From Membership to Momentum: How the San Diego Zoo Scaled Recurring Giving
What if the smallest gift on your file—that $10-a-month donor—turns out to be one of the most valuable relationships your organization will ever build?
In this episode, Dave Raley sits down with Jeff Spitko, Senior Director of Integrated Fundraising at the San Diego Foundation, for a genuine masterclass in building fundraising that lasts. Before joining the Foundation, Jeff spent 11 years at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where he helped grow annual and mid-level giving from $26 million to more than $57 million and grew monthly donors from just 175 to nearly 12,000. Yes, you read that right.
Whether you steward 400,000 members or 400, this conversation is packed with practical, hard-earned lessons on scale, segmentation, storytelling, and why the sustainers you might overlook often carry the most long-term weight.
Key Topics They Cover:
Scaling the Zoo from $26M to $57M:
Jeff inherited three jobs rolled into one—a decades-old membership program, mass-market annual/mid/major giving for global conservation, and philanthropy communications—and turned it into a growth engine over 11 years.
The recurring giving growth story (175 to ~12,000 monthly donors):
The game-changer wasn't the brand. It was weaving monthly giving in as an option inside every appeal and email, instead of selling it as a separate program.
Question your assumptions. Go to the data:
The "typical" donor myths were wrong. Their base skewed toward single donors and grandparents, ran nearly 50/50 on gender, and spanned every age. Test everything; don't fundraise from your gut.
Meet donors where they are (and don't sleep on legacy):
Not everyone wants to be "moved up," and that's okay. About 65% of planned gifts came from members who never gave above $5,000, and recurring donors are far more likely to leave a legacy gift.
Donor acquisition is an investment:
Jeff's on-site canvassing program was a game-changer: talking panda conservation 15 feet from a panda, with same-day handwritten thank-you notes matched to the animal each visitor loved. But it took 14–18 months to turn a profit, which means real conversations with your CFO about patience.
Also in this episode, they talk about:
Storytelling and equivalencies that stick ("your $10 a month could provide antibiotics for a baby elephant"), and why you shouldn't water down "saves" into "can help save."
Automation and the donor journey: welcome series that cultivate, upgrade, and steward at scale.
Fundraising through COVID with authenticity when the gates were closed for five months.
Inside the San Diego Foundation: a $1.8B community foundation granting $100M+ a year across education, environment, family well-being, and housing.
"Build for What's Next": why the San Diego Fundraising Conference (presented by PNC Bank) exists and where recurring revenue fits in fundraising's future.
So here's our question for you: what are you building right now that future-you will be grateful you started?
Key Resources:
San Diego Foundation: https://www.sdfoundation.org/
Jeff Spitko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffspitko/
"The Rise of Sustainable Giving" by Dave Raley: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/book
Dave Raley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/draley/
Special thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Kirsten, Victoria, and Abigail.