Performance-Driven Fundraising

Data can motivate fundraising staff performance and efficiency. Nonprofits can also use data to support efficient fundraising practices and staff.
Table of contents

• 15 Fundraising Success Metrics to Start Tracking
• General Fundraising Metrics
• The 4 Essentials for High-Performance Fundraising
• The 4 Essentials for High-Performance Fundraising

When you combine the methodologies, Lean Six Sigma emphasizes speed, reduced waste and making the best use of staff and volunteer resources through a powerful data-driven system. Utilizing the powerful tools of Lean Six Sigma provides an invisible infrastructure to guide the development process while continuing to honor the importance of donor-centric relationships.

Build a compelling, donor-centric breakthrough case for support. The role of the case in performance improvement tends to be overlooked. Your goal is to double or triple the amount you raise. That means you have to attract new major donors from outside your existing constituency by creating an urgent and compelling breakthrough case for giving that dramatically differentiates your mission in the marketplace.

Only by attracting new major donors is achievement of significantly higher fundraising targets possible. And major donors are not going to switch from the beneficiaries they currently support unless your case catches their attention and gives them good reason. Build an effective fundraising board structure and composition.

Instead of the traditional governance-oriented board with members who have neither significant personal giving capacity nor the right connections, you can create a high-performance board composed entirely of donors — with a narrowly defined, less time-intensive, but highly valuable role. Build an organizational culture for philanthropy.

General Fundraising Metrics

Instead of dividing expenses by revenue, you divide revenue by expenses. They both provide near identical information. The differences are almost negligible. If cost cutting is a priority, nonprofits would likely be more interested in cost per dollar raised; whereas, return on investment is a great indicator of the effects of making strategic changes to increase revenue.

Donor Retention Rate Does your organization track how many donors it retains on a year-over-year basis? It needs to be. Maintaining donors through retention is just as essential as acquiring new donors.

The two sides of the fundraising coin work best in conjunction. Your acquisition and retention rates should be improving concurrently. However, more often than not, nonprofits place much stronger emphasis on acquisition than retention. Acquisition of new donors is an expensive endeavor, though. Retention is more cost effective. How your nonprofit should prioritize communication with supporters. If your organization is acknowledging donors in a thoughtful and immediate fashion.

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The ease in which donors are able to give via your various donation methods. Track your retention rate to see how your organization is doing and discover if your retention practices need improvement.

If you do have an undesirable rate, look to your stewardship practices first, and make sure you re-evaluate with an eye for retention. What is your acknowledgment process? When do you follow up? How do you continue communications? Donor Growth Donor growth is what one might consider a domino metric. Lack of donor growth, or worse donor loss, is often the result of multiple factors.

The goal action could be anything from attending an event to responding to a direct mail letter, but the most common goal action involves donations. Typically the rate will be investigating how many prospects donated to a specific campaign or took an action as a result of a specific request. To find the rate itself, divide the number of people who completed the goal action by the total number of people who were given the opportunity to do so. Then multiply the number by to get a percent. Say you sent out an email to donors, asking them to follow a link and make a donation online.

Of those , 30 followed the link and took the requested step. Conversion rate is one of the most cut and dry methods of evaluating the success of a given request for action. Gifts Secured This indicator is as standard as it sounds. How many gifts did your organization secure through the month? To delve even further into the data, you can separate the gifts by type: Giving Level Metrics The top nonprofits use giving levels to their advantage. They let giving levels help inform their acquisition and retention strategies, while actively seeking upgrade opportunities.

These three KPIs are included with that in mind. Average Gift Size To calculate average gift size, divide your revenue for a certain fundraiser or time period by the amount of gifts you received in that same window. Average gift size is a metric best used when tracked on a recurring basis. That way, you can see if your gift size is growing, stagnating, or decreasing.

There are a few ways of going about this. Measure average gift size: At the same event year-over-year to see your progress. At all of your events for the year or, multiple years and figure out which events draw the largest donations. Over a repeated, fixed time frame like six months or a year and track general changes.

Average gift size can be a big help in evaluating the success of your major gift efforts. After all, more major gifts means a higher average gift size. For more tips on improving major gift efforts at your nonprofit, click here. Average Major Gift Size It is just like average gift size, but exclusively for major gifts.

• Giving Level Metrics.
• CASE - CASE Statements on Compensation for Fundraising Performance.
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• 15 Fundraising Success Metrics to Start Tracking | DonorSearch.
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You need to know your current major gift status if you want to improve it. The two really go hand-in-hand. Testing the average giving capacity of your donors to determine how best to bracket out your giving levels. Taking the average giving capacity of a certain donor level mostly major gifts to assess the current status of your efforts in that area.