Sustainers and Midlevel, Part One: Should Monthly Donors Be in Your Relational Program?
One of the most common questions we hear from fundraising teams is this:
Should sustainers be managed in our relational midlevel program, or should they stay in our sustainer program?
And our honest, quick answer is… it depends.
Not a super satisfying answer, we know. But it is the right one. Because the best strategy for your organization depends on three things: how your team is structured, what your donor file looks like, and how well your current programs are performing.
So instead of asking where sustainers should live, the question we prefer is: What does our data and staffing tell us will serve these donors best?
Let’s break it down.
Start With Your Sustainer Program: Is It Working?
Do you have a true sustainer program? Meaning:
Donors receive consistent, intentional communication,
Impact is being shared regularly, and
Someone on your team actually owns this audience (even at scale)
If all three are true, then your first step isn’t to move donors. It’s to evaluate performance.
Specifically, look at your sustainers who fall into your midlevel band (for many organizations, that’s $1,000–$9,999 annually).
Ask:
Are at least 70% of your returning donors renewing with gifts each year?
Are at least 30% of your new donors (prior FY) being retained?
If the answer is yes to both, that’s a strong, healthy program.
And in that case, our recommendation is usually simple:
✅ Keep them in the sustainer program. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do.
Moving donors out of a program that’s performing well can introduce unnecessary risk, and sometimes even hurt retention.
Next, Look at Your Midlevel Team: Do They Have Capacity?
With this question, we’re flipping the lens.
If you have a relational midlevel team, the next set of questions is about staff capacity and portfolio health, not donor labels.
Ask:
Does your organization have enough qualifying donors to fill midlevel portfolios?
Are midlevel officers’ caseloads at least 500 donors per officer (but not more than 600)?
If the answer is no, it’s an indication that your team has the bandwidth to add some sustainers into a relational management (midlevel) program.
Why?
Because relational programs can:
Deepen emotional connection,
Share impact in deep and meaningful ways,
Create opportunities for stretch giving, and
Move donors toward larger cumulative support over time.
If your sustainer program is stable but not growing donors, and your midlevel team has room, this can be a strategic place to experiment.
Of course… nothing in fundraising is ever that easy.
So next week, we’ll dig into the complications and the yes/and solutions we suggest when your programs or your data don’t fit into one tidy answer.
Real life fundraising almost always lives in the middle.