Recurring donations are the lifeblood of any nonprofit, NGO, or charitable organization. They make fundraising activities and campaigns successful and beneficial to the masses.
Hence, developing and expanding recurring donor bases must be the top priority for every philanthropist and social activist.
This blog post will describe recurring donations and why you should set them up for nonprofits in today’s era.
What Do You Mean by Recurring Donations?
Recurring donations, also known as recurring contributions, are donors’ commitments. They intend to contribute to different social causes by donating a fixed amount to nonprofit entities and foundations. Depending on their budgets, they make recurring contributions weekly, monthly, or yearly.
Crucial Advantages of Recurring Donations for Nonprofits
Here are various benefits you can get if you have pursued recurring donations correctly. These benefits are:
Financial Stability
Recurring contributions allow charitable trusts or organizations to collect massive amounts of money through a consistent flow of funds.
Loyalty of Donors
If your organization has a pool of loyal donors, it has an edge over other organizations working in the same sector. Loyal donors show outstanding commitment to your cause. They act as marketers for your organization as they motivate people, including friends, family members, and colleagues, to donate generously to your social cause.
Reduced Fundraising Expenses
Keeping existing donors is more cost-effective than acquiring a new one, especially if that new donor only makes one gift. Therefore, you must prioritize current donors because they will likely contribute to your cause in the coming months and years.
This way, you will not have to invest time, effort, money, and other resources to entice potential donors.
Mission Achievement
Recurring donors enable nonprofit entities to attain long-term success. A broad base of regular donors helps charitable organizations stay true to their visions and missions.
How to Set Up Recurring Donations for Nonprofits?
Donations for WooCommerce, an impactful  add-on, will do the job if you manage your nonprofit organization or charitable foundation.
This add-on offers a result-driven feature, recurring donations. You can obtain recurring donations daily, weekly, and monthly using this feature.
Furthermore, you can explain interval and length settings accordingly. Likewise, you can showcase the order details for the donation amount alongside the amount type, campaign name, and ID. Lastly, you can create recurring donation payment plans at intervals.
However, in order for this feature to work, you must install the WooCommerce Subscriptions addon. This addon helps you configure recurring donation payments.
Once the plugin is activated, you can enable recurring donations using the campaign settings tab.
To set up recurring donations for your nonprofit successfully, here is what you should do:
- Through Admin Dashboard > WC Donation > All Campaigns.
- All donation campaigns are available, click the Edit button in the Actions column.
- Navigate to the Recurring Donations tab.
- You will find the Display Type option that includes three key options, Disable, Enable – Admin’s Choice, and Enable – User ‘s Choice. Select the last option.
- You can use the Recurring Text option to set custom text for recurring donations. In case you do not set any text, Enter Donation Recurring will appear by default.
- Click the Update button to enable changes.
- From the users’ perspective, they will visit the site and choose the donation.
- They will choose the donation level.
- You must tick the checkbox to make it a recurring payment and set the intervals for recurring payment cycles.
NOTE:
- Every (1 to 6 interval)
- Day/Week/Month/Year’ (to select anyone’s frequency)
- Till (length) For days, it will be Ninety days; for a week, it will be 52 or Fifty Two weeks; for Month, it will be 24 or Twenty Four months and For a year, it will be 5 years after the first purchase. Suppose the user has set the frequency as ‘Every’ and then ‘Month’, so no months will be displayed, and the user has selected five months. After executing the purchase, a donation will be deducted with CONFIGURATION. It will automatically stop deducting the donated amount every month for five months.
- Once your customer purchases a product with a recurring donation, the donation will automatically be deducted according to the mentioned frequency.
- Click the Donate button when you are done.
- Users will be redirected to the Checkout page, needing to write the desired credentials.
- They can see the recurring payment cycles through the Recurring totals section.
Simple Tips for Collecting Recurring Donations
Create a decisive giving strategy to attract massive recurring donations. You can follow a few impactful practices to do this:
- Initiate a Recurring Giving Program
- Interact with Your Audience
- Build a Community of Regular Donors
- Monitor Your Tactic
Initiate a Recurring Giving Program
Engaging current and potential donors through a recurring giving program can be a powerful marketing tool. You can take specific steps for a successful launch or initiation, such as developing a marketing plan and using various channels, such as email marketing and social media.
As for the marketing plan, you can develop a result-oriented plan highlighting the importance of your potential recurring giving program. Identifying the target audiences is handy so you can easily communicate the numerous benefits of the recurring giving program.
Interact with Your Audience
Maintain and build impactful relationships with your regular donors. This will make them loyal. In this situation, you must send customized thank-you emails showcasing your gratitude for their continued support.
Monitor Your Tactics
Regular monitoring is crucial for long-term success in recurring donations and collections. Therefore, you must act proactively and respond accordingly to the feedback and requirements of your current and new donors.
In this scenario, you can take advantage of analytics and data offered by your platform. By doing so, you can smartly judge the needs and preferences of your donors and devise strategies in the right direction.
For instance, you should pay attention to the significance of critical metrics like average donation amounts, donor retention rates, recurring donor base growth rate, donor demographics, and more.
Moreover, you must respond to donors’ queries as their preferences and demands change. In short, plan your strategies accordingly to make your recurring giving drive or program results-driven over time.
Wrapping Up
We expect you to appreciate our blog post explaining recurring donations in detail. Non-profit organizations should not understand the importance of recurring contributions at any cost.
They can be beneficial for your donors and organization. If you regularly receive donations, you can smartly achieve your long-term goals.
Apart from this, you need to implement effective strategies, such as a recurring giving program, interaction with the target audience, and more, to achieve future benefits in the form of long-term and beneficial donor relationships, massive donation collection, etc.
