My name is Jeff Zigman. I’m a Software Engineer from Montreal, Canada, and I’ve developed a platform for Jewish charities that I believe will make most donors comfortable giving you monthly donations.
Everyone wants monthly donations. It means more money and stability for you and it’s usually easier for the donor (especially smaller ones).
But it’s a tough sell.
Getting people to part with their hard-earned money is difficult enough, but when you add the “commitment factor” into the equation, it’s no wonder a lot of charities can’t get more than 10% of their donors giving monthly.
You need to “break the psychological barrier” to make them as comfortable “committing” to you monthly as they would be to donate once.
So how do you do that?
Deconstruct all of the reasons that could make them apprehensive about giving monthly and then remove them from the equation.
– What if they need to change the card on file?
– What if it’s a pain having to call your office and 5 others if they can’t afford the payment this month?
– What if they can no longer afford the same amount anymore?
– What if they don’t like giving up control or their credit card to 5-10 different charities?
– What if they want to avoid having to call you in case they feel ashamed about having to decrease the amount?
If you can remove these factors, you could easily convince a $100 donor to do $18, or even $36 per month! $18 comes to $216 per year and $36 comes to $436 – Just imagine converting 50 or 100 donors like that!
(With 50 donors, that’s an increase of $16,800 a year, or $33,600 with 100 donors.)
You can even turn one-time donors of $500 into $150 per month! ($1,800 per year.)
You can see why it would make donors more comfortable giving here:
And you can see the basic features in the pilot for charities here:
It’s not just a charity CRM or backend system I’ve built (though it has that). It’s a platform to make donors comfortable giving monthly, so that you can raise more money.
I have the following charities signed up as pilot users and have already started processing transactions.
Canadian Friends of Tel-Aviv University
The first step was building a 2-sided monthly donation platform that’s lightning fast to learn.
The next and future step is in adding features that will help you cultivate the relationship so they don’t stop their monthly donations, or perhaps even “upselling” them for you. I’ve already received some amazing ideas for this from expert fundraisers (including some of the pilot users), but I’m happy to hear more!
I’m also looking for a few more “power users” for the pilot, to whom I’m willing to give permanently reduced fees on the site.
There are still a few spots available, so if you’re interested in trying out the pilot as a “power user,” just email support@myjewishgiving.com and let me know.
