Join me and my friend Erika Carley, AKA Queen of Monthly Giving to learn about Chive Charities and their incredible monthly giving program. 4K monthly donors, 98% month-over-month retention rate. Need I say more?
Erika shares how to design, manage and grow a monthly giving program. We talk about her best strategies, what she’s learned, and how there is no silver bullet to making people feel cared for.
To connect with Erika, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-carley123/
To visit Chive Charities to see the storytelling in action: https://chivecharities.org/
Quote from Erika: ” When starting offering monthly giving levels, start small but don’t end small.”
Episode Transcript
RHEA WONG 00:48
Hey, podcast listeners! This is Rhea Wong, once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today, my guest is Erika Carley, who is the Senior Director of Operations with Chive Charities. And we’re going to talk about monthly giving programs, which is a hot topic, something that everyone should be thinking about in Q4.
RHEA WONG 01:15
And of the most amazing things that we’re going to talk about with Erika is that she has a 98% month-over-month retention rate, which is mind-blowing. Erika, welcome to the show.
ERIKA CARLEY 01:17
Thank you so much. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m excited to be here.
RHEA WONG 01:21
So I’m excited to have you. I’m gonna pick your brain on all of the things but before we jump into it, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in the nonprofit world?
ERIKA CARLEY 01:30
Yeah, absolutely! So I’m Erika, Carley. I reside in Fort Worth, Texas with my husband and my three little kids. And I’ve been working in nonprofit development and management for just over 13 years now. I started in Los Angeles, then Austin.
ERIKA CARLEY 01:46
In late 2013, I partnered with my former employer. He’s a film director and producer in Los Angeles. And he wanted to launch a private giving circle. So now almost 10 years later, I continue to advise and runoffs for pace.
ERIKA CARLEY 02:01
It’s called philanthropy and community engagement. And we traveled to two cities every year to meet with and hopefully support impactful local programs that are replicable, scalable, and very broadly focused on children and family issues.
ERIKA CARLEY 02:15
So anti-recidivism, foster care, social and emotional learning-based after-school programs for title one, and parenting support for underserved families. So my exposure to all kinds of nonprofits, and their behind the scenes, their models for giving, their models for monthly giving has benefited me, I will say tremendously.
ERIKA CARLEY 02:35
So for the last six and a half years, I worked for Chive Charities and currently serve as Raya said as their senior director of operations. And we’re an organization dedicated to supporting what we call life-changing grants to veterans, military families, first responders, and rare medical diagnoses.
ERIKA CARLEY 02:49
We do this one to two times a week, these individuals have life-altering or life-threatening needs. And the grants range from $2,000 on the low end to upwards of $70,000. They average $35,000 a week.
ERIKA CARLEY 03:07
So we’re doing that one to two times a week. And those grants include things like therapy equipment, communication devices, adaptive tricycles, ADA-accessible vans, and I can go on and on.
ERIKA CARLEY 03:17
So after we fund the grant, we write and share the recipient’s story in a very authentic way to bring awareness to that particular cause. And we steward current donors and hopefully convert new ones through that. And that’s what makes us truly unique. emotional storytelling is at the heart of what we do. It’s a big lever as we pull for monthly giving.
RHEA WONG 03:38
Okay, we’re gonna dig into that, real deep in a second. But just before we get into that, I feel like monthly giving is something that we don’t often talk about.
RHEA WONG 03:46
I think there’s a lot of ink spilled around major donors, foundations, and annual appeals, but monthly donors are not something that gets as much attention. Tell us why a monthly donor program actually makes a lot of sense.
ERIKA CARLEY 04:01
First, there’s the benefit of sustainability. And your ability to plan short-term, medium-term, long term, it’s a whole lot easier. We all know this as a fundraiser to retain a donor than it is to acquire a new one.
ERIKA CARLE 04:14
And while you’ll still need to spend a good deal of time, of course, on stewardship and retention as a part of monthly giving, you won’t feel that pressure to identify where that next big check is coming from.
ERIKA CARLE 04:27
And that can be very anxiety-inducing for fundraisers, another benefit is really more of a gift, that long-term relationship building with donors and the value that comes with that. And one of my favorite things is to see a donor who’s been maybe donating $10 a month, $25 a month, and then they get a new job.
ERIKA CARLE 04:47
They’re evolving in their career, and then they’re getting $200 a month. So you have this opportunity to build a really meaningful relationship with them and foster and facilitate their evolution as a charitable giver. I love that.
ERIKA CARLE 05:01
And it also gives you the ability. And I think this is really important. And again, something that people don’t really talk much about. It gives you the ability to foster a true culture of impact among your donors and your community.
ERIKA CARLE 05:17
As a donor, when you feel like you have a stake in something, you’re more likely to stay, and you’re more likely to continue your impact which retention, big on retention. So we all want to be a part of something bigger and so many of our monthly donors have become true advocates for our cause.
ERIKA CARLE 05:33
And that’s the goal. That’s a big goal of ours with monthly giving. It can feel like a family of support and advocacy, which can have a domino effect. It just has to be designed that way.
RHEA WONG 05:44
Okay, we’re going to talk about design in a second what I hear you saying you As the advantage of a monthly giving program is it evens out the income lines, right? So you’re like month to month what’s coming in? It’s usually unrestricted giving.
RHEA WONG 05:58
And it’s a way to engage smaller givers in meaningful ways. Because like you say, maybe someone might have a hard time giving $500 at one time but spread out over the year, it’s still the same amount of money, just given over 12 months, is that right?
ERIKA CARLEY 06:14
And oftentimes that amount, by the end of the year will be more than what they might have given as a one-time donation. So that’s really important too, in terms of revenue, it can actually really be a huge support for your organization, and your budget, and your ability to plan.
RHEA WONG 06:321
So what I love about this idea of monthly giving is it’s very tied to the way that we buy now. I mean, when I think about Netflix subscriptions, as an example, we’re used to seeing that money going out of our account every month, right?
RHEA WONG 06:48
And Netflix has to keep giving us more stuff in order for me to keep reopening. So my question to you is, how do we think about designing a monthly giving program that is different than an annual appeal campaign?
ERIKA CARLEY 06:58
That’s a great question. And I would say the biggest difference between the design of an annual appeal and the design of a monthly giving program, it’s all about the layers. And you hit on that already, that when you have that subscription with Netflix.
ERIKA CARLEY 07:12
They’re gonna keep having to do things to keep you coming back. So it’s the layers of strategy, the layers of tactics, the layers of objectives and goals. So I’ll just start with an annual appeal really quickly.
ERIKA CARLEY 07:25
For an annual appeal, I’m focusing on the mission of our organization, how we’re positively impacting the communities we serve, and maybe sharing story numbers to back it all up. I’m focusing on demonstrating the impact of the donor I’m communicating with.
ERIKA CARLEY 08:41
I think personalizing annual appeals as much as possible is important. Same thing with monthly giving. I’m thinking about a specific, bold call to action that will compel our donors typically at the end of the year to send in that additional donation, while I’m simultaneously casting a vision for the future and connecting the two.
ERIKA CARLEY 08:02
So how are you going to help us achieve that? How are you going to be a part of helping us get there? And then, of course, you’re always going to be thinking about that promotional strategy.
ERIKA CARLEY 08:11
How are we getting this out? Video, handwritten cards, I’m big on how handwritten cards I will shout it from the mountaintops all day long email, and direct mail adds a combination. So annual appeals should really be a stewardship tactic for existing donors.
ERIKA CARLEY 08:27
And then for the new time, though, the new one-time donors that you may convert through that annual appeal, you can then begin to pivot and steward them and work to convert them into monthly giving.
RHEA WONG 08:39
Okay, so we’ve talked about the design of an annual appeal, how is the monthly donor program different then?
ERIKA CARLEY 08:46
So the design is going to be very different from the annual appeal, most notably, the design will have those layers that I talked about at the beginning for the longer-term strategies, and I’ll break it down into three parts.
ERIKA CARLEY 08:57
So one is donor acquisition strategy, you’ve got to ideate and build out a campaign that will convert new monthly donors. And you might do this once a year we do it once a year, a big campaign in the middle of the year.
ERIKA CARLEY 09:12
You might do it twice a year, you’ll determine the cadence of that, but the campaign will have its own strategy. You’ll have goals, objectives, a strong message, and a call to action. And maybe there’s an incentive or a benefit attached. We do that a lot.
ERIKA CARLEY 09:27
And I can talk more about that. But you’ll need a comprehensive promotional strategy. How are you getting that out? Casting a very wide net? And also how are you tailoring your messaging to different audiences?
ERIKA CARLEY 09:38
So your messaging to new prospective donors will be very different from donors who’ve contributed before in the past, whether that be once or many one-time donations. It’ll be different from donors who have canceled or become inactive for whatever reason.
ERIKA CARLEY 09:53
And you’ll also want to target them. This is something that we do and we’ve seen some success with, you’ll want to target those past prospective donors who might have dropped off at checkout.
ERIKA CARLEY 10:01
So you left something in your cart, but let’s try and get you back in the door and really sign up for that monthly donation. You also might take the opportunity to provide your monthly givers with the opportunity to up their donation to upgrade their monthly giving them. So that’s the donor acquisition part. Then I would go into donor stewardship.
RHEA WONG 10:23
You wouldn’t do research because like that’s a whole enchilada I want to get into. But I’m wondering what is the segmentation between donors who are annual appeal donors versus donors who might be monthly donors. Are they the same group? Are they different? What’s the relationship between the two?
ERIKA CARLEY 10:40
For each one of the campaigns we’re going to look at, we have many, many donors list donors who have given one time, donors who have supported us in a way, maybe it’s like not monetary. But they’ve supported us in a different way.
ERIKA CARLEY 10:52
They’ve said that they wanted to help in some way will, especially for those for the donor acquisition campaigns monthly. I’m looking comprehensively. I’m using every list we have for the annual appeal. We’re really focusing on our monthly givers.
ERIKA CARLEY 11:08
And those one-time donors. They know our mission. They’re familiar with it. This is, again, I put it into the stewardship category. So it’s a little more focused when it comes to that communication. And in that way, I think that one-to-one personalization is a little bit more doable.
RHEA WONG 11:24
So if I’m hearing you correctly, with your annual appeal campaign, you’re also targeting your monthly donors. So it’s not an either or it’s both/and.
ERIKA CARLEY 11:34
Yes, this is an opportunity for our monthly donors to give a donation on top of their monthly.
RHEA WONG 11:40
I love that. More is more. Okay, let’s talk about so we have the folks that we know that we’re targeting, what is the communication that you put out there to compel them to be monthly donors as opposed to one-time givers?
ERIKA CARLEY 11:55
Well, yes, it’s the storytelling. So I think you have to be able to communicate about your model. So what about being a monthly donor is valuable? whose lives are you going to be impacting when you become a monthly donor?
ERIKA CARLEY 12:08
So for us, we’re looking at and that will talk specifically about a campaign that we just ran a couple of months ago. It’s our 10-year anniversary this year. It’s been incredible. We have by the end of this year, we will have 555, grant recipients with nearly 20,000,008.
ERIKA CARLEY 12:23
So we built out this campaign that was all about because of you, 2022. Because of you our donors, this is what we’ve been able to achieve. But we also pulled back the curtain. So we pull back the curtain on for as many yeses as we’re able to give, we have to give just as many noes.
ERIKA CARLEY 12:41
We sit in a conference room for the entire day, we print out photos of every single applicant. And we comb through every detail to try and identify who is in the highest need. And it is heartbreaking, heart-wrenching, and absolutely the hardest part of our jobs.
ERIKA CARLEY 13:01
And in pulling back that curtain, we were giving our donors, our prospective donors the opportunity for us to turn no’s into yeses. That was huge for us. I mean, we could really demonstrate and illustrate, we had photos of what it looked like in that room.
ERIKA CARLEY 13:20
What does that process look like? And what can you be a part of? How can you take those faces that are literally on this side of the room and pull them over to the other side? It was a really beautiful message.
ERIKA CARLEY 13:35
And I think that as nonprofit fundraisers and campaign designers, it can be easy to shy away from your challenges. And it was a little bit scary to go like, hey, just like we say no to a lot of deserving people. And that sucks.
ERIKA CARLEY 13:54
And so I think it was powerful for our community. And we will have a community that isn’t monthly donors, just our community of support, who love what we do, it was an opportunity to really show them. This is the behind-the-scenes, this is what really goes on and we can really use your help.
RHEA WONG 14:10
Okay, okay, let’s get to the juicy stuff because everyone wants to know about retention and stewardship. So 98% month over month is ridiculous. So what are you doing in order to retain those donors?
RHEA WONG 14:25
And I want to get really tactical here about like, how often are you communicating? What are you communicating? Is it via email? Tell me all the things, please.
ERIKA CARLEY 14:33
Yes, okay. Donor retention, we are big on general retention, obviously, 98% month over month. People say that’s impossible. When I say you should talk to the people who are writing those cards every single day.
ERIKA CARLEY 14:45
I had a conversation with Andrew Olson recently. And in talking to him about retention. I told him that a comprehensive retention strategy will consider the philosophical, the tactical, and the strategic.
ERIKA CARLEY 14:57
So you’re playing the long game with retention and your magical weapon, there is no silver bullet. We’ll consider all three. It’s going to be a commitment to the process, and to understand your donors and their charitable evolution, really the philosophical.
ERIKA CARLEY 15:13
The tools you ideate build and deploy your tactics and the higher-level goals and objectives that those tactics fit into and support your strategy. So I attribute a lot of our success to going old school.
ERIKA CARLEY 15:27
We put a premium on one on one communication, we are high touch the highest of the touch. So when you sign up to be a monthly donor, you get a personalized welcome text. Then a handwritten card if you downgrade your monthly giving level, so people go, why would you send them a card if you downgrade?
ERIKA CARLEY 15:47
Look, that donor, instead of canceling, maybe they lost their job, maybe their financial situation changed, maybe inflation is really hurting them at the grocery store. Right? Thank you so much for sticking with us.
ERIKA CARLEY 16:00
It shows us one thing they are loyal to our cause. So we’re really diligent about that. We’re all so diligent about making sure we’re acknowledging when a donor is upgrading their level. These are little things that are easy to miss, like, oh, they upgraded from $10 a month to $25.
ERIKA CARLEY 16:28
That’s significant. Yeah, it’s really significant over the life of them donating if we’re going to retain them at 98% plus. Absolutely, it is. So we send them a card. We also have benefits when you hit certain milestones from three months to when you hit your year mark, two years, three years, or four years.
ERIKA CARLEY 16:33
So we have benefits now because it’s our 10-year anniversary. All 10 years, we’re gonna have to get creative and kind of come up with some new benefits as we continue to grow. But we also do things like monthly newsletters, and then that one-to-one communication to make sure I’m available over email.
ERIKA CARLEY 16:48
If you need to talk, I’m available over the phone. We have members of the team that are able to text our donors. So it’s the high touch. It’s the high touch. And it’s also paired with our model, our model of demonstrating impact through storytelling.
ERIKA CARLEY 17:05
So while the high-touch pieces are super critical, I also think it’s important to create a model for the impact that naturally supports retention. So for example, as I said, make storytelling a key component of what you do and how you promote awareness, which will be driven by your content team.
ERIKA CARLEY 17:23
And then there are also some retention plays that take investment on the front end, like member benefits, like you just mentioned. But then they become passive once set up an automated so a donor hits a year, and then that pin is sent to their home.
RHEA WONG 17:36
Oh, my gosh, Erika. So many questions are coming up for me. I just want to talk about the kind of tech infrastructure that you need behind you and the data that you’re looking at in order to make it happen. Because I love that you have these touchpoints.
RHEA WONG 17:48
I love that you’re constantly thinking about how are we creating value. Like, what are you doing? Is it a CRM system and using automation? Like what are you using for that? Like, how are you thinking about the backend infrastructure to make this happen?
ERIKA CARLEY 18:04
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And it’s something I get all the time, what CRM are you using? And I almost hate to say it, because I know it’s going to be disappointing, but we created our own.
ERIKA CARLEY 18:15
We created our own. We built it from the ground up with a small web dev team. We made that investment. And so when you log into your child charities profile, you can see how much you’ve given, when you’ve given, it’s all very clear.
ERIKA CARLEY 18:28
That’s easy to downgrade, easy to upgrade, and easy to cancel. I can go into your donor account. I can access all of that information. We’re constantly working on new updates to that and trying to roll them out with our development team.
ERIKA CARLEY 18:40
So there are CRMs out there that I think can support a retention strategy like this. I think what it takes are a member of your team, a fundraiser who’s going to take a step back and audit, how are we touching our donors. What are those communication tactics that we have?
ERIKA CARLEY 18:59
And if you’re going, okay, we’re sending emails to all of our donors, and they’re all personalized. They all have their name at the top. That’s not enough. That’s not enough. That’s not true personalization. Can you send an email to a donor?
ERIKA CARLEY 19:14
If they already have a touchpoint with you right there. They’re reaching out and they have a question about something. Remind them of their impact. Hey, Michael, I just want to answer your question.
ERIKA CARLEY 19:23
But I just want to like that, to this day, you donated X amount, you have impacted X amount of causes with this much in aid, and we are so grateful for your impact. It has been critical to our success, and we’re able to do our work because of donors like you.
ERIKA CARLEY 19:39
Now, we’ll get back to answering your question. Every chance you get, remind your donors of how impactful they are. It helps them to feel seen. It helps them to feel heard. I mean, look, these donors, they’re investing a lot. They’re investing $100 a month, $500 a month, $1,000 a month.
ERIKA CARLEY 19:57
That’s a lot of money, and they could be giving it to anybody. So you really want to make sure that they know exactly how important that donation is to you. And we’ve seen huge success and retention because of it.
RHEA WONG 20:12
So Erika, talk to me about this because one thing that I’ve noticed in my career, and I think it’s becoming increasingly true is, it feels like people are so overwhelmed with communications, emails, texts, whatever. It’s all coming in.
RHEA WONG 20:24
And so I think as a nonprofit, it feels a little bit like screaming into the abyss or like I keep pushing this information out, but I’m not getting a lot back. Is that something you’ve experienced? And if not, what have you done in order to mitigate that?
ERIKA CARLEY 20:39
I would say that when you truly personalize your communication, you’re gonna get a response. More often than not, you’re Gotta get a response. And the responses are also going to keep you going as a fundraiser, the responses that I get from the one-to-one emails I send, truly grounded me in my work.
ERIKA CARLEY 20:57
They remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing. I mean, of course, are recipients. And that impact is huge. But when you’re in fundraising, and like you said, sometimes you feel like you’re screaming into the abyss, and you’re not getting much back.
ERIKA CARLEY 21:08
That’s what’s really gonna hold you down, motivate you to keep going. And I think that when you are in that place, it’s important to go okay. I’m screaming into the abyss. I’m not getting much back. Why? You’ve got to turn that around on yourself as the fundraiser, what am I not doing?
ERIKA CARLEY 21:26
What could I change? What could I test and get creative? And don’t do it on an island? Engage your content team, engage your programs, team? Hey, programs. When we talk about recipients, are there some updates we can share with our donors?
ERIKA CARLEY 21:42
Is there anything that you can think of that might be compelling for donors to know Dave? And Vera that van a year and a half ago? Do we have an updated photo, a quote from our family, and engaged your content team?
ERIKA CARLEY 21:53
How can we create a really compelling graphic to include in this next email that I’m going to send? And then it’s that high touch that, hey, Danielle, as my donor, I’m talking to you, you’re my donor, I know you were connecting.
ERIKA CARLEY 22:06
I’m making a connection with you. I’m not just sending you an email that is designed for 4000 people. That being said, you can be overwhelmed by the numbers. And I’ve been asked before, okay, well, I have 10,000 monthly donors, or I have 50,000 monthly donors, I’m overwhelmed.
ERIKA CARLEY 22:24
How in the world am I supposed to have high touch with all of them? And I would say, first of all, a good problem to have. Second of all, if you have that many donors, you may be able to hire another employee.
ERIKA CARLEY 22:37
But also be strategic about it at the beginning of the year, audit your donor’s segment, then in a strategic way, and then calendar it out in January, these are the donors that I’m going to have high touch with in February, these are the donors.
ERIKA CARLEY 22:53
And then if you need to engage other members of your team, it doesn’t just have to be you. So give members of your team the opportunity to have that high touch and to feel that high touch of that response.
ERIKA CARLEY 23:04
Because it’s going to be wonderful for them to it’s going to help encourage and foster an environment of good feelings, charity, and motivation to continue doing what you’re doing. Share that with the team.
RHEA WONG 23:18
So question for you, because my wheelhouse is really major gift donors, what is the relationship between your monthly giving program and your major donor program if you have one? Like is that an on-ramp to the major donor program? What’s the relationship?
ERIKA CARLEY 23:32
Yeah, your monthly donors will certainly become a pipeline for major gifts. Absolutely! And we’ve seen that happen very naturally. So yes, the relationship is certainly there. I will say at Chive Charities, it’s monthly giving, has taken monthly giving, has been on the front burner and major gifts have been on the back burner for us.
ERIKA CARLEY 23:50
We invested in monthly giving from day one. And we have prioritized it we’ve invested in it. And obviously, it’s been huge for us. It’s our bread and butter. It was our bread and butter in 2013, just like it is today and it continues to grow.
ERIKA CARLEY 24:05
Now, we are taking a pivot into major gifts. We’ve had major gifts over the years. But it’s actually a very exciting time. Actually, I listened to your podcast on major gifts a couple of evenings ago and take notes.
ERIKA CARLEY 24:16
And we were focused on focusing on a small number of those monthly givers that have a certain history that we’ve identified that we feel sort of Prime’s them for major gifts. So there’s absolutely a connection there.
ERIKA CARLEY 24:31
And I will also just make the note and this kind of goes into like a mistake that we made with our monthly giving program. It’s been very successful, but we didn’t launch. We have had four levels of getting from the beginning.
ERIKA CARLEY 24:43
So you could give $10, $25, $50, and $100. And we always had that enter our own amount field, but it didn’t convert very much. It was rarely used. And because our revenue per monthly giving was so high, we thought this is great.
ERIKA CARLEY 24:58
We’ll continue to stoke steward will continue to retain and we didn’t think to make a level and actual level to give more. And it wasn’t until April 2020 that we created a new level platinum level that was $200 and above a month.
ERIKA CARLEY 25:14
And within a month, we had 131 monthly donors donating $200, $500, $1,000, and $5,000 a month. Some of those were new donors, and many of them were upgrades. So that number continues to grow and today actually makes up 20% of our revenue.
ERIKA CARLEY 25:31
So that’s really important. It can be a pipeline for major gifts, but you can also get some pretty significant gifts from monthly giving if you give your donors the opportunity to do it, to give.
RHEA WONG 25:45
Let’s talk numbers. So for those who don’t know, like, how many donors are we talking about? What’s the number that is new? How many upgraded? And what’s the overall revenue of your monthly giving program?
ERIKA CARLEY 25:56
Oh, gosh! Over the course of like, okay, well, I’ll say we have just around 4000 monthly donors. So those have come to us since the beginning of 2012. And like we’ve mentioned, we’re retaining at like, 98% month over month.
ERIKA CARLEY 26:13
So of course, we’ll see drop-offs here and there. Something that we really like to get ahead of is passive cancellation. So credit card information expiring. And we do that on a weekly basis.
ERIKA CARLEY 26:24
We pull a report every single week, top of the week, we go, here are the credit cards that are passively canceled, we get in touch with them directly. Again, that’s a great touch point to have to remind donors that they impact 99% of the time.
ERIKA CARLEY 26:36
Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m going to upgrade it right now. If they upgrade it, we can also upgrade it for them. I know, I’m not answering your question directly. Because how many of them are upgrades? How many of them are? I mean, it’s all over the place.
ERIKA CARLEY 26:45
I mean, we have 4000 monthly, hundreds of them, we’re getting at $100 a month, and now they’re giving it 250. So that data, if we broke it down. it would certainly be a lot to look at, but many of our donors, our average donor stick with us for three years plus.
RHEA WONG 27:07
And what do you do when you get dropped off? Because I mean, 98% is really impressive, but that means 2% do drop off? Like is there a process there?
ERIKA CARLEY 27:16
Yeah, yeah, there’s a process. And I think the most important thing is really showing gratitude for that donor. So always keep that door open. When a donor cancels, we have a drip, kind of a drip communication strategy that provides them the opportunity to kind of understand their impact and the impact that they’ve had.
ERIKA CARLEY 27:35
And if they would want to come back, then our arms are always open, they will always be a part of our donor family. But it doesn’t happen all the time. But when it does, again, we just focus on that gratitude, will send them a handwritten card, and we do see people coming back when they can.
ERIKA CARLEY 27:50
And a lot of the time, they’ll give us an explanation, which I think is also really important. So they’ll say I lost my job. Whenever I get into a place where I can get again, I’m going to get again. I think because of the culture of impact, we’ve been able to foster though. We see a lot more downgrades than we do cancellations.
RHEA WONG 28:09
Let’s talk about the pipeline. You’ve been great at retaining donors. But in order to grow, you need to continue to fill that pipeline. Where are you finding these new monthly donors? Is it largely a social media strategy? Is it word of mouth? Are you running paid ads? Like where are these people?
ERIKA CARLEY 28:24
We are very comprehensive in our approach. So we are utilizing every social media channel that we have that we’re utilizing LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, we actually don’t do a lot in the way of paid ads here.
ERIKA CARLEY 28:37
And there, we will do it. But those algorithms, they get you there, they’re tough. So that being said, we do have a comprehensive strategy, our social media following is pretty large for a nonprofit, and I would say we’re well over 40,000 on Instagram.
ERIKA CARLEY 28:50
So we have a pretty big reach there. And we have an email list of 80,000. So that’s been critical for us, we get to go back to that email list a lot. Of course, we are strategically not inundating those inboxes.
ERIKA CARLEY 29:04
But it is a great, great way for us to communicate and then convert new donors. And then we also have a pretty strong relationship with partners. And we’re able to utilize that as well. So raising awareness through our partners, and our mission is multifaceted.
ERIKA CARLEY 29:20
So we are serving veterans, first responders, military families, and rare medical, those are four separate communities. So our partners are in all four of those spaces, it really opens the door for us to create these meaningful partnerships and to impact the community in even bigger ways.
ERIKA CARLEY 29:38
So when we have a big campaign, we’ll go to our partners. And we’ll ask them, Hey, can you put this out for us? Can you do some cross-promotion, when they have campaigns when they’re trying to do something, we’ll do the same for them.
ERIKA CARLEY 29:49
So that’s been huge for us. We have partners who are like point-of-sale partners for us. So when they are through their checkout system, if somebody is buying a product of theirs, they have an opportunity to donate directly to chive charities that creates another pipeline of potential donors for us they donated through this other product and now we can reach out and try and get them to convert.
RHEA WONG 30:11
Let’s talk about revenue strategies. Because it sounds like from the beginning, as you said, Chive Charity was really focused on the monthly giving program. I’m just thinking about the small nonprofit organization that may not have a lot of bandwidth.
RHEA WONG 30:25
Is this one of these things where you really have to double down and go deep on a strategy or like how much capacity and bandwidth do you need in order to really implement a monthly donor strategy?
ERIKA CARLEY 30:35
My answer totally depends. I think the state organizations make when it comes to their monthly giving is that it’s entirely on the shoulders of the development or fundraising team And it’s not or it shouldn’t be.
ERIKA CARLEY 30:49
So monthly giving should engage fundraising staff, yes, but your content and programs teams are critical to the successful program. And their participation should be built into their workflow built into our model. So I talked about that a little bit earlier.
ERIKA CARLEY 31:05
But I think that’s critical, even when it comes to partnerships. Right? If I’m working with a partner, and I’m the one I’m writing that strategy, and I’m developing that partnership, I’ve got to have my programs team is going to be instrumental to connecting direct impact with our recipients.
ERIKA CARLEY 31:20
And they’re going to be communicating with the recipients communicating, communicating back to the partner with content doing the same thing. They’re going to be bringing in their expertise, how can we get this out there?
ERIKA CARLEY 31:30
How can we promote this partner in a way that is going to meet their marketing goals? Right. So it’s all very comprehensive, I think that’s a big mistake that nonprofits make. They’re so focused on the development and the fundraising aspect of it, that they forget that if they just open it up.
ERIKA CARLEY 31:46
And let it breathe and engage the skills and expertise of other team members, they can really take it to the next level. And look at these numbers that I’m sharing. I know they sound really big, but our team is small, we have an eight-person team.
ERIKA CARLEY 32:02
So we have three people on our development team, including myself, we just increased from two to three this year. And we were successful. Before that we have two employees running our content team and two programs.
ERIKA CARLEY 32:15
And then we have our executive director. So I think that sometimes monthly giving it can feel like a mountain to climb can feel like, how do I even get started? But I think it’s a team effort. It’s not just the fundraiser.
ERIKA CARLEY 32:28
And I think that if you can first identify somebody who’s going to be in fundraising if you can only hire one person, you’ve got to hire somebody who is really strategic and the way they approach things, somebody who is passionate about the work that you do and your mission, and they’re able to communicate about that.
ERIKA CARLEY 32:45
That’s where you start. And then you also want them to be a connector, connect the rest of your team members into that strategy, and make it a space where everybody feels like their expertise is needed, wanted, and valued. Everybody should feel like they’re a big part of it.
RHEA WONG 33:02
So okay, two questions. I could talk to you all day. But I know folks are blowing up the chat here. So your 80,000 email list, I want to talk about this. Because obviously, your monthly donors are going to be coming from your audience, which is your email list members.
RHEA WONG 33:19
How are you building that list? Like what value are you adding? to compel people to put their names on your list,
ERIKA CARLEY 33:25
We have a couple of really critical letters that we pull when it comes to our recipient’s stories. Our recipients’ stories are \, if you want to go and read them at chivecharities.org/stories, we are covering all of our categories with these stories.
ERIKA CARLEY 33:40
And we’re not just ending it there. We are updating our community on the people that their dollars are impacting. So that’s a big part of it. So if you want to stay up to date with Jalen, Kimber Lexia, or, Chris, sign up for our emails, and we’re going to be providing updates.
ERIKA CARLEY 33:58
So that’s been huge for us. Because even if you’re not donating on our website, if you read a story, I mean, we get 1000s of views on our stories. So okay, that doesn’t take anything, read our stories, and maybe you share them on your social media as a first step.
ERIKA CARLEY 34:12
Sign up for our newsletter as a first step, that’s a way to support us. And you’re going to be able to learn to get the updates of how this ED van impacted this family or how this therapy, this critical therapy changed the life of this boy named Liam Dodd.
ERIKA CARLEY 34:28
That has been huge for us. So finding those more nuanced ways to ask people to join your email list, I think is important. Of course, go to the website, popups gonna come up, and join our email list.
ERIKA CARLEY 34:40
But why? Why should they join your email list? You’ve got to spell it out and tell them what are they going to get out of receiving your emails. That’s something you’re tremendously good at.
ERIKA CARLEY 34:50
I see your subject lines, your emails, hey, I want it I know exactly what I’m gonna get when I get the raises newsletter, and I want to read it. You’ve got to make it something that people want to read. So you also have to remember that, but it doesn’t stop there.
ERIKA CARLEY 35:04
Then you got to make your newsletter compelling. You got to make it something but you’ve got the first chance to make it right. Make it compelling, so that they’re going to want to open it time and time and time again.
RHEA WONG 35:16
One thing that I think some fundraisers may really shy away from is the sharing of personal stories. And I think we’ve seen how some of it has been used in ways that feel kind of icky. We talk a little bit about poverty porn.
RHEA WONG 35:29
So how do you differentiate yourself and your team and the folks that you serve? Telling stories in a way that is both dignified and respectful, but also heartwarming and compelling.
ERIKA CARLEY 35:42
So important. Number one, we use a trauma-informed approach And our programs team has been trained on that other member of our team had been trained on that we adopt language that is carefully. And that is sensitive to the people that we are serving.
ERIKA CARLEY 35:57
We are serving populations of people who have been dealing with a great deal of trauma, medical trauma, TBI, PTSD, I mean, the list is very, very long. And we need to be very careful, even aside from our stories, the language that we use on our website.
ERIKA CARLEY 36:13
I think it’s important to if you’re so close to it, sometimes you can continue to use language that you think is okay. But it’s actually potentially triggering to some individuals or communities.
ERIKA CARLEY 36:24
So engaging your board or an advisory committee on what language we should be using and what language is going to be respectful and aboveboard, we do that we have an advisory committee that’s made up of leaders and all four of our grant categories.
ERIKA CARLEY 36:40
That’s been very helpful for us. When it comes to our stories. Our goal is always to tell that recipient’s story authentically. And I think that where you can get into the trouble of like the poverty porn kind of stuff is, how did they engage with that person before telling their story.
ERIKA CARLEY 37:01
We are very diligent about that process, very careful about that process, we begin to gather that story and that narrative, from day one, from the moment they build out their application, they also know that part of our model is storytelling.
ERIKA CARLEY 37:16
We are using the recipient story to raise awareness for the cause. That’s in our model. So we steward them through that process. They know throughout the process that we will not share anything that they do not want us to share. We check for that over and over and over again.
ERIKA CARLEY 37:34
And once we get their narrative, and they’re approved for a grant, we set up a call with our programs team. And with our storyteller with our content director, Brittany Meyers. She leaves me in awe every single week, one or two times a week with her stories.
ERIKA CARLEY 37:50
And they have a Zoom call, it’s face-to-face. Tell me anything you do not want me to share. Is there anything in here that you want off the books, and they’re able to make a connection, that that really positions Brittany to write their story in the most authentic way?
ERIKA CARLEY 38:06
And from her chair, her number one priority is to make that story, a gift back to that recipient, back to that recipient’s family. And that’s what allows us to storytell in such a successful way, in such a careful and respectful way.
ERIKA CARLEY 38:25
That story, we hope that our community likes it. We hope that it converts donors, of course, we want to know what the recipient thinks. And we survey them afterward. And we’re very careful about the questions that we ask them.
ERIKA CARLEY 38:39
And the number one is do you feel like your story was told in an authentic way? And I cannot tell you how many times we have received feedback that says, I am a community, I’m in a community of people who people turn their backs on.
ERIKA CARLEY 38:54
I am not seen. I am not valued. I’m not respected. And I felt seen for the first time by your team. I mean, that’s the gold. That’s what we want to hear. And that’s what makes our work so meaningful.
RHEA WONG 39:08
Yeah! And what’s funny to me is, one of my favorite anecdotes is about Danny Meyer, the restaurant tour here in New York. And he says imagine everyone is walking around with an imaginary sign that says make me feel special.
RHEA WONG 39:19
So that seems to be true of your monthly donors and of your recipients. Okay, we’re gonna get to some questions because people want to know all the things. Alanna’s question is, how would you advise launching a giving level like at $25 or multiple donation levels? I suspect I know the answer.
ERIKA CARLEY 39:39
Yes! Multiple donation levels for short. And I would start at 10. Start at 10. Because it’s doable. I can give $120 a year. I could do that. I could not have a coffee at Starbucks once a week. Right? That seems doable.
ERIKA CARLEY 39:54
And that’s going to get donors through the door. One thing that I’ve been asked a lot is how you segment donors alike based on the value of their giving. And I said, my answer would be that’s the mistake.
ERIKA CARLEY 40:06
I want to treat every single of my donors like they have a ton of value. So $10 a month is still funding our recipient grants, just like $500 a month. So again, to answer that question directly, yes, multiple giving levels start small but don’t end small.
ERIKA CARLEY 40:23
Don’t end at 100. Make sure you have that bigger giving amount that gives a donor with deeper pockets, the opportunity to say, hey, I’m going to be really impactful. I feel like I can give $500 a month. I’m gonna do it and then steward them through that process. So they keep coming back.
RHEA WONG 40:39
This sets us up really nicely for the next question coming in from Danielle.
DANIELLE 40:43
Yeah, hi! Thank you so much for all this. This is great. So you have so much fun I touched going on. And I’m just wondering like, how does that like, again, what are the numbers? Like how does that break out in terms of emails per month, cards, and calls?
DANIELLE 40:55
And then when to pull back? Or when do you need more? What’s your gauge for? Are you looking at open rates? Are you out, how do you assess that?
ERIKA CARLEY 41:03
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thanks so much. So we do an audit every month. So at the beginning of every month, we sit with the content team, and we go, what’s the communication look like? Is our monthly newsletter going out this month?
ERIKA CARLEY 41:16
Do we have any other campaigns running where we’re going to be making an ask? So we audit that every single month because things come up things change, we want to hop on a certain trend, something’s happening in the world, or maybe one of our recipients has a bigger need.
ERIKA CARLEY 41:29
So we want to take that in and fill that, but we’re going to need our donor’s help. So I think it’s really important to audit that at the beginning of the month. But also just in terms of numbers.
ERIKA CARLEY 41:38
If something doesn’t come up in the month, we’re always gonna be sending a monthly newsletter. So maybe if we have a campaign, it might replace that we try not to use that 80,000 newsletter list more than once a month. But that’s once a month.
ERIKA CARLEY 41:52
And that’s not super personalized. So I wouldn’t really call that high touch. And we’re designing it in a very thoughtful way. We’re, we’re working with our content team. But when it comes to the high touch, that’s a lot less.
ERIKA CARLEY 42:04
So numbers may be any given week, maybe we see five downgrades in membership, maybe we see five upgrades, and we’re writing cards on a rolling basis. So as soon as we see that come in, we’re writing the card.
ERIKA CARLEY 42:17
That makes it more doable, honestly, because maybe that’s a couple of cards a week, instead of Holy smokes, we’ve got to write 600 cards right for this campaign, which, by the way, we also have done when you do a donor acquisition campaign.
ERIKA CARLEY 42:31
We wrote a handwritten card to each one of those new donors. And it was a huge lift. And it took us a couple of weeks to achieve that. But even though I’m saying high touch, I think it can sound overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be, I think you just have to be strategic about it and do it on a rolling basis.
ERIKA CARLEY 42:49
So I mentioned earlier that if a donor reaches out about a question they may have, or maybe they’re having a technical issue, making a donation, or something like that, that’s an opportunity for you to have a high-touch communication.
ERIKA CARLEY 43:03
And maybe that only happens once a week. Maybe you have a week where that happens 15 times. But it all should be pretty so I hope that answers your questions.
RHEA WONG 43:11
But the question about content, Erika, so are you sending the same content to your donors and your mass lists? I mean, what’s, I guess I’m just trying to think about like, how much time are you spending on each of these streams?
ERIKA CARLEY 43:26
Yeah, so so when we write a story, and we push it out, it does not go to our donors, we don’t just write the story, publish it. And then hey, check out this, this grant recipient story. They’re going out all over our social media channels.
ERIKA CARLEY 43:39
If you follow us on social media, I mean, I don’t know now, if it’s real maybe you’ll see it on Instagram. It’s been challenging on social media, but we publish those stories, and then they’re there. The monthly newsletter is where we’ll take that monthly impact.
43:54
ERIKA CARLEY 43: 54
And then we’ll illustrate it and demonstrate the impact of our donors in that monthly. So I think that is confusing. While we are launching one or two impact stories, recipient stories a week. That’s not we’re not hitting up that list or sending those to our donors.
ERIKA CARLEY 44:10
We’re keeping that for the monthly newsletter, which is going to be pretty comprehensive, and it’s going to highlight any updates that we have. So the stories of that month, the updates we have from recipients, and then anything behind the scenes it at Chive Charities.
RHEA WONG 44:23
But is that a different stream of communication than with your donors? Like I’m just thinking about segmentation within your newsletter list. Like is there a special stream of comms that you do for donors?
ERIKA CARLEY 44:36
Yeah, yeah! So I will say the new monthly newsletter that goes out, will typically go to our big list. Now, if we’re doing if we have some special communication going out, if it’s about a donor upgrade grade campaign, or if it’s about a partnership campaign, we’re going to use our active donor list.
ERIKA CARLEY 44:56
So we certainly do segment but for our impact as a whole we see our newsletter as a potential converter for people who are following our work who they’ve shown an interest in our work but we just haven’t been able to get them to convert yet and we still feel like we’re stewarding them to do that up until that point.
RHEA WONG 45:12
Got it! It’s really helpful. Thanks. All right. I think we’ve time for one last question. Dylan, do you want to jump in here and ask your question?
DYLAN 45:19
Hello, how do you engage board members in your monthly giving strategies?
ERIKA CARLEY 45:23
Yeah, that is a really good question. And I will say our board members, the function of our board hasn’t really been to support our monthly giving program. We’ve been able to do that so successfully, so successfully with our team, and so they’ve been a little bit hands-off there.
ERIKA CARLEY 45:40
I think we’re relying more on them for those connections to potential major gift donors. I think we’re Are we really have value in our board is their expertise in the grant categories that communities that we serve. So they represent those communities in a lot of ways.
ERIKA CARLEY 45:56
They help us with the applicants with the highest need in our applicant review which happens four times a year. So we all come together, our board is a big part of that. And they’ll give medical advice, or they’ll talk about what a veteran might have gone through.
ERIKA CARLEY 46:09
And so that’s really where they’ve been so helpful. But as it relates to monthly giving, they aren’t really invested in that, although maybe we can have another conversation and talk strategy, because you can certainly develop a strategy for that.
RHEA WONG 46:24
Alright, well jump in with the last question, what is the conversion look like? So if you have someone who’s following you on social, they’re a big fan, they’re liking they’re commenting, etc. What’s the process by which you convert them from social media fans to actual donors?
ERIKA CARLEY 46:40
I think we deploy a number of tactics on social media, and a lot of that has to do with our stories. So typically, we’re using our social media to get our followers to go to our website to read the story.
ERIKA CARLEY 46:52
And the hope is that that’s what converts them. So we want to be pushing out meaningful, compelling content on social media. It’s rare that we’re making a really bold call to action, although we have in the past, or we’ll use it on social media.
ERIKA CARLEY 47:09
It’s hard on social media because it’s so limited, what you can say is so limited, and the asset is so limited. And so I think the goal, the strategy for us that is work, and that I think is true for most organizations is that if you can get that follower, to click through to your website, or to your campaign landing page, that’s where you’re going to see the success and conversion.
ERIKA CARLEY 47:33
And hopefully, hopefully, Jalen when you do that, you’re asking them to join the newsletter. So then they’re in the pipeline, they’re no longer an Instagram handle, they become an email address.
RHEA WONG 47:44
Yeah, it really speaks to the letters of engagement, right? Like so you’re trying to get them from like, I’m just a casual observer to actually actively being on the email is to open your emails to becoming a donor, right?
RHEA WONG 47:55
So it’s a longer-term strategy. Friend, this has been so awesome. I’ve learned so much I know everyone listening in has as well. Where can folks get in touch with you if they want to learn more about you and your work?
ERIKA CARLEY 48:08
Yeah, you can get in touch with me on LinkedIn. I’m Erika Carley. That’s probably the easiest way and you can also always get in touch with me at erica.carley@chivecharities.org. But I love connecting with people offline and online. Love workshopping ideas. So it’s been wonderful. And all these questions have been really insightful.
RHEA WONG 48:28
Okay, wait, this is my last question, which is a fun question. I’ve been asking all my guests, if you had a metaphorical billboard to communicate anything that you wanted to the world, what’s on your billboard?
ERIKA CARLEY 48:39
This might feel a little bit cheesy, but I think I would honestly say, be kind. I have three little kids, four years old, three years old, and one year old. And right now, I feel like I’m in that time of life where I’m trying to show them what it means to be kind, to be kind to yourself, to be kind to others, and to be kind to the future.
ERIKA CARLEY 49:01
And even now in my professional life, trying to also say that be kind to myself. I think we can be our own harshest critics. So I think that’s what I would say and there are some layers to that, but be kind of important.
RHEA WONG 49:12
I love that. It’s such a nice way to send us off. So thank you so much, Erika. This has been so great. I’ll make sure that all of your info is in the show notes for folks and have a great day everyone. Take care.
RHEA WONG 49:25
Thank you so much.
ERIKA CARLEY 49:26
Thank you for coming. This has been so much fun.
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