How Second Harvest of Silicon Valley grew recurring gifts into $1.56M in extra revenue
Mission
To end hunger in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
Challenge
Scale recurring giving quickly enough to meet demand, which has doubled since the pandemic.
Solution
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley paired a streamlined giving experience, matched-gift incentives, and personal donor outreach that turned recurring giving into a sustainable revenue stream.
“Our recurring donors are our highest retained donors. They see the impact of what they’re funding, and they don’t go anywhere.”
– Katie Woodford, Senior Digital Fundraising Manager
Recurring giving results on GoFundMe Pro*:
90%
recurring donor retention rate
26%
of recurring donors made an extra gift in fiscal year 2026
A 4-P-P
(percentrage point) increase in recurring donors who made an extra gift year over year
$1.56 million
in additional revenue from recurring donors making an extra gift
*Based on 2024 to 2026 Second Harvest of Silicon Valley-provided data
Upgrading a fundraising platform to meet surging demand
Facing double the pre-pandemic demand, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley needed a faster, more flexible fundraising platform to grow recurring giving. Its legacy platform required manual HTML edits for every campaign, which made it difficult to support frequent, time-bound appeals.
With GoFundMe Pro’s Campaign Studio, the lean fundraising team can now launch and clone campaigns without writing code. The team also added a recurring nudge to its embedded donation forms, prompting one-time donors to consider a monthly gift at the moment of giving, which has been shown to increase conversion by nearly 38% with almost no drop in one-time giving.
Everything in Campaign Studio is intuitive. The drag-and-drop functionality makes a huge difference from having to dig through HTML to move something minor on the campaign page.
The platform switch also improved the experience for donors themselves. Previously, donors who wanted to adjust their monthly gift amount had to cancel their recurring donation entirely and start a new one, which created friction and increased the risk of drop-off. With GoFundMe Pro, donors update their giving amount, view receipts, and manage their recurring gifts directly.
Growing monthly gifts through personal connection
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley set an ambitious target: build recurring giving into a $3 million revenue stream. In its first year, the team secured a sponsor to match the first year of gifts from each new monthly donor, up to $250,000. The incentive converted one-time donors into sustained supporters and encouraged existing donors to raise their monthly amount.
Rather than treating recurring giving as a set-it-and-forget-it subscription funnel, the team prioritized direct human outreach and created a donor experience worth staying for. A dedicated staff member calls and connects with monthly donors as part of a broader stewardship program, inviting them to warehouse food sorts and facility tours that deepen their connection to the mission.
We’re not calling donors to ask for more. We’re inviting people to a tour or a food sort, so they feel connected to the mission. When donors see their impact up close, many choose to deepen their support.
With GoFundMe Pro, we have so much more visibility into our recurring donors. If a recurring gift fails, we can catch it and help that donor fix it, instead of just losing them.
The ease of giving and personal touchpoints have consistently led to additional gifts beyond the standard monthly commitment. In fiscal year 2026, 26% of recurring donors made an extra gift, up 4 percentage points from the prior year and totaling $1.56 million in additional revenue.
The next chapter in recurring giving
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley plans to migrate its remaining legacy recurring giving campaigns to Campaign Studio. The team is also testing a volunteer-to-recurring-donor conversion strategy following a 5x matched-gift promotion at its warehouse, which brought in 87 new donors, including two monthly donors, and re-engaged 24 lapsed supporters.
Results reflect Second Harvest of Silicon Valley’s campaign strategy and may vary for other organizations.
Katie’s GoFundMe Pro tips:
- Think beyond a single campaign. Create ways for supporters to deepen their relationship with you over time, whether that’s becoming a monthly donor, attending a tour, or volunteering.
- Don’t be afraid to test. Small experiments with messaging, audiences, or donation experiences can lead to meaningful improvements over time.
- Some of our biggest wins have come from trying something new, measuring the results, and building on what worked.
