Sustainable Giving

What if your next 100 monthly donors are just waiting for you to ask?Abby Jarvis is back! Abby, Head of Research and Editorial at Neon One, was one of our very first Season 1 guests. She returns to the Sustainable Giving Podcast to dig into the brand-new Recurring Donor Report with host Dave Raley.This time, Abby didn't just crunch the numbers. She talked to 718 recurring donors about why they start, why they stay, and why they stop. What she found: everyday people quietly changing the world one steady gift at a time, and a big, wide-open opportunity for nonprofits willing to invite them in. Grab your coffee (or your walking shoes) and join the data-nerd party.Key Topics:- Eight Years of Growth (and Counting): From 2023 to 2025, the average nonprofit saw a 32% jump in recurring donors and a 36% jump in recurring revenue. That happened even as total donor files shrank about 5.5%. More donors AND more dollars? That's multiplication, not addition.- The Ask Nobody's Making: 60% of recurring donors set up their gift without being asked, and only 25% said a nonprofit invited them. Among people who don't give monthly yet, about two-thirds are open to the idea. Translation: the door is open. We just haven't knocked.- Meet the Recurring Donor: They're not mysterious unicorns! They're mostly established, middle-class adults giving under $5,000 a year. These are the same everyday donors the sector is losing fastest everywhere else.- Why They Start, Stay, and Stop: Donors start because of a personal connection, a wish to help their community, and (for about a third) a sense of religious or moral duty. They stay when they feel connected and can see their impact. The #1 reason they stop is affordability, so don't take it personally, and keep the relationship alive.- From "Giving" to "Donor": Why the report changed one word in its title, and how putting people ahead of transactions changes everything that follows.Also in this episode:- Why donors aren't vending machines (stop perfecting the send time and start asking!)- Squishy data, Magic Eye pictures, and seeing the forest AND the trees- How a chat with a barista reshaped Abby's survey- A charity in Haiti now has local Haitian recurring donors, and a zoo grew from 175 to 12,000+ sustainers- How talking about your program does two jobs at once: it inspires new donors and keeps current ones givingSo here's our question for you: what's one way your organization could invite people into recurring giving this month?Watch the full conversation on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Then tell us in the comments what surprised you most!Key Resources:- The Recurring Donor Report (Neon One): https://neonone.com/resources/guide/the-recurring-donor-report/- Recurring Giving Calculator (Neon One): https://neonone.com/resources/recurring-giving-report/#video-topics- Connect with Abby Jarvis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigailljarvis/- Get Dave's book, The Rise of Sustainable Giving: https://sustainablegiving.org/book- Abby's first visit to the show: Season 1, Episode 3, "Humanizing Donor Data: How to Stop Treating Donors Like Transactions": https://www.sustainablegiving.org/podcast/episodes/humanizing-donor-data-pw8ymSpecial thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.

What if the boldest move your nonprofit could make isn't raising more money, but making sure people actually know you exist?That's the curveball Kendra Davenport, President & CEO of Easterseals, throws at host Dave Raley in this episode of the Sustainable Giving Podcast. Easterseals serves 1.5 million people every year through a federated network of 70 affiliates, 38,000 employees, and markets spanning 48 states and D.C. But for Kendra, a three-decade nonprofit leader (and Operation Smile alum), the real battle isn't the money. It's awareness.We step out of the mechanics and into the CEO's chair. Kendra gets refreshingly honest about the "big bet" that reshaped Easterseals' entire model — going all-in on Direct Response Television — the politicking it took to bring 70 independent affiliates along, and the moment they pulled their brand-new program off the air after just three months to retool. Along the way: a car that ran 40 years with zero maintenance, a first-ever Telly Award, and a whole lot of hard-won wisdom on leading change you can't mandate. Grab a coffee — this one's a keeper.Top 5 things Dave and Kendra dig into:The big bet on DRTV and the "halo effect." Why Easterseals gambled on direct response TV knowing it'd take 3–5 years to pay off, and how it revived a dying direct-mail program while lifting digital and face-to-face by double and triple digits.Awareness is the real crisis. One in four Americans is disabled, yet outside that community almost no one knows what Easterseals does. Kendra's fix: authentic, unscripted storytelling from real participants, the kind that earns awards and moves people to give.There was no choice. An aging donor base, the smallest average gift, a heavy direct-mail program — Kendra unpacks the organizational soul-searching behind diversifying into recurring giving before it was too late.Growing vs. truly scaling. They're not the same. Kendra breaks down the capital, the board conversations, the ROI patience, and why the risk of not changing is the biggest risk of all.Leading change you can't mandate. With 70 CEOs and independent boards, national can't issue directives. Kendra shares how she led through trust and influence and how to tell the difference between resistance to overcome and resistance that's telling you something true.A few more gems along the way:Protecting the dignity of people with disabilities while still communicating need compellinglyComing off air within three months and defending that call to a network expecting a splashThe "silver bullet" myth and why scarcity thinking keeps smaller nonprofits smallKeeping lots of "lines in the water" at once — corporate, planned giving, cause marketing, face-to-faceKendra's bold vision: doing for disability what Susan G. Komen did for breast cancerSo here's the question worth sitting with: is your organization still hunting for the one silver bullet or ready to put more lines in the water and play the long game?Key ResourcesEasterseals: https://www.easterseals.com/Kendra Davenport on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendradavenport/Dave Raley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/draley/The Rise of Sustainable Giving book by Dave Raley: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/bookSpecial thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.

What if the smallest gift on your file—that $10-a-month donor—turns out to be one of the most valuable relationships your organization will ever build?In this episode, Dave Raley sits down with Jeff Spitko, Senior Director of Integrated Fundraising at the San Diego Foundation, for a genuine masterclass in building fundraising that lasts. Before joining the Foundation, Jeff spent 11 years at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where he helped grow annual and mid-level giving from $26 million to more than $57 million and grew monthly donors from just 175 to nearly 12,000. Yes, you read that right.Whether you steward 400,000 members or 400, this conversation is packed with practical, hard-earned lessons on scale, segmentation, storytelling, and why the sustainers you might overlook often carry the most long-term weight.Top 5 topics we dig into:Scaling the Zoo from $26M to $57M: Jeff inherited three jobs rolled into one—a decades-old membership program, mass-market annual/mid/major giving for global conservation, and philanthropy communications—and turned it into a growth engine over 11 years.The recurring giving growth story (175 to ~12,000 monthly donors): The game-changer wasn't the brand. It was weaving monthly giving in as an option inside every appeal and email, instead of selling it as a separate program.Question your assumptions. Go to the data: The "typical" donor myths were wrong. Their base skewed toward single donors and grandparents, ran nearly 50/50 on gender, and spanned every age. Test everything; don't fundraise from your gut.Meet donors where they are (and don't sleep on legacy): Not everyone wants to be "moved up," and that's okay. About 65% of planned gifts came from members who never gave above $5,000, and recurring donors are far more likely to leave a legacy gift.Donor acquisition is an investment: Jeff's on-site canvassing program was a game-changer: talking panda conservation 15 feet from a panda, with same-day handwritten thank-you notes matched to the animal each visitor loved. But it took 14–18 months to turn a profit, which means real conversations with your CFO about patience.A few more gems tucked inside:Storytelling and equivalencies that stick ("your $10 a month could provide antibiotics for a baby elephant"), and why you shouldn't water down "saves" into "can help save."Automation and the donor journey: welcome series that cultivate, upgrade, and steward at scale.Fundraising through COVID with authenticity when the gates were closed for five months.Inside the San Diego Foundation: a $1.8B community foundation granting $100M+ a year across education, environment, family well-being, and housing."Build for What's Next": why the San Diego Fundraising Conference (presented by PNC Bank) exists and where recurring revenue fits in fundraising's future.So here's our question for you: what are you building right now that future-you will be grateful you started? Key Resources:San Diego Foundation: https://www.sdfoundation.org/Jeff Spitko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffspitko/"The Rise of Sustainable Giving" by Dave Raley: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/bookDave Raley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/draley/Special thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.

What if your next major donor is already giving you $50 a month, and you just can't see them yet?Dave sits down with two of the sharpest data minds in fundraising—Jaclyn Jones, Chief Philanthropic Economist at Masterworks, and Carly Berna, VP of Marketing and Fundraiser in Residence at Virtuous—to unpack the 3rd Annual Rescue Mission Benchmark Report. Five years of real performance data across nearly 200 rescue missions surfaces a fascinating tension: revenue is climbing, but it's coming from fewer donors giving more. Meanwhile, recurring giving is quietly taking off.It's a candid, geeky, genuinely hopeful conversation about building fundraising that can actually sustain itself and why the social services sector may be sitting on its biggest opportunity yet.Key Topics They Talk About:Growth by value, not volume: Revenue is up, but it's driven by existing donors giving more, not new donors coming in. Jaclyn and Carly ask the uncomfortable question: is "more money from fewer donors" healthy growth, or a warning sign about where the future major donors come from?The year-one cliff: Second-gift conversion sits around 17% and second-year retention lands at just 25–35%, but donors who reach year three become dramatically more durable. The problem isn't only acquisition. It's the first-year relationship.Recurring giving is surging: Recurring gifts grew 26.7% year over year while non-recurring giving actually declined ~2.65%, meaning all the growth came from sustainers. Yet recurring donors are still only ~9% of active donors. Encouraging, or a giant untapped opportunity? (Both.)Your next major donor is already in your file: 97% of a recurring donor's value comes after the first gift. Every donor cohort—small, mid, and major—increases in value after switching to recurring. That $50/month sustainer may be a mid-level donor in disguise.So what do you actually do about it? Jaclyn on strategy (find your drop-off moments, build first-year relationships) and Carly on technology (one-to-one personalization, giving forms that know who's on them). Practical, not preachy.Also In This Episode, They Talk About:The best time to ask for a recurring gift is the first year—often the first three months—not year three.Why a retention budget deserves to be as big as your acquisition budget.The 10-month drop-off and how pre-cancellation "cultivation" touches lifted retention ~10%.Why regional, "come-see-the-work" charities have a hidden advantage in the age of AI.Indirect attribution: Jaclyn's surprisingly hopeful pick for the future of giving.If you recognized your own organization somewhere in these numbers, where would you start first?Key Resources:2026 Rescue Mission Benchmark Report: https://virtuous.org/resource/rescue-mission-benchmark-report/Masterworks Insights Lab: https://www.masterworks.agency/insights-labVirtuous: https://www.virtuous.orgJaclyn Jones on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaclyn-m-jones/Carly Berna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlybernaSpecial thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.

What becomes possible when the people closest to a mission are invited not just to participate in it, but to sustain it?When Lucy nervously asked her volunteers to chip in $5 a month, she braced for a "no." Instead, 300 people said "yes"—and the Stamp Squad was born. In this episode, host Dave Raley sits down with Lucy Madden, Founding CEO of Letters to a Pre-Scientist, to trace how a scrappy, pandemic-era experiment grew into a thriving recurring-giving community that now powers a meaningful slice of the organization's budget.Letters to a Pre-Scientist connects middle schoolers in under-resourced schools with real STEM professionals for a year-long, snail-mail pen pal exchange. Lucy shares how the mission, the team, and the funding model all grew up together, and what she's learned about building something that lasts, one letter (and one stamp) at a time.Key Topics:1. From educator to founder — How a science teacher and mom who saw STEM sidelined for reading and math scores inherited a pen pal program through a Facebook post, then left the classroom to found the nonprofit in 2019.2. Growing from one to a team of five — Scaling from ~850 students to 4,500, and Lucy's hard-won lesson that the founder's passion couldn't be outsourced, so she hired a program director and kept the fundraising herself.3. The funding inflection point — A one-year foundation grant for her salary that clearly wasn't permanent, and the decision to make recurring giving the foundation of the org, not a nice-to-have.4. The story of the Stamp Squad — Launched in 2020 to survive the pandemic (her husband's idea!), a low-budget ask video that landed 300 monthly donors, growing past 500 members, moving from $5 to $8/month—roughly the cost of one student's participation—now covering ~15% of operating costs.5. When volunteers become sustainers — Why 90%+ of Stamp Squad members are former pen pals, and why mandatory volunteer training turned out to be the single best moment to invite recurring gifts.Also in this episode:- Keeping donors close with student-written thank-you notes, stickers, and virtual letter-opening parties- A live coaching moment: Dave's 5 ways to grow donor value, plus lessons from Lucy's first upgrade campaign- Building real community around a "democratized funding model"- Dave's #1 tip for small orgs: invest in the right recurring-giving tech before you start asking-The surprising link between monthly donors and future legacy giftsWhat could your mission look like if you gave ordinary people a clear, meaningful way to belong, and let that commitment compound? Key Resources:- Letters to a Pre-Scientist — Join the Stamp Squad: https://prescientist.org/stamp-squad/- Lucy's original "join the Stamp Squad" invite video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVCFGDDXrHA- Student thank-you letters (see the snail-mail magic): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BEOm9UnWc4NhsVf94uPSngwlI5nqpnvL- The Rise of Sustainable Giving by Dave Raley: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/book- The Center for Sustainable Giving — workshops, assessments & roadmaps: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/Special thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.