Learn more about analytics and research best practices, as well as real world examples and solutions for nonprofits.

The Exponential Importance of Second Gift Timing

Check this out! This graph shows the the five-year value of a donor based on how quickly an organization converts a new donor into a second gift donor.

The correlation is astounding.

New donors that give a second gift within the first 3-months have LTVs nearly twice as high as those who give at the 12-month mark. This demonstrates that it is worthwhile to spend money cultivating a second gift early in your relationship with a new donor.

What’s also surprising is the value of donors who convert 13-24 months after their initial gift. This is encouraging. Don’t give up on a new donor than didn’t convert in their first year.

However, less surprising, new donors who wait 25+ months to convert have much lower LTV rates.

All this indicates the need to have strategies in place encouraging the second gift ASAP for your newest acquisitions.

Echoes of the Dot-Com Bust

by Bill Jacobs | Dec 6, 2025

I asked the AI Microsoft’s AI tool Copilot to tell me about the dot.com bust of 25 years ago. If you are old enough to remember, the dot.com bust came right off the heels of the Y2K computer fears, the September 11 terrorist attacks and anthrax in snail-mail...

Micro-Sustainers to Lapsed Donors

by Bill Jacobs | Jul 29, 2025

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....

Part VII: How Analytical Ones Will be Using AI

by Bill Jacobs | Jul 16, 2025

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...