Fundraising Update

Welcome to Fundraising Update. This week, we look at ways you can boost your monthly giving program to get more steady income. Plus, GoFundMe will now let charities see who has started a GoFundMe campaign on their behalf and contact them.

I’m Rasheeda Childress, senior editor for fundraising at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. If you have ideas, comments, or questions about this newsletter, please write me.

Monthly donors are some of the most valuable supporters for nonprofits: They provide a reliable and steady source of income, often stay with an organization for multiple years, and have the potential to give bigger sums or even become legacy donors if treated well.

Plus, at a time when many nonprofits are seeing an ongoing drop in small-dollar supporters amid increasing economic uncertainty, monthly giving is a smart way to bolster your group’s ability to weather turbulent financial times, reports my colleague Lisa Schohl.

Getty Images

“It typically is a really great way to keep people engaged who are at lower levels and people who might then increase and become bigger donors down the line,” says Zanne Garland, development director at Rainforest Action Network, an advocacy group focused on climate change and deforestation. Some of the organization’s sustainers already give a significant amount now, she adds, such as one whose monthly pledge is $1,000.

Monthly supporters make up more than 16 percent of Rainforest Action Network’s individual donors, and last year the group set a goal to bring that up to 20 percent within the next five years, in part because sustainers are easier to keep. The nonprofit’s retention rate for this group is nearly 74 percent, compared with about 45 percent overall, Garland says. “As you can imagine, people who kind of start a monthly gift and then just stay with you, it’s just a lot easier to retain that support.”

Just in time for Monthly Giving Week, the Chronicle gathered tips from Garland and three other experts to help you start or strengthen a monthly giving program at your nonprofit and ensure it delivers. Here’s what they advise:

Before focusing on monthly gifts, make sure you have technology in place that can process recurring payments, says Rachael Wolber, senior vice president at M+R, a marketing and fundraising consultancy for nonprofits says — whether it’s the same platform you use for all gifts or a tool that’s integrated into your online donation form. All of the major tools for nonprofit giving should have those capabilities, she says.

You also need a donor database that lets you separate these supporters from other types of donors and a system for how you’ll manage their payments, says Alicia Meulensteen, director of nationwide membership at the American Civil Liberties Union. Some groups charge sustainers on the day of the month they first gave, while others process all monthly gifts on a certain date. Either approach works, Meulensteen says, but you need to figure out which makes the most sense for your nonprofit before these gifts start coming in.

Another early step to take is making a plan for how you’ll recapture donors whose automatic gifts end, Meulensteen adds. “Even despite best intentions, people have credit card information that lapses,” she explains. “So how are you going to go back and get them?”

For six more tips to increase monthly giving, read Lisa’s entire article.

65,000
— Number of fundraising campaigns individuals have created for charities on GoFundMe

For years, charities have admired the massive sums that individuals raise on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. Now they can see if it works for them, as the company moves fully into the nonprofit world with GoFundMePro.

“Sixty-five thousand nonprofits have already benefited from people organizing and giving to them on GoFundMe, which probably would surprise people,” Tim Cadogan, CEO of GoFundMe, told me. “But we want it to happen a lot more, and that’s why we’re leaning into this so much more.”

GoFundMe bought Classy, a nonprofit fundraising platform, in 2022, but the two remained largely separate. Now Classy is rebranding as GoFundMePro. Cadogan says the new offering will help nonprofits raise money by incorporating some of the best features and insights learned from the individual fundraising campaigns on GoFundMe.

One feature GoFundMePro will be rolling out is nonprofit pages for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Nonprofits can claim their pages by verifying their organization’s identity. Those groups that claim their pages will be able to see a list of all fundraising campaigns created for them, contact information for anyone who has raised money for or donated to the organization on GoFundMe either directly or via another supporter’s fundraiser, and where the donation came from — a supporter-led campaign or a drive the group set up on its nonprofit page.

“It’s going to be a really powerful way to see everything that’s going on behalf of your nonprofit,” Cadogan says

For more on features available to nonprofits, read the rest of my article.

• Gates Foundation to Spend Down to Zero. Bill Gates doesn’t want to die with more than $100 billion to his name. To accomplish that, the philanthropist said last week he’ll speed his plan to give away the bulk of his wealth, along with future profits from his companies, to the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years. The plan is to spend out $200 billion — the largest amount a private foundation has ever given away — and close his foundation, reports my colleague Stephanie Beasley.

  “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold on to resources that could be used to help people,” Gates wrote in a blog post that also celebrated the foundation’s 25th anniversary.

  The areas the foundation will prioritize are consistent with its current portfolio. The foundation will continue efforts to reduce child and maternal deaths globally; last month, it helped launch a $500 million fund to support that cause. The Gates Foundation also will increase investments to prevent and treat the spread of infectious diseases, promote gender equality, reduce global poverty, and help U.S. children pursue postsecondary education.

  For more on the foundation’s closure plan, read Stephanie’s complete article.

University of California Los Angeles alumni Heidi and Larry Canarelli gave $10 million through their Canarelli Family Foundation to UCLA Health. The funds will support a stroke-rescue program and a neurosurgery program. Of the total, $6 million will bolster the UCLA Arline and Henry Gluck Stroke Rescue Program’s effort to establish a third mobile stroke unit, and $4 million will establish the Canarelli Family Oligodendroglioma Brain Tumor Research Fund.

Larry Canarelli leads BRUIN Capital Partners, a real-estate investment firm in Las Vegas.

For other notable gifts this week, read my colleague Maria Di Mento’s Gifts Roundup column.To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly and has data going back to 2000.

Want to Connect With DAF Donors? New Research Offers Insights. Among the findings: DAF donors give in multiple ways, and they’re promising prospects to make planned gifts.

MrBeast’s Buzzy, Clickbait Videos Are Warping Gen Z’s Expectations of Philanthropy. (Opinion)Fundraisers puzzling over how to reach young donors must acknowledge and counter the misconceptions peddled by the influencer.

The “Fundraising Juggernaut” of a Gala. The Met Gala raised the bar this year, becoming what the New York Times called a “fundraising juggernaut” by bringing in $31 million.

The paper notes this haul dwarfs other New York arts galas, including the nearly $4 million raised at the New York Philharmonic gala last September and the $5.2 million raised at the Whitney Museum of American Art event.

While the fundraising is impressive, the event itself has become one of the main draws. “It’s gone beyond what a fund-raising event usually is,” Rachel Feinberg, a consultant who has worked on galas in New York City, told the Times. “It’s not necessarily the cause that everyone’s coming for; it’s to be a part of the event.”

Galas tend to cost a lot of money to stage, and the Times did not know how much it cost to put on the Met Gala. The fact that this event has become the place people want to be is in keeping with the paper’s previous reporting on galas, which indicated part of the value of the events is to bring together high net worth individuals so fundraisers can introduce them to the cause.

“Many donors are not comfortable fund-raising, but inviting someone to a gala is so easy,” former Kennedy Center head Michael M. Kaiser, told the Times. “It’s a very simple quid pro quo and it’s a way for board members to introduce their circle to an organization without a lot of effort.” (New York Times)