Compare Giving Campaigns

Donors are people, and people are interested in long term relationships. Not just with partners, with companies too!

With the help of Subscription Philanthropy we use your everyday metrics to help you compare and contrast various giving campaigns, to identify initiatives that might need a bit more love.

A 2021 study found that people spend an average of $273 on subscriptions each month, a 15% increase from 2018.

Surprisingly, this is an amount that people massively underestimate. The same study asked people to guess how much they spent per month on subscription services. Their first guess?

$79.74.

That’s a 197% from the first to the actual spend!

When people are happy, they tend to stay subscribed. And, in some cases, it might very well seem that they focus on experience over cost.

A subscription based giving model not only provides you with a predictable, stable revenue stream, but also it gives you the tools to measure, analyze, and forecast your donor relationships.

Some of these metrics* include:

• Donor retention and churn
• Donor acquisition cost
• Donor payback period
• Monthly recurring revenue

These metrics can help you compare and contrast various giving campaigns, helping you identify what is working and what initiatives might need a bit more love.

Comparing campaigns with the help of subscription giving

Let’s say, you have Campaign A and Campaign B. For this example, we’re going to look at only a few isolated metrics.

Campaign A

Campaign B

Monthly Donation

$12

$20

Donor’s Subscribed

15

20

Donor Acquisition Cost

$24

$60

DAC Payback Period

2 months

3 months

A quick review

• Monthly donation is the amount a donor gives each month.
• Donor acquisition cost is how much it costs to get a donor to hit subscribe.
• DAC payback period is how long it takes to cover the costs of donor acquisition.

Evaluating the campaigns based on donor acquisition cost

While the exact amount of donors on a month-to-month basis will likely fluctuate, we can quickly estimate how much each campaign currently brings in each month by multiplying the monthly donation by the amount of donors subscribed.

• Campaign A roughly brings in $180 each month and Campaign B roughly brings in $400.
• And based on the DAC for each campaign, it cost Campaign A $360 to acquire their donors and $1200 for Campaign B’s.

Now, that’s a big difference.

But how much of an impact does it make overtime?

If we ignore churn for a moment and imagine that all the current donors stay subscribed for an entire year, we can estimate that each campaign will bring in $2160 (Campaign A) and $4800 (Campaign B) annually.

For this we can see that even though the DAC for Campaign B is much higher, over the course of the year, the campaign will, in fact, bring in more donations. So, it might be worth doubling down the effort on Campaign B.

This is one of the major benefits of subscription giving.

Once you make back the DAC, all that’s left is “profit.” You don’t have to worry about chasing down a new donation each and every time someone gives. Subscription philanthropy provides you with these and a whole host of “dials” that you can tune and adjust to optimize your giving campaigns to create predictable streams of donations that you, your board, and your causes will love.

Want some help? Join our upcoming (free) workshop:

Get started with Subscription Philanthropy

Harness Giving lives and breathes the subscription economy to make the entire donation process easier for donors and nonprofits alike. Whether you are a major player in your local philanthropy scene or just starting out, we can help make your organization a recurring donation powerhouse.

Ready to launch your Subscription program? If yes, consider speaking with the Harness Giving team to see how we can help you get results.

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