In September of 2025, Courtney Stricklin Burgan sat in a restaurant in Peru with her development and communications team, highlighters in hand, working through every chapter of a book together. They were visiting Glow Club program sites for Global Catalyst, the organization Courtney had joined just two months earlier. By the end of the trip, the team had built a chapter by chapter task list. By October, a brand new monthly giving program for nonprofits was live at Global Catalyst.

Courtney didn’t recommend the turnaround be quite that fast for everyone. But her team was ready, and they had a plan they trusted.

In this episode of Missions to Movements, I sat down with Courtney Stricklin Burgan, VP of Engagement and Communications at Global Catalyst, and one of the winners of this year’s Monthlies, our awards program recognizing nonprofits building standout recurring giving cultures. Her story is proof of how fast a monthly giving program for nonprofits can grow once an organization commits to starting, even from almost nothing.

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Who Is Courtney Strickland Bergen?

Courtney came to Global Catalyst after nearly 20 years in higher education, with a background spanning missions work, career services, and strategic program design. She joined the organization in July of 2025 as VP of Engagement and Communications, stepping into a role at an organization she already knew well. She had volunteered for and donated to the group, formerly known as Global Girls Glow, long before she worked there.

Global Catalyst mentors girls around the world to become confident leaders and advocates. Since 2012, the organization has served more than 100,000 girls across 30 countries through a program called Glow Club, run by trusted local mentors who teach girls to make their own decisions and use their own voices.

What makes Courtney’s perspective distinct is that she came in already believing in the mission as a donor first. That distinction shaped nearly every decision she made about how to build the organization’s monthly giving program from the ground up.

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Starting From Seven Monthly Donors

When Courtney joined Global Catalyst, the organization had seven monthly donors and no dedicated recurring giving strategy. From her very first interview, she talked about why monthly giving mattered to her personally. As she put it, “I know so many of us want to make the world a better place, and we are not capable of large gifts. I am not capable of large gifts. And so monthly speaks to people like me who do want to contribute.”

Courtney made monthly giving her first priority rather than a future goal, and she found a team that had been waiting for someone to give the go-ahead. That Peru trip, and the book club built around my book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, turned that priority into a concrete plan within weeks.

Why the Monthly Ask Is $17

Courtney’s team landed on a deliberately specific monthly ask: $17 a month, tied directly to what it costs to support one girl in a Glow Club for a year, $200, divided by twelve. I love that kind of math. It’s the exact opposite of picking a number because it sounds good.

That $200 already covered everything from snacks and t-shirts to mentor stipends and event funds, and the organization had built the model to work the same way across all 30 countries where Global Catalyst operates. Dividing it by twelve gave the team a specific, defensible number instead of a generic ask. Courtney described the logic simply: “$17 a month is not a big ask. It’s not a barrier, but it still equals a whole glow club for a year for a girl.”

How the Launch Actually Worked

Global Catalyst’s launch was a targeted, segmented campaign rather than a single announcement. The team built a dedicated web page and reached out individually to every donor group they had, including board and advisory board members, current givers, lapsed givers, volunteers who hadn’t yet donated, and non-givers still on the mailing list. Every fundraiser on staff shifted their language, replacing “$200 a year” with “$17 a month,” or offering both.

Courtney also brought the campaign into her own personal network, emailing her full Christmas card list of 250 people to invite them to join her as a donor. Her first new monthly givers included her own parents and closest friends. As she put it, “if you care about the work, people who care about you will also care about the work.”

The Results Since Launch

Global Catalyst grew from 7 monthly donors to 35 in under a year, a roughly 500 percent increase. I still can’t get over that math. Growth wasn’t instant. By the end of 2025 the organization was around 25 to 28 monthly donors, with the climb to 35 continuing into 2026. Monthly giving revenue in the program’s first three months alone surpassed everything the organization had raised through monthly gifts in all of 2024 combined, and 2026 has already doubled what came in monthly the year before.

A meaningful share of donors give above the $17 minimum once they’re given the option, with some choosing to double or triple their gift. Courtney’s team didn’t set out to raise major gifts. They built a monthly giving program for nonprofits that happened to add up to major money, one recurring gift at a time.

Building a Donor Stewardship System That Scales

Every new monthly donor at Global Catalyst enters what Courtney’s team calls their “girls first monthly giving community.” New donors get a sticker pack in the mail, a birthday card, and an anniversary email marking what their giving has accomplished. Courtney tracks birthdays and giving anniversaries through the organization’s Salesforce CRM, and when she travels for work, she prioritizes meeting recurring donors in person for coffee or lunch.

None of it required new technology or a large team, just a system. As Courtney explained, “we didn’t invent sending someone stickers in the mail. All we did was make it a system.”

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What This Means for Your Organization Right Now

Courtney’s story started with seven donors and a decision to treat monthly giving as a first priority instead of a someday project. She didn’t wait for a bigger team, a bigger budget, or a more polished donor base. She started with a specific ask and a plan the whole team could execute.

If your organization is sitting at a small number of recurring donors right now, start exactly there. Pick a specific, defensible ask amount tied to your actual program costs, reach out to every donor segment you have including your own board and staff, and build a stewardship system simple enough to run consistently, even if it starts as a box of stickers in someone’s office.

You can follow Courtney and Global Catalyst on Instagram and LinkedIn at @global_glow, and reach out to her directly at c.stricklin@globalgirlsglow.org if your organization can help with grant funding introductions.

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FAQ: Building a Monthly Giving Program for Nonprofits

How did Global Catalyst grow its monthly giving program so quickly? Courtney Stricklin Burgan, VP of Engagement and Communications at Global Catalyst, grew the organization’s monthly donor base from 7 to 35 donors in under a year by launching a segmented outreach campaign to every donor group and setting a specific, program-tied monthly ask of $17.

What is a good starting ask amount for a monthly giving program? Global Catalyst set its monthly ask at $17, calculated by dividing its $200 annual program cost per girl by twelve months. Tying a monthly ask to a real program cost, rather than choosing a round number, gives donors a specific, easy to understand reason to give.

Are monthly donors more valuable than one-time donors? Research cited in Dana Snyder’s book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, shows monthly donors give for an average of seven or more years, compared to one or two gifts from a typical annual donor. Courtney Strickland Bergen said this data helped Global Catalyst’s leadership commit fully to prioritizing monthly giving.

How does Global Catalyst thank and retain its monthly donors? Global Catalyst built a donor stewardship system that includes birthday cards, sticker mailers, and anniversary emails tracked through Salesforce, along with in-person meetups whenever Courtney Strickland Bergen travels near a recurring donor. The organization calls its recurring donor base the girls first monthly giving community.

What does Global Catalyst do and where can people learn more? Global Catalyst, formerly known as Global Girls Glow, mentors girls around the world to become confident leaders and advocates, having served more than 100,000 girls across 30 countries since 2012 through its Glow Club program. You can follow the organization on Instagram and LinkedIn at @global_glow.