This is Charitology’s proposed workflow, not a tested intervention or a claim that this method is best. Adapt it to your mission, audience and capacity. The sources below offer context and further reading; they have not validated this playbook.
Goal and fit
Invite supporters to fund continuing work at a frequency they choose. Explain what the commitment supports, when charges occur and how donors can change or end it.
Consider this when the work has a continuing funding need and the organization can handle payment failures, preference changes and regular updates. Recurring giving is an option to explain, not a default to hide.
Count the full costs
- Include provider and payment fees, welcome materials, recurring communications and staff time for support and reconciliation.
- Budget for failed-payment handling and refunds. Do not spend projected future installments as though they were received funds.
Before you start
- Check the live provider’s amount, frequency, authorization, change and cancellation experience from the donor’s perspective.
- Agree who handles payment problems and how donors can contact a person without revealing payment details in ordinary messages.
- Define a starting cohort and what counts as active, paused, cancelled or failed. Set the observation dates before launch.
A proposed workflow
- Describe the continuing work in plain language and offer a visible one-time alternative where appropriate.
- Review the full confirmation text and test how a donor changes an amount or cancels. Use the provider’s secure payment tools.
- Invite an appropriate audience with clear permission and truthful expectations. Avoid presenting a recurring commitment as a one-time gift.
- Welcome new participants with their actual commitment details and the promised update schedule. Keep the provider reference for reconciliation.
- Review received installments and failures regularly, and resolve requests through the agreed process. Keep card and bank credentials out of campaign notes.
What to measure
- Report received revenue, fees, refunds and support time for each starting cohort and observation period.
- Measure continuing participation with a consistent starting denominator. Separate voluntary cancellation, payment failure and pauses.
- M+R monthly-giver survival and annual one-time donor retention describe different cohorts. Do not compare their percentages as a controlled method test.
Keep the uncertainty visible
Try a bounded experiment
Hypothesis: a clearer explanation of the continuing work helps interested donors make an informed choice. Test one explanation with a suitable design, retain the one-time choice and track cancellations and questions as well as starts. A short launch cannot establish lifetime donor value.
Write the decision rule, spending limit and review date before you begin. Keep negative and inconclusive results. An improvement in fundraising is a separate question from an improvement in the outcomes of the work funded.
Follow through
- Send the promised updates without making every message an upgrade request.
- Confirm changes and cancellations promptly through the established provider process, then reconcile the actual result.
- Review whether service capacity and donor expectations remain aligned before expanding recruitment.
Watch for
- Multiplying one month’s receipts by a year hides future cancellations, failures and uncertainty.
- A recurring pledge is not a confirmed payment, and an active provider status is not permission for unrelated marketing.
- Making cancellation difficult may inflate a count while violating the relationship the program was meant to build.
Sources and their limits
These are starting points for your own review. Benchmarks describe particular cohorts; practice guidance and provider experiments answer different questions. No named-charity rating or universal return forecast is supplied.
M+R Benchmarks 2026: fundraising
Separates online one-time giving, monthly giving and donor cohorts, with explicit retention definitions.
Limit. Online cohorts may omit gifts through other channels. One-time annual retention and monthly-giver survival use different denominators and should not be treated as interchangeable.
M+R Benchmarks 2026: glossary
Defines benchmark measures and denominators, including delivered messages, click-through rates, fundraising response and donor categories.
Limit. A shared label does not guarantee that a provider export uses the same definition. Check the numerator, denominator, time window and exclusions before comparing.
Candid: introduction to individual giving
The indexed course description introduces an individual-giving program and planning within a diversified funding strategy.
Limit. The official indexed description was read; direct access returned 403. The course was not completed or evaluated, and no fundraising effect is inferred.
AFP: the Donor Bill of Rights
Sets out professional expectations concerning donor information, intended use, acknowledgment, confidentiality and questions.
Limit. These are professional principles, not an effect study or a substitute for applicable law. Read the original; this hub does not reproduce the declaration.
Tried an approach and learned something? Share a public learning note with its context, costs and limitations. Keep donor identities and unpublished stories private.