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Sep 30, 2014

We Don’t Have a Retention Problem Part 2

My last blog we talked about how we don’t have a retention problem, we have a generational communication problem.

This blog is going to introduce a new retention metric that we believe is more relevant than donor retention. It’s REVENUE retention.

It’s simply looking at how much revenue you retained from the previous year.

Here’s the same client we discussed in my previous blog, but comparing donor retention and revenue retention.

A mid 30 percent second year retention is pretty good.

But look at revenue retention! It’s over 50%. And really, isn‘t that the most important metric?

For this client, it means they are retaining the higher value donors. OK, obviously we want high retention. But if you are retaining over 50% of the revenue from your new donor class, you are doing great.

So add this as a metric of things you should start to track.


Micro-Sustainers to Lapsed Donors

Each fall, we here at Analytical Ones survey the trends in fundraising and come up with testing ideas for your fall campaigns. Last year, we recommended testing first class postage, to avoid the USPS’s SOP of delivering all nonprofit postage appeals on the same day....

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Part VII: How Analytical Ones Will be Using AI

Over the past couple of weeks, I have written about some potential effects that AI will have on the nonprofit sector. Today, I’m going to end this series on how we as a company intend to use AI. There’s no doubt there is a certain “wow-factor” using AI. It’s like Star...

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Part VI: The Environmental Impact of AI

Up to this point in our AI blog series, I have been discussing (some might say ragging on) the practical implementational challenges of AI in the nonprofit sector. In today’s blog, I’m shifting the focus on a more global issue: Is using AI environmentally sustainable?...

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