Donor Insight. Fundraising Action.

“How are we doing?”

Topics: benchmarks, Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Revenue, fundraising revenue trends, growth in giving

Over the years working with hundreds of organizations, we’ve developed a genuine respect for what makes each organization a bit different in terms of culture and operational approach.

Topics: benchmarks, Action Strategies, Major Donors, Major Donor Pipeline, Moves Management, Upgrade Strategies, major donor upgrade

Fundraising Metrics That Matter #1: Donor Lifetime Value

Topics: benchmarks, Revenue, Trends, Lifetime Value

On average, half of a donor file is made up of new and reactivated donors. [the other half from existing donors that renew their support].

Topics: Action Strategies, Lapsed Donors, Lapsed, Reactivation, Budgeting, Fundraising Strategies, New Donor Acquistion

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about Cost and Profit centers.  One practical solution offered was to separate the acquisition / reactivation budget into it's own cost center from the house file development budget which should become it's own profit center.  Instead of looking at both of these together as a profit center. Today we are going to talk about the house file consisting of any donor that has made a donation over the last two years.

Topics: Action Strategies, Mail Strategies, benchmarks, Reactivation, Budgeting, Revenue, Fundraising Strategies, Lifetime Value, New Donor Acquistion

Our money is on you. 

Topics: Action Strategies, Mail Strategies, Budgeting, Revenue, Trends, Fundraising Strategies, New Donor Acquistion, Lifetime Value

I was looking over a client’s budget recently, and something struck me as I was reviewing their acquisition numbers. It started with a relatively simple question. Why are you only budgeting to bring in 8,000 new donors?

Topics: Action Strategies, benchmarks, Lapsed Donors, Reactivation, Revenue, New Donor Acquistion, Lifetime Value

The Quarterly Fundraising Effectiveness Project report was released this week and results aren’t good. At DonorTrends, we keep a close eye on FEP trends. It is the most important industry benchmark, representing more than 17,000 organizations. These transactions make up the Growth in Giving database [GiG]. This is the biggest database of its kind and provides organizations across the sector benchmarks to gauge their own progress.

Topics: benchmarks, FEP, Retention Rate, Retention, Donor Retention, Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Action Strategies

For the first time the non-profit sector is able to track fundraising performance throughout the course of the year.  The Fundraising Effectiveness Project is now producing quarterly reports that give us real time data on what is happening across 9,179 organizations.  In 2017 these quarterly reports allowed us to track the impact from some major fundraising events like the slew of disasters we saw in the third quarter to the tax reform passed at the very end of the year.

Topics: benchmarks, FEP, Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Revenue, Retention, Donor Retention

What's the difference between reporting and analysis? According to Salesforce, reporting is answering the question, "What is happening?" and analysis is answering the question, "Why is it happening?"  (You can read more about it in this blog post. ) While this is a good distinction, I don't think most people are much concerned with this nuance.  We all try to answer both of these questions when looking at a report.  The natural next step, after figuring out what is happening, is to figure out why.

Topics: Action Strategies, Trends, Mail Strategies