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

The Force Awakens?

theater image I’ll be darned.

Direct mail acquisition seems to be making a comeback.

OK, perhaps not to the degree of a Star Wars $250MM opening weekend comeback. But as I am reviewing recent acquisition (and reactivation of deeply lapsed donors) results, I was pleasantly surprised to see that new donor (and reactivated donor) counts aren’t falling.

Even better news is that retention of Second Year donors are improving for the first time since Mark Hamill’s last film any of us can recall seeing (which any fan would know is the 1978 film Corvette Summer).

The question is whether this comeback will last, or is it a momentary pause in direct mail’s inevitable demise?

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...