- Sustained giving is the backbone of an enduring ministry or nonprofit. As Ligonier’s founder put it, the monthly donor base is what allows the organization to take bigger strides over time.
- Trust comes from steadiness. Donors stay with organizations that don’t drift in mission or leadership, especially through major transitions.
- The strongest recurring programs operate on beautiful reciprocity. Donors don’t just fund the work, they’re served by it.
- Long-running ministries and nonprofits need both “bits and atoms”: digital reach for new generations and physical, in-person experiences for everyone.
- Technology is a force multiplier, not a replacement for human relationships. The right tools help you speak to the right people at the right time with the right message.
How do you build a fundraising base that actually sustains your organization over decades? Most fundraisers know recurring giving matters, but few have a clear picture of what makes monthly donors stay for ten, twenty, or thirty years. The honest answer is that sustained giving is less about clever campaigns and more about a few habits that compound over time. Trustworthy work. Real reciprocity. A posture toward technology that treats it as a servant rather than a strategy.
In this episode of The Responsive Lab, Scott Holthaus and Carly Berna sat down with Chris Larson, President and CEO of Ligonier Ministries, to talk through what has made Ligonier’s donor base unusually durable over more than five decades. We pulled out the most useful patterns from that conversation below.
Why Sustained Giving Is the Backbone of Lasting Nonprofits
Your recurring donors are the part of your donor base that compounds over time. The monthly base is what lets you plan, invest, and grow into bigger initiatives over years rather than quarters.
At Ligonier, the founder Dr. R.C. Sproul described their monthly donor group, the ministry partners, as the backbone of the ministry. Sustained giving is the foundation that makes everything else possible, including the bigger campaigns, the larger initiatives, and the new outreach experiments that wouldn’t be possible without that monthly base. Done well, a strong recurring giving program is what allows an organization to take real strides.
What Makes a Sustainer Program Actually Work
Three things came out of the conversation as the load-bearing elements of a sustainer program that holds up over the long term.
1. A Specific Reason for Monthly Support
Ligonier’s monthly program began in the early 1990s when the ministry launched the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast on FM and AM stations across the country. The cost was enormous, dwarfing any other program at the time. So the ministry made a specific ask: would you support this at a modest monthly level (initially around $15 a month, later $25) to help us reach more listeners?
Tens of thousands of donors said yes.
The monthly ask was tied to a real expense, a real reach goal, and a real moment.
2. Trust Built Through Steadiness Over Time
When Carly Berna asked what built Ligonier’s donor base, the first thing that came up was long-term steadiness, especially in the substance of what the ministry teaches. Donors look for signals that there isn’t going to be drift, whether that’s mission drift or, in a teaching ministry, doctrinal drift.
This applies broadly. Your track record takes decades to build. Ligonier is more than 55 years old, and that long runway of consistent teaching is itself part of why donors trust them. You can’t fake the runway.
3. A Successful Handoff Through Leadership Transition
Ligonier went through a major founder transition when Dr. Sproul passed away in 2017. The runway was long, succession planning was deliberate, and donors were able to see that the board, the teachers, and the mission stayed steady. The ministry’s job through that season was simply to communicate: we’re still here, we’re still doing the same thing.
Anytime an organization has a change that big, the possibility of doctrinal drift or mission drift is real. The way through is to demonstrate continuity in the things donors trusted you for in the first place, even while the change is happening.
The “Beautiful Reciprocity” Principle
Most fundraising thinking treats donors as people who give to your organization. The Ligonier model flips that. Donors are also people you serve. They get the daily teaching, the magazine, the conferences. The ministry actively puts resources into their hands as a core part of the relationship.
The early tagline for the ministry partner program was “extend your reach.” The idea was to put resources into donors’ hands so they could be a blessing to their family, their church, and their community. The donors were beneficiaries of the ministry’s work as much as they were advocates for it.
That reciprocity is what made the relationship feel like family rather than transactional. As Chris put it in the episode, donors “show up at our conferences and it’s like a family reunion of people that you didn’t even know they were in your family.”
For any nonprofit building monthly donor relationships, the question worth asking yourself is: what are you giving your monthly donors? Not as a thank-you. As ongoing value they can use in their own lives, family, or community.
How to Reach New Generations Without Losing the Old Ones
One of the realities for a long-running organization is that donors who joined in the 1970s are now in their seventies or eighties. The organization has to keep reaching them well while also bringing in millennial parents and their children.
Ligonier describes its approach as a bits and atoms strategy. Pressing into every possible digital channel (YouTube, podcasts, the app) while also continuing to invest in physical resources (printed books, Bibles, children’s curriculum) and in-person teaching at conferences. Both run at the same time.
For your sustained giving, this matters in a practical way. Different generations engage through different channels. The longtime donors who’ve been with Ligonier since the 1970s are still with the ministry into their seventies and eighties. Reaching the next generation, especially millennial parents and their children, means meeting them where they already are. That’s podcasts, YouTube, and the app, alongside the in-person teaching and physical resources that have always anchored the ministry.
Younger audiences often need an on-ramp before they can become donors. At Ligonier, that’s looking like a new app rebuild that distinguishes between two personas: an existing student who already knows the library, and a new user who has no idea the library exists. Each one gets a different content path and a different first impression.
How to Fundraise From Abundance, Not Lack
When revenue is tight, the instinct is to communicate from a posture of need or crisis. The Ligonier view is that this instinct misreads the relationship. Christian donors, in this framing, are already generous people who understand what it means to give. The fundraising conversation is a question of alignment, more than a request for rescue.
The Ligonier framing is that fundraising should come from a posture of abundance and stewardship, not lack. The phrase from the episode: “Our motivation can’t come out of a sense of lack or need or crisis.” The ministry’s view is that resources will come for the work that needs to be done, and your job is to be a faithful steward of what’s entrusted to you.
In practice, that posture looks like:
- Communicating clearly where you’re going, not where you’re lacking
- Inviting donors into the work, not pressuring them to rescue it
- Honoring every donor at every level, because the size of the gift is not the measure of the relationship
- Staying focused on mission instead of getting reactive
As Chris put it in the episode: “Stay focused on where you’re going and communicate that clearly. By God’s grace, He continues to supply all that is needed.” That framing is rooted in Ligonier’s faith context, but the broader principle of leading from mission and direction rather than crisis translates to any organization.
Where Technology Fits Into a Human-First Approach
If sustained giving is built on human relationships, where does technology fit?
The framing from the conversation is that technology is “a great servant, terrible master.” You want a force multiplier, not a replacement for the human work. No organization, no matter how large, can deliver on its mission today without leaning on technology. But technology can also run away with you. Projects take longer and cost more than expected. Tools get added that no one asked for.
A few principles came out of the conversation that translate well into how to think about a human-first, technology-forward approach.
- Prioritize ruthlessly. Technology is a river, always moving. You can’t take on every project. You have to choose what matters most.
- Measure the right things. Investment in new tech should be driven by clear questions about what you’re trying to measure or solve, not by what’s new.
- Stay curious. Curiosity is what lets you dip a toe into something new, learn whether it fits, and either invest further or move on without being defensive.
- Use technology to serve relationships, not replace them. The goal is to speak to the right people at the right time with the right message, so the human connection gets stronger, not thinner.
For Ligonier, this includes investing in AI where it makes sense (better search, interlinking of content across the library) while also keeping a human-centric fundraising team that builds relationships the old-fashioned way.
Putting Sustained Giving Into Practice
Building sustained giving through human connection and technology is a long set of habits, not a single program. A specific monthly ask tied to a real purpose. Steady work donors can trust. Reciprocity that treats your supporters as beneficiaries. Multi-channel strategies that serve every generation. A posture of abundance instead of crisis. Technology as a servant of the human work.
You don’t need to be Ligonier to do this. The organizations that get sustained giving right are not the ones with the most sophisticated stack or the biggest fundraising team. They are the ones who get the foundational habits right and let them compound over decades. Start with one habit and add the next.
If your team is ready to build a sustainer program around real relationships, Virtuous Raise can help. Customizable giving forms, AI ask arrays designed to drive lifetime value, and built-in nudges that turn one-time donors into recurring givers give your monthly program room to grow without losing the personal feel. Get a demo of Virtuous Raise.
And if your bigger problem is that donor relationships are slipping through the cracks because everything lives in different systems, Virtuous CRM+ brings giving history, engagement, communication, and household context into one connected view, so the right ask reaches the right donor at the right moment. Get a demo of Virtuous CRM+.
FAQs
What makes a sustainer program work over the long term?
Sustainer programs work when they’re tied to a specific, real reason for monthly support, when donors trust the organization’s steadiness over time, and when the relationship is reciprocal so donors receive real value back from the organization they fund.
What is “beautiful reciprocity” in donor relationships?
Beautiful reciprocity is the principle that monthly donors are beneficiaries of the work as much as they are supporters of it. Donors get content, resources, events, or tools that help them in their own lives, which makes the relationship feel like family rather than a transaction.
How do nonprofits reach younger donors without losing older ones?
Long-running nonprofits use a “bits and atoms” strategy: pressing into digital channels like podcasts, YouTube, and apps for younger audiences while continuing to invest in physical resources and in-person experiences that older donors prefer.
What does it mean to fundraise from abundance instead of lack?
Fundraising from abundance means communicating mission and direction rather than crisis or need. Donors are invited into the work and honored at every gift level, instead of being pressured to rescue the organization.
How should nonprofits think about technology in fundraising?
Technology is a force multiplier, not a replacement for human relationships. The goal is to speak to the right people at the right time with the right message, using tools that strengthen human connection rather than thin it out.
