On Sat, 2011-09-17 at 11:47 +0100, WereSpielChequers wrote:
I'm familiar with the marketing reasons for encouraging people to give more frequently, enough people are willing to give more in total if they can spread payments to make this worthwhile. I just don't think it wise or efficient not to give people the option of an annual payment. Aside from cheapskates like myself who would baulk at a monthly commitment, transaction charges are bound to arise somewhere along the line.
There is also the issue of lifetime value, I have my suspicions that the more frequently you remind people of a direct debit the more likely they are to review it. So It may be true that a monthly direct debit is only worth two years worth of that amount, but an annual one is in the longterm worth many times more.
Banks tend to discard unused instructions at around the six-month mark. For monthly contributions, if the amount is fixed you don't need to send constant notices; the direct debit rules only require notification ten working days in advance where the amount may vary. Obviously, you at least send quarterly "thank-yous" with information on what donors' money has helped achieve.
On 17 September 2011 08:46, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
We have just switched from annual to monthly for our "family" RSPB membership payment. Instead of 25 quid we pay 3 x 12 = 36 quid: we can spread the payments and the RSPB gets an 11 quid bonus. RSPB was mentioned by Anonymouse at the last London Wikimeet (#49) as a good model of membership for a charity. http://www.rspb.org.uk/ ***** * Over a million members, including over 195,000 youth members. * A staff of over 1,300 people and over 13,000 volunteers. * Resources available for charitable purposes in 2007 was £78.6 million. ***** Ha! Small fry! Gordo On 16/09/2011 23:19, WereSpielChequers wrote: > Monthly and quarterly are nice to haves, but presumably most > members will want to do an annual payment for their annual > renewal? > > WereSpielChequers > > On 16 September 2011 23:05, Michael Peel > <michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote: > We're working on finding an easy way to give donors > the choice of monthly or quarterly direct debits, > but we haven't got it working quite yet. For now, if > you want to donate by direct debit each month, then > you can do so by visiting: > http://directdebit.wikimedia.org.uk/index_monthly.html > > Hopefully we'll have a more integrated solution > working in the near future. > > Thanks, > Mike > > On 16 Sep 2011, at 22:59, Chris Keating wrote: > > > > > This is fantastic! Well done! > > > > Thank you. We have taken a shortcut, which is to > outsource the absolute maximum of the administration > involved in Direct Debiting. Once we are on a firmer > administrative footing we can bring it back in-house > if needs be. > > > > > > Hmmm... I just tried to set up a direct debit and > it seems the only > > option for the frequency is quarterly. I want to > donate monthly. Why > > can't I? Obviously, the fees are greater for 3 > donations of £2, say, > > than for one donation of £6, but I think you'll > get a lot more takers > > if you offer monthly direct debits for the simple > reason that people > > tend to be paid monthly. > > > > We are set up for monthly and quarterly direct > debits. I'm not quite sure why that form insists on > quarterly, I doubt it will continue to insist after > we speak to the suppliers on Monday, as we have > other test forms that are definitely accepting > monthly DDs. > > > > You're right about the advantage of monthly DDs. > during the fundraiser we'll test prompting different > amounts/frequencies and different layouts of form to > see which gives us the best long-term income. > > > > Chris > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia UK mailing list > > wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org > > > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org -- Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com http://www.joly.org.uk/ Don't Leave Space To The Professionals! _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
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Brian McNeil.