How to start a monthly giving program

Why monthly giving beats one-time gifts over a year

A single $100 gift is wonderful once. A $10 monthly pledge is $120 over a year, and it usually keeps going into the next one. Recurring donors tend to be your most committed supporters, and because the income is predictable, you can plan against it instead of guessing what next month brings.

The math compounds. Fifty monthly donors at $15 is $750 a month — $9,000 a year — arriving whether or not you run a campaign. One-time fundraising restarts from zero every time; a monthly base does not. That's why most established fundraisers treat recurring giving as the foundation and one-time appeals as the boost on top.

What you need to set it up

Technically, monthly giving needs only two things: a payment method that supports recurring charges, and a donation form that offers a monthly option. Stripe handles recurring charges natively, so any tool built on Stripe can take a monthly pledge and charge it automatically until the donor cancels.

Keep the choice simple on the form. Offer a one-time and a monthly option side by side, with a few suggested monthly amounts. Too many choices stall people; a clean default of two or three monthly tiers converts better than an open box alone.

• A processor that supports recurring charges (Stripe does this out of the box).
• A donation form with a clear monthly option, not buried behind one-time.
• Two or three suggested monthly amounts, plus a custom field.

How to actually ask for monthly support

The ask matters more than the mechanism. Frame the monthly option around impact over time rather than a number: what does a year of $10 a month make possible that a single $10 doesn't? People give monthly when they can picture the ongoing thing they're sustaining.

Timing helps too. The best moment to ask for a monthly pledge is often right after someone has just given once — they've already decided you're worth supporting. A simple follow-up that thanks them and invites them to make it monthly converts a meaningful share of one-time givers.

Keeping monthly donors once you have them

Recurring donors leave quietly — a card expires, or they forget why they signed up. The two biggest causes of lost monthly income are failed card charges and silence. Both are fixable. Make sure your tool retries failed charges and prompts donors to update an expired card, and send the occasional note showing what their giving has done.

You don't need a heavy stewardship program. A short, genuine update every month or two — what happened, what's next, a plain thank-you — keeps monthly donors feeling like part of something rather than a line item on a statement. Retention is cheaper than recruitment, and monthly donors who feel seen tend to upgrade over time.

Where the money lands, and what it costs

With CrowdCreate, monthly pledges run through your own Stripe account, the same as one-time gifts. The money is yours directly — CrowdCreate never holds or routes it — and pricing is a flat $20 a month no matter how many monthly donors you have. Stripe's standard processing fee (2.9% + 30¢ per charge) applies to each monthly charge and is paid to Stripe; CrowdCreate takes no cut.

That flat pricing matters most for recurring income, because a percentage platform takes its cut on every single monthly charge, forever. A flat fee doesn't grow as your monthly base grows — so the bigger your recurring program, the more a flat tool saves you compared with a percentage.

Common questions

How CrowdCreate works

1. 1

   Sign up free and connect Stripe

   Create your account and link your own Stripe account. It takes about ten minutes.

2. 2

   Paste the snippet on your site

   Drop one line of code onto your own page — or share your hosted CrowdCreate page if you don't have a site.

3. 3

   Funders pledge

   Money lands in your own Stripe account. We take no cut of what your funders give.

Your money goes straight to your own Stripe account — CrowdCreate never holds it, and takes no cut of donations.