The Habit of Asking: Shifting to a Recurring-First Mindset

Did you know that only 3% of charitable giving in the U.S. happens on a recurring basis, and moving that needle to just 5% could unlock $9 BILLION in annual funding for nonprofits?!

Today I’m sharing my keynote from the 2025 Monthly Giving Summit and pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to stop treating recurring giving like a side hustle. It’s time to make it the main event!

Sustainable, predictable revenue doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when we lead with intention, ask boldly, and invite people into something bigger than a one-time gift.

And it starts with ONE powerful question: Do you have the habit of asking?

Throughout my talk, you’ll hear personal stories, industry-shifting data, and tactical strategies to help you build (or scale) a thriving monthly giving program. You’ll walk away with ideas you can implement today (not next year!), to transform how you position recurring support, activate your donors, and build a future where sustainable giving becomes the norm.

Resources & Links

Want to see more of the 2025 Monthly Giving Summit? Click here for the YouTube Playlist of all the sessions.

Check out Episode 142 to hear Blythe Hill from Dressember unpack their merger and acquisition journey with IJM.

LettrLabs is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. 

LettrLabs helps nonprofits build lasting donor relationships through real, handwritten mail that’s fully automated - turning moments of intent into meaningful connection. From thank-yous to impact updates, they help you cut through with mail donors actually open, remember, and trust.

Join me and the LettrLabs team on March 30th at 1pm Eastern for a FREE webinar that will showcase even more examples and case studies of how direct mail can work for you.

The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish. 

Let's Connect!

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• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? ...

Transcript

Unlocking $9 Billion Through Recurring Giving

Speaker 1 0:29

What if we, collectively, could unlock $9 billion? $9 billion Giving Tuesday has been running an analysis on the opportunities in our sector and, no surprise, recurring giving is at the top of the list, and so you are gonna get a preview, a first look at some of the key numbers from that analysis. I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to Movements podcast, and my path to philanthropy has been anything but traditional. This show is your weekly mastermind, designed to give you the ideas, insights and support you need to push the boundaries of what's been done before in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Whether you're looking to build a magnetic monthly giving program, elevate your personal brand or create partnerships that amplify your impact, this space is for you. I'll bring you solo episodes and conversations with industry leaders offering actionable strategies and fresh perspectives that will move you and your mission forward. Let's turn your mission into a movement. So we say we want more monthly donors, but are we actually asking like we mean it? I am very excited to share this previously recorded live session from the 2025 Monthly Giving Summit, where this was my keynote that I shared where we really get real and honest about what it looks like to stop treating recurring giving like a side hustle or a PS message and really start making it the main event, because sustainable revenue doesn't happen by accident. It happens when we lead with intention, we ask boldly and when we invite people into something bigger than a one-time gift. And why this is even more crucial to think about right now is because of the flux that we're seeing in financial stability in the sector, with funding, and so truly recurring giving is the most sustainable and predictable revenue stream. So I hope this keynote discussion from the Monthly Giving Summit inspires some inspiration, some creativity, some ideas, and it's the perfect warm-up for what's coming next week, which is Monthly Giving Awareness Week. It is a full-on celebration of this movement we're building together, presented by Giving Tuesday RKD Group and myself, all for you. So we are going to have three different pieces of content released every single day next week. If you head to monthlygivingweekcom, go ahead and add there's a little calendar. You can add the event to your calendar, so you have it on there for a week. Come back to the website every single day, new content will be dripped out and released for you. And if you are curious about other sessions from the Monthly Giving Summit specifically, all of the sessions have been uploaded for free on YouTube. You can also go to monthlygivingsummitcom and there's an easy way to access the playlist of all of the sessions for this. So if you are ready to grow your program, to get inspired and to really start making monthly giving a no-brainer, maybe this needs to be sent to leadership in your organization. Continue to listen to this episode. If you want the slide visual version, you can head to YouTube where you can see the actual presentation that I gave, and we'll make sure to link to that in the show notes. And with that, let's go, and don't forget to head to monthlygivingweekcom to get all of the amazing resources for next week during Monthly Giving Awareness Week.

Monthly Giving Awareness Week Preview

Speaker 1 4:09

Each of us has a shared vision to create a sustainable, reliable revenue and uninterrupted impact for our causes, and today I want to challenge you with one simple but powerful question. Do you have the habit of asking for occurring gifts? And that's what we're going to dive into during my morning keynote today. Now, if you would have told me 14 years ago that I would have dedicated my career to helping nonprofits build thriving monthly giving programs, I wouldn't have believed you. Not because I didn't care I've always been really passionate about impact but because of the time, monthly giving was not even in my radar. In 2011, I started in the nonprofit world officially after graduating from college as the Director of Marketing and Development for a nonprofit and I was juggling all the things this might sound very familiar from events, social media, donor appeals, email campaigns. Does this sound familiar to anybody? We talked about fundraising all the time, but never monthly giving really as a strategy. It was always major gifts, it was annual appeals and our big gala, and so why does this matter to me? There was something really big that happened.

Speaker 1 6:44

I watched a movie. I watched a movie called the Whistleblower. Has anybody seen this movie before? Yeah, the Whistleblower. It came out in 2010, and it's a drama based on the true story of Kathleen Bukovac, a Nebraskan police officer who took a job as a UN peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and she uncovered a human trafficking ring, only to realize that actual members of the UN and private contractors were complicit in the cover-up. And despite threats and corruption and obstruction, she risked everything to tell the truth and I honestly, I rented this from a red box and just I thought it was a government thriller movie and at the very end it said the words based on a true story and everything.

Finding My Cause Through a Film

Speaker 1 7:35

I was shocked. I wanted to do something. So the first thing I did was I went to Google and I searched online for anti-human trafficking organizations. There's over a thousand just in the US, just in the US alone. And so I, like, continued searching. I was like how in the world was I going to pick one organization of these thousands to support or volunteer with? Kelly? I remember Redbox, yeah, to support and be with. Then I found Blythe Hill. She is the founder of Dressumber. She stood out because she stood out about what she was doing and she was vocal about it. I found her TED Talk on YouTube and she was doing something so different. She created her.

Speaker 1 8:22

What I like to call moat In businesses we call it it's really common around a moat of what makes you different, what makes it so like untouchable that you're who somebody wants to work with or support. And her story stood out in how Dressumber fundraised, using dresses and ties as a peer-to-peer campaign to raise awareness, was so unique, and so I always say I love Dressumber too. One of the top ways to stand out is to create your moat. I've had the really fortunate opportunity this is a QR code to listen to episode 142, where Dressember has actually been acquired by IJM, international Justice Mission, and it's a really interesting story about how she made the decision to do that as a founder and become part of this bigger coalition, which I thought was so powerful. And so we want to make sure that we create our moats by telling our stories. Your personal, unique stories are so powerful, and this is my daughter, kennedy, and since, before she was born, the on the right is this past Valentine's Day, so just a couple weeks ago I was telling her stories. We tell lots of stories in this house, lots of stories on repeat, and now more than ever, your personal stories matter to amplify the work that you're doing. And so, nearly five years ago, I joined Dress Embers, the collective, their monthly giving program, and I wanted to just like I am one individual. But what does it mean to be a monthly donor of five organizations? Like who is this person right? So, dressumber, they use fashion I talked about the dresses and the ties to raise awareness and funds to combat human trafficking.

My Experience as a Monthly Donor

Speaker 1 10:09

The Hope Booth I am a member of the movement. They refurbish old telephone booths and install them in public spaces to provide messages of hope and mental health resources. You will hear from a member of the hope booth in just a few minutes. Aclu defends and promotes civil liberties and constitutional rights, litigation, advocacy and community engagement. I'm a monthly donor of the ACLU. I'm a monthly donor of Chamber of Mothers, advocates for policies and supports mothers, including paid family leave, affordable childcare and maternal health and, lastly, politicist providing funding to cover childcare costs so parents can participate in civic activities, ensuring families have a voice in democracy.

The $9 Billion Recurring Giving Opportunity

Speaker 1 10:51

Now I give in support to all of these organizations because it's so aligned with my core identity and because I was asked. I was asked to join specifically as a monthly donor to these organizations. Now, I don't mean that they literally called me and asked, but whether it was a social ad, whether it was the first thing I saw on their website, whether Gloria Aymana at the Hope Booth, it was a LinkedIn post talking about the movement, specifically, I was called in to ask. So here's a question what if we collectively could unlock $9 billion $9 billion Giving? Tuesday has been running an analysis on the opportunities in our sector and, no surprise, recurring giving is at the top of the list, and so you are going to get a preview, a first look at some of the key numbers from that analysis. So right now, only 3% of all charitable donations are given on a recurring basis in the United States. If we move that number from 3% to 5% together, we would unlock an additional $9 billion in annual funding for nonprofits. Now think about that. $9 billion, not just one time every single year. That's enough to fund programs, hire more staff, expand services and create more impact.

Speaker 1 12:23

But now, this shift doesn't happen on its own and by accident, right? It happens when we as leaders, start changing our own habits, not just the habits of our donors, but it starts with how we prioritize. Yeah, isn't that crazy. I just got chills, I know. When they first told me this, I was like can I please share that? I know it hasn't been like publicly announced anywhere, but this group needs to hear it.

Speaker 1 12:46

But, most importantly, how do we communicate and how do we ask? So I want you to think for a second about your own life. How many of you have a Netflix subscription or Hulu or Disney or any entertainment platform? Like? I'm going to keep my hand raised. How about a gym membership? I'm going to keep my hand raised. I go to Orange Theory. I need a class. I need people to like, motivate me. How about a meal delivery service, hellofresh? We are like constantly in waves of this because I am not a good cook and I need a box to help me prepare meals. But we love the ease, right? We love the predictability, the convenience. And the donors, they're no different. They love the habit of giving. They said it and they forget it until, of course, they're like I'm so into this mission.

Speaker 1 13:33

But here's the real question Do we as or is it still the little sidebar on the website, the PS message in your email appeal a backup plan? Because, be honest, how many of us are prioritizing monthly giving the way we should? Because this is the reality. If we want donors to build the habit of giving in a recurring first manner, we need to build the habit of asking in a recurring first manner. So how does it typically get positioned?

Speaker 1 14:13

Let's look at this example. There's just one example. How many donation pages look like this? Right, a small monthly giving button right underneath a hidden checkbox? And maybe this is not all of you, but maybe it's a few. And now ask yourself if a donor this is a real page I took from a real nonprofit If a donor landed on this page, what's the first thing they see? Are they being asked to join something powerful and ongoing about community, or are they being asked to give once, with a small secondary option to consider monthly giving?

Changing Our Asking Habits

Speaker 1 14:50

When we treat recurring giving as an afterthought, donors will too. That's just the fact. So here's the stats again. We already know the potential. If we, collectively, can increase recurring giving from 3% to 5%, that is an extra $9 billion for nonprofits annually. But how do we actually make that happen, right? That's the question. It starts with flipping the script If we treat recurring gifts as the primary way to support your organization rather than the optional way. Here's the truth. Monthly donors just don't stick around longer. They also give more over time. They feel more connected to your work. They are way more likely to increase their gifts. Give again, introduce you to networks I am hosting a fundraiser at my house volunteer and leave legacy gifts.

Speaker 1 15:45

If we commit to asking differently, we will not just increase our funding. We will create a new culture of philanthropy, one where sustained giving is the norm, not the exception, just like we've been taught in culture with the subscription economy. So how do we move today from knowledge to action? There are two commitments we need to make today. First, implementation starts now. Over the next two days, you're going to hear the most amazing strategies and case studies and practical tactics, but we have to commit what we learned today, not later, not next year, but today. And second, we must do this together.

Speaker 1 16:34

The most successful monthly giving programs do not operate in silos. I love our Sustainer Slack group. There's 150 orgs in there. They collaborate, they share, they lift each other up. If we truly want to grow this 2% each other up, if we truly want to grow this 2% we have to do it together. We have to build a community of support. So this is my challenge Before we dive in today's session.

Taking Action Together

Speaker 1 16:52

This is my only challenge today. Please take a moment. Think about your next fundraising campaign, your website right now, the next email you have prepared to send out, the next email you have prepared to send out, and what's one way that you can start asking in a recurring? First way, and number two, there are over 1,100 of you now in here right now. Who is one person you can connect with here today to collaborate on growing your program?

Speaker 1 17:21

This summit is not just about ideas. It is about action and if we can take that step together and make recurring giving the main event, I mean, wow, think about what that can do. Let's make today the moment we stop treating monthly giving as an afterthought, because when we do, we are not just fundraising, we are building the future of philanthropy together. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review. Wherever you're listening, your feedback helps us reach more changemakers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too, so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.