The only thing you need to know about a successful sustainer strategy

March 2, 2015 by Alia McKee

Two words: Lifetime value

Ok – it’s a little more complicated than that. But understanding lifetime value is where a successful sustainer strategy starts.

Too often organizations don’t recognize the tension between lifetime value and immediate budget goals. They want a sustainer strategy to increase their donor pool’s lifetime value, but they don’t want to sacrifice immediate revenue in the door.

Rather that get that $15 a month gift (which averages to $180 in year one alone), they prefer the one-time gift of $100 because it looks better on the balance sheet for February.

Internal attribution wars further complicate things. One group I work with actually attributes online sustainer revenue to an offline sustainer pool – disincentivizing the online team from deploying a sustainer strategy (e.g. disincentivizng increasing the value of a donor).

Before you start listing out all of the tactics for soliciting new sustainers (of which there are many), first ask yourself:

  • Is my organization judging the success of this program by lifetime value?
  • Do we have the dashboard in place to track and report clearly on lifetime value?
  • Do we understand the tension between lifetime value and immediate ROI?
  • What are our business rules for attribution? How can we incentivize everyone to increase donor lifetime value?

Once you answer these questions, you’ll be better prepared to develop and optimize a sustainer program.