2009 donorCentrics U.S. Recurring Giving Benchmarking Analysis

A Study of Sustainer Giving in the United States

Target Analytics is pleased to present a study analyzing the state of sustainer giving based on data from a group of eighteen large U.S. national non-profit organizations.

Sustainer giving (also called recurring or regular giving) refers to donations given at regular intervals – usually monthly – with no predetermined end date. The study compared the giving behavior of donors who gave these types of recurring gifts to that of donors who gave only single, one-time gifts.

Key findings in the study include:

• Recurring giving represents a small portion of all giving and is far less prevalent in the U.S. than it is internationally.  
• Recurring donors are very valuable and loyal donors who give continuously and at consistent dollar levels over a long period of time.  
• Donors who give recurring gifts tend to be younger than single gift donors. A large population of younger, better-renewing recurring donors can help mitigate the issue of sub-par renewal rates among younger constituents.  
• It has been difficult for U.S.-based non-profit organizations to gain significant numbers of recurring donors without making recurring donor giving a central focus of their new donor acquisition fundraising strategy.  
• Organizations with large sustainer giving programs use a wide variety of solicitation channels to acquire new donors directly into the recurring giving program.  
• In successive years of giving, recurring donors settle into a stable level of giving and do not tend to downgrade or upgrade their support levels.  
• When recurring-gift-only donors lapse out of recurring giving programs, they are less likely than single-gift donors to ever give again.

» Read the full study.

For more information, please contact us at info@targetanalysis.com.