New playbook: Build a recurring donor experience worth staying for

Adding a monthly giving option to your donation form is easy, but building a recurring giving program that donors want to stick around for takes a deeper understanding of the donor journey.

That’s the focus of GoFundMe Pro’s new recurring giving playbook, 5 steps to 10x donor lifetime value. Designed to help nonprofit teams find their next growth opportunity, the playbook brings together insights from top recurring giving programs across the GoFundMe Pro network, along with practical prompts, checklists, and examples your team can use to strengthen your own program.

Recurring giving is a relationship strategy

Monthly donors are often some of your most committed supporters, and that commitment deserves a donor experience built with the same level of intention.

The playbook walks through that full journey in five steps:

• Run a program health check
• Identify the audiences with the greatest potential
• Build trust before the ask
• Make the ask
• Create a donor experience worth staying for

Each step is designed to help your team move from a general monthly giving option to a recurring giving program built for long-term growth.

A smarter approach to recurring revenue growth

Recurring giving has always played a role in nonprofit fundraising, but now many organizations are taking a fresh look at how to approach it. As donor expectations evolve, how you design and deliver the experience matters more than ever.

That shift often raises a practical question: What should your team focus on first? Knowing where to start isn’t always obvious. Sometimes the most useful signals are buried beneath surface-level metrics, pointing to opportunities your team may not have considered yet.

The playbook helps you uncover those signals and translate them into clear next steps. It also pushes teams to apply what they already know about their donors more deliberately, using existing insights to shape how and when they make the ask in ways that feel relevant to each supporter’s connection to your organization.

And it doesn’t stop at conversion. We also look at what happens after a donor says yes, showing how small, consistent moments can shape whether someone chooses to stay connected with your organization over time.

Strengthen your strategy at every stage

When you treat recurring giving as a full donor journey, every touchpoint has a purpose: your data helps reveal the opportunity, your messaging helps donors understand the value of sustained support, and your stewardship helps turn a first monthly gift into a lasting relationship.

The recurring giving playbook brings those pieces together in a practical framework your team can turn into a clear path forward, helping you build something donors want to be part of for the long term.

Copy editor: Ayanna Julien