Translating the Language of Donor Research to Raise More Revenue

By Heather Hill

No matter where you are in the world, as a fundraiser, there’s one challenge you’re probably facing:

How do you find new donors? 

Who are they?  Where are they?  How do you connect with them?  What would inspire them to make a gift to your organization?

Your efforts to acquire new donors must include the multiple new prospect research tools and technologies that include relationship mapping aimed at making it easier for you to secure a donor meeting, and/or competitive analysis of similar organizations to discover new donors who are already funding comparable causes to yours.

These tools can help you deepen your strategies for how to reach new audiences, as well as how best to partner with trustees and board members and provide you pathways to grow major gifts.

When it comes to finding new major donors, in addition to acquiring new prospects, some of your best major gift prospects may already be in your database.  Have you taken a look at your current donors’ data?  Are you unsure how?

Donor data doesn’t have to mean complex predictive analytics or algorithms.  Instead it’s important to start with good data hygiene and ensure that the basic information about your donors and their giving is stellar.

For example …

  • Do you know your average gift size?
  • Do you know when your donors are lapsing or growing in their giving?
  • Do you know what your best performing fundraising activity is?
  • Do you track donor interests?

Understanding these datapoints is important for assessing your fundraising program and developing or revising your fundraising strategy.  Simply knowing the total amount of gifts received does not give you a full picture of your fundraising health.

These datapoints are simple to pull and, in many cases, your database has a function that will do it for you.  The caveat, however, is that you have to track and record the information in order to analyze it.  If you don’t already have a system in place, there’s no better time than the present to establish one. Maybe that is a good enough reason for to set a time for a call with me?

If you feel like these tools are a new language, we empathize!

Data doesn’t have to be a foreign language for us.  We’d like to be your translator who can help you understand what your data is saying, or even go far beyond that to help you find new donors and funders for your crucial mission.

May we set a time for call?

We welcome your comments about this post on the LAPA blog.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Related Posts

The CEO as Chief Fundraiser: A Role That Should Never Be Delegated

Our recent posts have lasered in on fundraising perennials–retention of fundraising staff, annual funds, and why donors give.  Another perennial stacks up as equally worthy of thoughtful commentary, and that’s the role of the chief executive officer in fundraising.  

A short definition of a CEO is he or she who makes decisions.  Nowadays, we recognize the value of consensus decision-making, and that’s fine.  But the kinds of decisions I’m referring to are the big ones, decisions such as those made by the captain of a ship.

Read More »
Fundraiser Retention

How To Improve Fundraiser Retention

That disturbingly high turnover rates and low morale plague fundraising professionals is nothing new. Research going back almost two decades shows this to be true.

One study in particular found that the “average fundraiser stays on a job only 16 months.”

In fact, just last year, author Rob Webb called on us to act on fundraising turnover right here in NonProfit Pro.

The past research on turnover was best summarized by our colleague Penelope Burke as follows:

Read More »

The Secret to Why Donors Give

There are many reasons we in the fundraising industry tell one another about why donors give.  They are moved by your mission, they know a board or staff member, they’ve given for years, to name a few.  I doubt that all of them are true, and I especially doubt that they are all true at the same point in the giving calculus for each donor.

Read More »