Inside the Monthly Giving Summit: Strategies, the Builder, and a Retreat for Recurring Revenue

It’s officially Monthly Giving Summit Day!!!  This short episode is your invitation to join us and start building.

In this episode, Dana shares what’s happening at the Monthly Giving Summit and why this isn’t just another virtual event - it’s a room full of builders focused on sustainability, recurring revenue, and cultivating believers (not just donors).

You’ll get a preview of what attendees are learning, including:

• How The Trevor Project acquired new monthly donors at scale in just two weeks
• How Interfaith Sanctuary turned monthly donors into advocates who influenced local legislation
• How Letters from a Pre-Scientist built an automated micro-giving system with 500+ volunteer-supporters
• How Dion’s Chicago Dream leveraged thought leadership to amplify mission visibility (yes, all the way to national TV)

From SMS to innovative direct mail to growth and retention planning, this summit is focused on execution — not theory.

But that’s not all.

Dana also announces the official launch of The Monthly Giving Builder — an interactive tool built from her five-step framework designed to help small and mid-sized nonprofits forecast revenue, craft messaging, build growth and retention plans, and launch sustainable monthly giving programs without a five-figure mastermind investment.

And finally, she shares details about the second annual Monthly Giving Retreat at Serenbe, GA, a transformational in-person experience May 6-8 for women leaders ready to step away from the noise and design recurring revenue with clarity and intention.

If you’re tired of living campaign to campaign and ready to build something that lasts, this episode is your invitation.

Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. 

See how one team surpassed a $1M match and raised $2.25M for their mission with Penny, Bloomerang’s AI-powered fundraising strategist. Learn more at bloomerang.com.

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!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• 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? Click here!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, welcome back to Missions to Movements. Today's episode is a short one, but a good one because it is officially monthly giving summit day. So if you are joining us live, I just want to say I am so glad that you'll be attending us. It's starting today at 1 p.m. Eastern time. And I truly, truly just want to say you made a decision to prioritize sustainability over scrambling and to prioritize recurring revenue over one-time hope and that matters. This is not just another virtual event. The monthly giving summit is a room full of builders. And if you were thinking, I can't make it live today, I wish I could. Let me tell you, grab the recordings. If you upgrade to a VIP ticket, it is the best $49 you will spend this year on your monthly giving strategy. No exaggeration there, because

Summit Day Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:51

over the next two half days, we are not just talking about theory. We are talking execution. We're talking acquisition. We're talking activation. We're talking retention. We're talking innovation. We are talking about curating believers, not just donors. So let me give

Why Recurring Revenue Matters

SPEAKER_00 1:08

you a glimpse of what's going to be happening. Kate Anderson from the Trevor Project, who you've heard before on this podcast, is breaking down a social ad campaign strategy they put together, how they acquired new supporters at scale during a very concise two-week window. What actually worked? What should you test? We have leaders from Inner Faith Sanctuary sharing how their monthly donors don't just give, but they actually became advocates and helped change local legislation. How cool is that? So this is what happens when you're really building that belonging. Lucy Madden, letters from a pre-scientist, is walking us through how 500, 550 plus of her supporters are also volunteers and how she built this automated system that really inspires microgiving in a way that feels very human and scalable. And Dion Dawson from Dion's Chicago Dream. He is going to come to

VIP Recordings And Format

SPEAKER_00 2:01

us really talking about how to use your voice as velocity, about building thought leadership that amplifies your mission, so powerfully so that it landed him on the Ellen DeGeneres show. And that's not accidental. That is intentional positioning. We are going to be covering SMS. We're going to be covering innovative direct mail. We are covering

Speaker Lineup And Case Studies

SPEAKER_00 2:21

how to structure your growth and retention plans. We are diving deep into how you curate believers so they truly feel like insiders. So now, if you have not already signed up for the Monthly Giving Summit, please feel free to do so at monthlygiving summit.com. I will put the link here in the show notes. We would love to have you join us. Again, if you can't make it live, you can upgrade to the VIP ticket for the $49 to get access to all the recordings. And they will be on a uh private audio podcast. If you prefer to listen like this on an audio track, you can do that as well. And then the major, major announcement that I am officially aka now announcing and have been teasing is the official opening of the monthly giving builder. If you're watching on video, I'm going to put on my little construction hat. So for years, I have taught a five-step framework for building sustainable monthly giving programs. It's in my book. I've shared it here on the podcast, and I've done it in keynotes. And traditionally, I have walked organizations through this

Channels: SMS And Direct Mail

SPEAKER_00 3:27

process over four months inside of a five-figure mastermind, the monthly giving mastermind that I would run two times a year. And there would be about five organizations I could join at a time. But I kept asking myself, how do I really make this accessible to the majority of nonprofits, which is the

Launching The Monthly Giving Builder

SPEAKER_00 3:45

ones with budgets under five or even one million, the small shops, the scrappy teams? So I decided to build it. So I decided to get curious and use Vibe

Sign Up And Access Details

SPEAKER_00 3:56

AI. And alongside an amazing coach, Tim Lockheed, you might be familiar with. He's also been on the podcast before. I decided to turn that five-step framework into an interactive monthly giving companion, equaling the monthly giving builder. So in this case, this is not passive learning. This is not a course. This tool will help you forecast revenue with a built-in monthly giving forecaster tool. It will walk you through each step through building, planning, launching, iterating your monthly giving program. It generates three name options for you based upon your mission and the inputs you put in. It will write your donation page copy. It will help you build a growth plan and retention plan on repeat. There's a resource library. I'm going to be doing live trainings in here. They are truly deliverables curated to you at each step. When I think back to 2011 when I was working for Take Stock and Children of Sarasota County as a director in development of development and marketing, man, I wish a tool like this existed years ago. But it is live today, and I am super,

What The Builder Actually Does

SPEAKER_00 5:05

super excited for you to get inside of it. It what it does is it's taking the framework and it's bringing it to life. It's using the IP, my IP and knowledge base to give you all the insights. Um, and I'm so thrilled to see. I mean, we're starting right now with this, the MVP product of it. And then there will be, I have so many ideas on just like the next level. So that's why it's an annual um product that you get entered, um, that you get access to. And so the first 25 founding members are going to receive $200 off per year for life. So that makes it $299 a year. That's it. $299. After that, it's gonna go up to $499 a year, which is still about $40, $42 a month to build sustainable recurring revenue for your organization. So investing $42 a month for your monthly giving program, I wanted this to feel truly accessible. So if you are tired of living campaign to campaign, you have known that monthly giving matters, but there just hasn't been a structure of something to follow, a guide that's truly building out something specifically for you that's not generic. If you are ready to build that something that is steady, this is for you. Go check out monthlygivingbuilder.com. You can scroll through all the steps.

Pricing And Founding Member Offer

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Um, there's a video on there to give you an idea of what's inside the product. And I cannot wait for you to get inside and give me all of your feedback. Um, but again, the monthly giving builder is officially live today. And then finally, I wanted to invite you into something really transformational as well. Um, second big announcement the second annual monthly giving retreat is happening in gorgeous Sarambi. It's just 30 minutes outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And if you've never been to Sarinbi, I hadn't been either, it's like this gorgeous wellness community outside the hustle and bustle of Atlanta. It's so intentional, it's so peaceful. It's really a place where it's built to think differently. And Kat on my team and I went there for like our end-of-year retreat to really be able to experience it. And from the pool to the fire pit area to walking trails, there's horses. It's just, it's so lovely. Farb to table food. And last year at our retreat, the women who attended shared immediate results from internal clarity to revenue growth, alignment

The Retreat At Serenbe

SPEAKER_00 7:29

inside their teams, momentum that carried long after the retreat ended. And this all happens immediately because when you actually step away from the noise and you start to design and spend time with intention, things really shift. So the retreat is for leaders who are women leaders who are serious about building recurring giving, not rushed, not reactive, like truly designing. If you want to be brainstorming around the pool, you're ready to have dinner underneath the stars, you're ready to relax and rejuvenate and also dig in deep and support those around you. We're gonna do like walking brainstorms and meetings. So if you're thinking, I need that depth, that's not just information like thrown at me. This is your invitation. Whether it's the summit, whether it's the builder, whether it's the retreat, they're all connected. I truly want to for this movement that I've been building is bringing together community in whatever way works for you. So I believe in truly helping you find your cohort, your group of believers. And so whether you are joining us live today from the Monthly Giving Summit, whether you're gonna grab the recordings and listen to them afterwards on your own time, whether you're gonna step into using the builder or joining us at Serum B, which is May 6th through 8th, I am just so honored that you are here, that you are a listener to this podcast. You know how much monthly giving means to me and the sustainability behind it and really cultivating this um audience, this generation of microphilanthropists. So together, I just want to invite you to focus, to focus. That's such a good word for this, to focus on building something that lasts. So, with that, I need to go get ready for the event. Um, so much to do in these last couple last couple days. Um, but I hope to see you this afternoon, one to four p.m. Eastern Standard Time for the monthly giving summit

Final Invites And Focus

SPEAKER_00 9:25

and go check out the monthly giving builder.