Sustaining Initiatives

"Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

-Warren Buffett

hjc has been luck enough to help create, nurture and grow monthly ‘sustainer’ fundraising programs for over 30 years. No one has more experience executing on complex multi-channel acquisition campaigns (face-to-face, digital, direct mail, sms, etc).

Our sustainer fundraising works has allowed us to explore new and innovative ways that social impact organizations can grow their sustainer files in an era where OTG retention rates are decreasing drastically.

“In regard to sustainer file growth, hjc is thinking about the things that most organizations are not; uncoventional channels, predictive attrition modelling, or multi-channel onboarding experiences are all part of a new era of sustainer fundraising” - Michael Johnston, Founder and President of hjc

hjc co-sponsored research point to changes in demographic, social, and economic indicators that show sustainer programs are becoming more important than ever for social impact organizations.

hjc is proud to outline some of our thinking, services and resources to help you create, and maintain monthly giving ‘sustainer’ programs.

The Organizational Benefits of a Monthly Sustainer Program

A universe of committed and enthusiastic supporters,
Over-time the potential for:
- Millions of dollars in unrestricted income,
- A new source of planned giving donors
A guaranteed and resilient source of funding,
A model of giving that has a build in donation upgrade functionality,
Lower organizational cost in:
- Administration,
- Human resource,
- Donor engagement

Design Thinking for Monthly Giving

Design Thinking is here to stay with monthly sustainer programs. The commercial sector quickly applied the discipline and thoroughness of CX Design Thinking to key customer journeys. Stanford Design School’s approach to journey mapping was adopted by companies like Oracle and Microsoft and this approach made incredible improvements to the customer journey.

Monthly Donor Stewardship

The stewardship of a new monthly donor is the primary driver of donor retention. At hjc we understand the impact a thoughtful, multi-channel onboarding process can have to your bottom line.

Therefore, we believe that effective stewardship begins with regular and impactful communications driven by empirically informed donor “needs” data. Our job is to help you bring your donors and your organization’s mission closer together.

Monthly Retention

hjc knows how hard it is to recruit new monthly donors and more importantly how valuable a shortened return on investment can be. Our comprehensive donor retention and reactivation approach works to firstly ensure that delinquent gift recapture is best in class. By activating multiple channels, we can ensure that we reactivate a large portion of month-over-month declined monthly gifts. Secondly, through our in-house face-to-face expertise we can work with your external vendors to ensure you get the best possible claw-back mechanisms baked into your annual contracts. These claw backs are often a pain point for organization but hjc has experience working with vendors from across North America and can ensure your organization receives the best possible guarantees.

Philanthropic Positioning

HJC’s experience in developing regular giving programs has shown us that a successful a committed giving model requires the development of separate and specific philanthropic structures. These are:

A specific organizational branded sub-brand i.e. logo, and name,
Dedicated on and off-line stewardship communication channels,
Making impact measurable by providing up front support levels and report back systems,
A dedicated champion to manage the program strategy and implementation on a daily basis,
Consistent messaging to supporters that:
- They are a special community of committed and dedicated donors making a real difference though their ongoing regular support of your organization’s mission and work,
- Their donations have greater impact because they are giving through the most cost-effective method possible.

We’d love to help to make sure you are positioned for monthly giving success!

Ask how we can help in these often overlooked areas!

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