Maintaining a stable network of donors and funding is what keeps a nonprofit going. It may not be for profit, but nonprofits are a business that need some back end administration to keep the money going to the right places. Which means ensuring that the money continues to come in. In order to find the best ways to do that, you must utilize appropriate analytics to find the patterns that can be pursued to maximize donations.
Understanding analytics from the past will help create an understanding of the present situation and allow preparation for the future. Here are 5 key donor analytics to track and pay attention to when gathering information on your current donor activities:
1. Engagement History
Get to know your supporters, your donors and volunteers within your database. Reviewing the history of their attendance, the frequency of their action during campaigns and other reliable information from months or years of continuous interaction with your organization. Understanding how people engage with your organization gives you a chance to prepare for future engagements and promote their favored form of engagement for higher returns.
2. Giving Habits
This can measure how much frequent donors give, when they give, and everything centered around the great act of giving. Hard cash and non-monetary assets can be tracked this way, so organizations focused on collecting a usable inventory can make use of this information as well. You can also compare the frequent times of donation with marketing campaigns to see which were most effective, who gave the most during what campaigns.
3. Giving Capacity
This goes more into the individual details for the higher tier of donors that contribute a lot at once. By seeing how much they’ve given in the past you can get a good size-up on how much they’re likely to give in the future, and how much more they may afford to give. Learning about your donors at this level lets you know their past donations to other organizations, in what amounts, their generosity towards charity and just how much they own that can be given. From simple cash to real estate and stock ownership - every bit helps.
4. Giving Propensity
How much someone has to give isn’t as important as their willingness to give. Propensity is just that - the likeness based on past results of a donor’s want to give something to a cause. This can be gleaned from their past expenditures with your or other organizations. Perhaps they may give more to other groups than yours, and you can find out what those organizations do which you can improve on. Analyzing this will allow you to make changes that increase the likelihood of you being the first on their giving list.
5. Communication Preferences
Staying in touch with donors is key to forming and managing relationships that go beyond simple donation and charity. You want to make personal connections so people feel that they are contributing to a cause made up of people like them. Maintain information on how top donors prefer to be reached and contacted in the most convenient ways and adjust direct campaigning to them accordingly for improved results.
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