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How Analytics Build Effective Fundraising Strategies

29 Nov 2020
How Analytics Build Effective Fundraising Strategies
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Strange as it sounds, one of the biggest challenges in running a Non-Profit is remaining profitable.

As anyone involved in a charity knows, Non-Profits need to sustain themselves throughout the year. To do so, they must be efficient about their operations and fundraising strategies.

That’s where Data Analytics comes in!

But how can Data Analytics help to build effective fundraising strategies, to keep your Non-Profit afloat during the year?

Why Data Analytics is Essential to Non-Profits

First, a note on the importance of utilizing data analytics.

Recent research indicates that data solutions are needed at Non-Profits.

According to the Salesforce Non-profit Trends Report, more than half of Non-Profits (53%) find it easy to collect program data, but less than half (47%) know how to put that data into action.

This leads to a host of struggles when it comes to tracking, quantifying, and analyzing the impact and performance of fundraising strategies.

That’s why a Data Analytics solution is required.

4 Ways Data Analytics Can Help Build Fundraising Strategies
GiveLife 365 4 Ways Data Analytics Can Help Build Fundraising Strategies

There are numerous reasons for Non-Profits to adopt analytics tools for fundraising.

1. Non-Profits can use predictive analytics to streamline operations:

For example, donor management — the classification of your donors based on their past interactions with your Non-Profit — is nearly impossible without tools that quantify a donor’s capacity to give and the likelihood that they will continue to give. CRM solutions with strong data visualizations — such as GiveLife365 — review the data you’ve collected about your donors and predict their future behavior by finding trends in the fundraising data. Lacking such tools, donor management is akin to guesswork. You’ll never really know if your strategic fundraising efforts are properly allocated until the money comes in … or doesn’t.

2. Predictive analytics can increase cost efficiency:

Building a fundraising campaign, with marketing collateral and in-person events like galas or charity balls, can be a lot of fun.

But how do you know when your organization has overspent?

In other words, how do you measure your Return on Investment (ROI)?

If your organization has a limited budget — as most Non-Profits do — it’s useful to measure how much money you were able to raise against how much you spent on your fundraising campaign. Data focussed solutions allow you to keep track of such details, and to utilize fundraising data from previous campaigns in informing your current and future campaigns.

3. Intelligent CRM solutions can help to identify and improve KPIs

How do you know when your campaign is succeeding?

By what criteria do you measure the success of your campaign, and can those measures be implemented in future campaigns?

That’s what KPIs — key performance indicators — are all about.

Ask yourself the following questions:

How much, and how often, should donors give to your organization for fundraising to be considered a success?

Has the size of the average gift experienced an increase or decrease, or has it stayed relatively the same from year to year? What constitutes a “successful” yearly increase?

To what methods of giving are your donors most responsive? For example, at your last event, how many donors bought their tickets online versus in-person? Have you utilized this information to help bolster the success of your ticket sales?

When it comes to fundraising strategies, knowing how to determine the measures of success means applying past data to refine your operations. Without a sophisticated data analytics solution in hand, it is extremely difficult to improve the KPIs of your Non-Profit and track its success across both financial and mission-driven indicators.

4. Data analysis can help incentivize donor gifts

People who give to Non-Profits like to know that their gifts are making an impact.

To this end, your analytics can be of great use.

By providing more data to donors on the impact of their gift — showing them, for example, how their investment in your Non-Profit is being used — can motivate them to give again. Organizations must not only make data measurement a priority but also understand the ways that “impact data” can be effectively communicated to donors.

Any data analytics solution for Non-Profits, worth its salt, should provide easily interpretable information about giving metrics.

For more information on GiveLife365 solution for Non-Profits, click here.