Working out Monthly Donations

Ever had a gym membership? More to the point, have you ever made decent use a gym membership?My friends who have worked as personal trainers have let me in on what many of us have long suspected, gyms are quite happy to have large numbers of people who pay for their monthly memberships but rarely show up to work out. In fact, the industry financials depend to a significant degree on there being lots of inactive members. (That may also relate to why quitting a gym is often more challenging that it should be).I think there are a lot of generous people who give to charity in the same way.A year ago my wife and I decided to be more attentive to our personal giving. There were things we were supporting financially but not in any other way. We agreed that we would only support charities that we cared about enough to maintain some active level of engagement.We stopped being inactive donors.Many charities understand the importance of committed monthly donors. At this time of year, when last minute donations are being processed, some organizations are making efforts to convert one time gifts to regular automatic deposits. It makes all kinds of sense.The challenge is to continue to build relationship with these monthly donors so they will remain enthusiastic and engaged. The best monthly donor is the one who is trying to figure out how they can give more each month and also promotes your organization within their social and professional circles.On both sides of the table, donors and charities, we need to be working to promote more active philanthropy so we don't all get lazy and out of shape.A final thought; when as a family we decided to stop supporting organizations financially that we weren't supporting in other ways we communicated that to the charities in question directly and gave them a lump sum final donation equivalent to our usual annual donation to ensure that they had time to replace our giving without any (however minor) budget shortfall