As any development director knows, recurring donations are the lifeblood of a nonprofit. They're the ultimate goal. You may have heard the collective hallelujah that went with Facebook's announcement that they would begin testing recurring donations to Facebook fundraisers this month. Here's how that works:

When a user clicks "Donate" they now have the option to select an amount, then select:

• One time
• Daily
• Monthly
• Annual

If you test this on your personal page right now, you may or may not get the option to give on a recurring basis. The test appears to be only available to some users at present, but stay tuned.

Let's Talk About That Daily Option

Did you catch the part where a user can select to give to your organization on a daily basis? Don't overlook it - it's an intentional and potentially powerful tool. Here's why:

There's no end to the number of nonprofit marketing campaigns that contain the words "the price of a cup of coffee". Thanks to the advent of the $5 cup of coffee, Starbucks and similar coffee shops managed to get Americans to create, or ignore, an almost daily $5 line item in their budgets. Five dollars a day doesn't seem like much, especially to the demographic who makes that much in five minutes of work, but $1,300 a year seems like a lot to almost everyone.

When $5 x 260 is Different than $1,300

Let's say a nonprofit makes the case that just $5 a day allows them to rescue, rehabilitate and re-home a dog. Many dog lovers would quickly give up a cup of coffee for something more meaningful. With the daily donation option, all they have to do make their own coffee to save a dog.

The impact is multiplied when one dog lover challenges all their other dog lover friends on Facebook to do it too.

But let's say the nonprofit asks dog lovers to donate $1,300 all at once, or even just $100 a month. It's still the same amount of money, but it sounds far more impactful to the donor's budget. It doesn't work as well.

The option to donate daily gives donors the opportunity to make a small and manageable daily sacrifice: A cup of coffee, a daily salad, a glass of wine, in order to have a larger impact.

Good for Facebook for making the connection, and good for nonprofits who leverage this new functionality to tell their social communities exactly how a small daily donation (sacrifice) makes a big impact to the cause they care about.

Read: How do people create a Facebook fundraiser?

Read: How do we get paid for Facebook fundraisers?