go back to your tech partner is to say, hey, this is really important for us. What, what do you have available to make this seamless for the donor? Um, I also give to every town, and they use Fundraise Up in this case. And in their actual body of the email, I can click a button and upgrade instantly. One click. And which email is that? The, the body of the email, which email? They send, it’s, it’s just in like a normal monthly giving thank you, you know, they didn’t do a specific campaign in this instance, um, but it was just like, would you like to I forget the exact wording, but it definitely wasn’t like increase your gift. It was something more compelling than that. Is it appropriate to Uh, send thanks every month after each transaction is processed. So they, you can definitely send the receipts and then the receipts have like impact statements that get changed. I think it’s less about the thanks and it turns into the impact. Like you were just saying, what are we doing together? I think it’s more about sharing that. What are we doing together every month? Anybody can say thank you for your generosity, but like, so says everybody else. But like, Tony, did you know that this past month we were able to work with 25 sea lions because of your, I’m obviously going to the water for you. Um, and they got released and they got treated, and we got, we brought on two special veterinarians like that is sensory language that is bringing you a lot and then, hey, next month, our team’s attending this conference together, we’re going to send you some insights from what we learned. You know what I mean? Like, it’s actually, How I would talk to you, and I think we forget that it’s like so formal, or there’s 12 different things we’re trying to share, and it’s like, make it short. Make it simple, make it scrollable and readable. Um, videos are great. Videos are wonderful, short, simple update videos, even if you put those in once a quarter. Um, Megan Walsh, one of my favorite people from Roots Ethiopia, she sends her monthly donors a Friday photo. So every Friday she sent us a, it’s, it’s an email that has a photo with a brief description of what it is, and it’s just sharing a little piece of what’s happening there. So you don’t have to overcomplicate it, um, in a lot of ways you can automate it. Well, yes, you should have a provider that’s helping you do that. That’s right. Anything else you want? What? But I do think from the retention standpoint. On what’s received is you look at your stats to see like, are people opening these emails. I think there is an importance on using direct mail, getting in the mailbox and saying thank you or showing impact. Um, there’s a way to do that through text messaging is a wonderful way to do that. So often the text messages that we receive are just primarily ask-based, largely only at the end of the year. And it’s such a great platform to share a blog update, right? Or just a quick text about, oh my gosh, I just wanted to let you know, this happened. It’s not asking for anything, it’s just sharing impact. So think about all the different channels that you’re, you’re using, but maybe right now for an ask and more so on how it could be around stewardship. What else would you like to talk about? We can, uh, we can close with, I’ve asked you a bunch of questions, something we haven’t talked about or you want to go into more detail on something? What would you like? I mean, what would you, what would the Maven like to close with? So I would say I, I just, I’m in the process of, uh, publishing every Monday. I have a bonus podcast episode right now. That’s my six monthly giving predictions. They’re very short episodes. My podcast is Missions to Movements, and it was built off of looking at what happened on Giving Tuesday last year. Um, it’s a tremendous day for recurring giving growth. Tremendous, but interestingly enough, a lot of orgs are nervous to ask for a recurring commitment on that day. Um, but, but when you do it, like the reaction is amazing because those people, people that give on Giving Tuesday. One, the fact that they know that they exist is huge alone, because there’s still a ton of people in the United States, and I mean, it’s global, but in the United States specifically, that don’t even know that they exist. Honestly, it’s so concentrated for us, but largely I’ve asked friends and they have no idea that it’s even happening. So the people that do know about it are already dialed in. So consider them already a warm recurring audience, um. So, what came from Giving Tuesday from the Curley report was these 6 predictions. One was around infrastructure. The one that just got released last week was around getting the easiest yes. Instead of the biggest ask. So that’s around the micro donation that we’re starting to talk about. People will grow with you, if you give them the opportunity to make it accessible. Like there’s a lot of things and people vying for our attention right now and our money and our dollars, and Make it An accessible community. I think previously I’ve been asked a lot, what’s the largest monthly gift we can try and ask for? Instead of that mentality, think about like, what’s the easiest, yes, it’s a no-brainer. Easiest yes. So they just start. Um, 2, it’s going to be around or 3, it’s going to be around AI. So not thinking of just like chat GBT. But thinking about how can AI help you with predictions around really curating that relationship. So, I have just built a, the monthly giving Builder tool. It is my way to reach at scale. It’s my framework. It’s an interactive tool, web app, and provides you like customized deliverables for your monthly giving promo like the name you were talking about or what website landing page copy that’s all curated or emails or a growth plan. And I built that on Vibe AI through Replet. Oh my gosh, Tony, like the, I could have never done that. I could have never done that. I’m not a developer, I’m not a coder, or that would have been so expensive, right? And I was able to do that in 6 months. And If we think there’s tools out there that exist like Dataro for organizations, but thinking about how you can utilize AI to help. Help show up at the right time in the relationships for your supporters, not, not just the basic kind of way we’ve been thinking about, which is like writing emails and content like that. So, I would say that’s a little bit of a teaser of the three, and then you can check out the rest of the others, but I think I think it is, it should be the year of focus on monthly giving and of course, like, shout out to the summit to come check out the The real like state of the state as to uh what orgs are doing, what your, what your friends and peers are up to. It’s February 25th and 26th at monthlygiving summit.org.com.com at monthlygiving summit.com. All right. You got it. Dana Snyder. All right, so we got, um, I still like Maven of Monthly Giving, but, but also, uh, as we’re chatting, uh, Monthly Matters, Maven. And, uh, the mind movies, Maven. So you, you, you pick your, yeah, you’ll probably just stick with Dana Snyder. I think you’d probably be better off. Don’t pay no attention to my suggestions. But she is the Maven in monthly giving, Dana Snyder. Come hang out with me on LinkedIn. That’s my jam. LinkedIn. She spends all the time on LinkedIn. I do too, yes. Um, and positive equation.com. She’s wearing her positive occasion swag, I see. Yes, positive. What, what is the positive equation? So I, I used to live in New York City. We both did. And I, what neighborhood? Where do you live? Uh, I first lived in Spaja, Spanish Harlem, on 100th between 1st and 2nd, and then I moved down to like Tudor City on 39th between 1st and 2nd. OK, so I know that. I never heard of Spaha.pa Spaha. That was our, I was even further away from Midtown. I lived in Inwood for 10 years, way up northern tip of Manhattan. OK, but so tell me about what, how’d you get positive equation for a company name? So I knew I wanted it to be centered on working with purpose-driven organizations. So that was the positive emphasis. And then there’s so many different factors that make up. Like an organization’s marketing at the time, cause I was really focused on digital marketing, it still works now, but it was like thinking about, OK, you need a little bit of value proposition, you need to have branding, you need to have, it’s like this plus this, plus this, plus this. It’s like, oh, that’s, that’s an equation. So positive equation. They’re at positive equation.com. Connect with Dana on LinkedIn. Dana Snyder, real pleasure. It was great fun. Thank you for all these ideas too. I mean, it’s great value as well. You rock. Thanks, Tony. Appreciate it. My pleasure. Next week, bring fun to evaluation and impact data. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you, find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.