Small Team, Strong Retention: What Full Plates Giving Circle Can Teach Us About Sustainable Monthly Giving

Written By Dave Raley

What if 91% donor retention and 46% revenue growth were achievable with a team of one — and zero tchotchkes?

Karen Kelly, Development Manager at the Anne Arundel County Food Bank, joins Dave Raley to share how she built the Full Plates Giving Circle: formalizing 200+ overlooked monthly donors into a named program that grew from 211 to 342 members and $20,585 to $30,094 in monthly revenue in just over a year. No big team. No fancy incentives. Just clarity, consistency, and genuine donor care.

Plus, Karen brings her real questions for a live, unscripted coaching conversation with Dave, including one that came up the very afternoon they recorded.

Key Topics They Cover:

  1. Building the Full Plates Giving Circle

    How Karen cleaned up messy donor data across multiple platforms, discovered 200+ monthly donors getting zero special outreach, and launched a program built on meaningful stewardship and a name that symbolizes abundance, community, and plates full of more than just food.

  2. The stewardship playbook

    Handwritten welcome notes, quarterly impact emails, monthly receipts with fresh stats and partner testimonials, Thanksgiving postcards, board thank-you calls, LinkedIn recognition, and prompt payment-failure follow-up. All of it free. All of it intentional.

  3. Live Q&A with Dave

    What to do when a monthly donor wants to switch to annual giving. How to keep quarterly emails fresh when donors are already getting monthly updates. And the big one: how to grow in year two, including Dave's advice on the first-30-day conversion window and a matching gift strategy for new monthly partners.

  4. Karen's path into fundraising

    From higher education and a doctorate in educational leadership, to founding Through the Heart after a devastating pregnancy loss, to finally having her "Happy Gilmore moment" and owning the fundraiser identity.

  5. Through the Heart and The Cocoon

    Karen's nonprofit supporting families through pregnancy loss, and the recurring giving community at its heart. When the mission is personal, recurring giving isn't just strategy. It's sustained care.

Also in this episode, they talk about:

  • Why Karen puts the monthly giving option on every single donation form

  • Consistency over complexity: skip the tiers, skip the swag, just show up

  • How steady monthly revenue powers crisis response: government shutdowns, SNAP cuts, and surges in community need

What would it look like if hundreds of donors showed up for your mission automatically, every month, because they felt genuinely valued? That's what Karen is building, and the playbook is simpler than you think.

Key Resources:

Special thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Kirsten, Victoria, and Abigail.

Dave Raley
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