By Michael Bacon, CFRE
In your fundraising work, you are making daily decisions about how to use your scant resources to bring in charitable gifts. If you had access to information that helped you make those choices, wouldn’t your job be easier?
Rarely do we take the time to analyze our organization’s data. By data I mean the records of charitable giving. Probably the two most critical elements to know are donor retention and donor consistency. For instance, do you know:
- How many of your donors from last year have not yet given this fiscal year?
- How many of your donors have given every year for the past four years?
- How many of your donors are renewing their gift level from last year versus increasing their gifts (upgrading)?
- How long does it take for a donor to get a receipt from us?
If you know this information about your donors, you are more likely to choose to spend your time in renewing and upgrading gifts rather than donor acquisition. You are more likely to spend your time taking care of the relationships you already have.
In the three months left in 2010, shouldn’t you be focusing on how to reach those donors from last year who have not yet made their gift? We call these LYBUNTS (Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year) and combined with SYBUNTS (Some Years But Unfortunately Not This Year) they represent the constituent base with the greatest potential to support your cause.
Take a moment to review your data. Great donor management software is a valuable tool to answer the questions I raised above and to help you determine what is the most important next step.
What other questions should we be asking of our data? Any suggestions?