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

RECENT POSTS

Dec 11, 2013

Unsustainable Trends

Annual TrendsThese trends might sound familiar:

  • Your new donor acquisition counts are flat.
  • Your retention is slipping.
  • So, your active donor counts are shrinking.
  • However, you have seen big gains in average gift size.
  • So overall, your revenue is flat.

This has been the general trend in fundraising for the past couple of years.

And it’s unsustainable. We all know at some point the decreases in active donor counts will be too much for average gift sizes to mitigate.

The question is at what point will your revenue fall?

Here’s a simple equation that will tell you: (-1*%∆R) > (1*%∆RPD)
• Where R = retention, and,
• Where RPD = revenue per active donor per year

In English, when your percentage loss in retention is greater than your percentage gain in revenue per donor, your revenue will fall.

To read Part II of our unsustainable trends blog posts, click here.

Measuring Speedy Gratitude

On the first day of November, I sent out 49 small “white mail” gifts. After 3-weeks, here is what I received: Two of the gifts were returned because the address was undeliverable. Of the 47 gifts that (I think) were delivered, I have received 14 acknowledgments (30%...

read more

Grateful

Here it is Thanksgiving week. If you are like most people in the fundraising sector, the lead-up to Thanksgiving can be a hectic period, with the most important cultivation asks either in the mail or ready to be deployed, new donor acquisition campaigns in-home, and...

read more

Giving Tuesday: Is it still working for you?

In the past, some of us at Analytical Ones have been a little “Grinch-y” about Giving Tuesday. Being blitzed by emails during the workday can be overwhelming. However, we won’t knock it if it’s working! In September, Classy (the online fundraising platform utilized by...

read more

ARCHIVES

© 2020 Analytical Ones