Does this bring in money or votes? Newsletter 27
Hey folks! I’m elated to meet y’all and get to talk about the cool work we’re doing here (if I do say so myself). My name is Julia Salavantis, and I’m the Democratic National Committee’s Donor Cultivation Manager – which means I manage our monthly donor program along with some of our donor cultivation programs.
Let’s get nerdy for a minute
Monthly donors, also referred to as sustainers, are quite literally the people who sustain our party. By choosing to make recurring monthly contributions instead of one-time gifts, our donors allow us to plan and invest in our programs way further in advance than we otherwise could. We like to say there are no off years at the DNC, and by continuing to build out relationships with our monthly donors even after an election, the DNC can maintain and grow critical party infrastructure with dependable income month after month.
Below you can see over a decade of monthly donations. Knowing 2020 would be a huge opportunity to grow our monthly sustainers, we took strides to ramp up our investment into this program! This dedicated capacity made a huge difference in keeping people on the file over time and decreasing the “churn” or the cancellations of monthly gifts post-election.
PART 1:
Upgrades… Do’s + Don'ts
During the past six months we’ve been testing some ideas for upgrading current monthly donors' active contributions. This means we’re asking current sustainers to increase the amount they give every month. We approach this with caution and empathy, because we would never want donors to think we aren’t already so grateful for what they are already giving. We run these campaigns over telemarketing, email, and peer-to-peer texting once every few months and have seen great results. We’ve seen around 500 upgrades across channels since February 2022, which will bring in an additional $85k if folks continue their gifts through the midterm elections. Here’s what one of my conversations looked like:
By having these conversations directly with our supporters we’re able to build relationships organically, and actually get to know folks on a deeper level!
PART 2:
Keeping Sustainers Happy
Everyone wants a happy donor! We try our best to make sure folks feel taken care of, which our superb donor cultivation team spends a lot of time doing over email, phone, mail… you name it. We’ve also been trying out some fun things like sending a custom sticker to folks who become sustainers to certain campaigns.
DNC Deputy Executive Director Roger Lau (who is also a monthly donor!) making calls to some of our sustaining donors to thank them for their continued support.
PART 3:
How do we keep people engaged?
Making sure that our donors feel informed, valued, and supported is the best strategy for keeping their monthly gifts active. Seems like simple logic to me — if you feel good about where you’re putting your money every month and understand its impact, you’re more likely to continue giving and become more involved in other ways as well. Lots of our sustainers are also volunteers or supporters who regularly attend our virtual events.
Our Monthly Donor Briefing with Reyna Walters-Morgan, our Director of Civic Engagement and Voter Protection, where we talked about all things voter protection.
Monthly donors are investors — and they are putting their trust in us to do good work with their investments. Anything we can do to show them exactly what their money is doing helps build trust and understanding.
To that end, we host Monthly Donor Briefings with members of our DNC leadership team where we get into the weeds about what their programs are doing and how monthly donations make all the difference in funding them. Supporters are able to connect with us and each other through a live chat box during these events, which means we can provide folks with resources they want and answers to their questions while getting face to face time.
Closing
All of this gives me the opportunity to do my favorite part of my job — talking to our supporters one-on-one! Hearing from the folks who literally sustain our organization, and maintaining long-term relationships with them, help inform the info I give to DNC leadership about what our supporters really care about.
I’m always thrilled to talk about all things monthly donors, so thanks for reading along with me! If you have any friends or colleagues who are interested in grassroots fundraising, please feel free to pass this newsletter along to them. And maybe you’ve become convinced to become a monthly donor yourself… if so, you can join at https://democrats.org/join_grassroots 😇
If you’d ever like to chat about monthly donor programs, please reach out!
Julia Salavantis
Donor Cultivation Manager, Democratic National Committee