New Fundraising Effectiveness Project Report Shows An Increase In Dollars Raised Despite A Decrease In Donors

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Disclosure: Bloomerang is one of several software providers that helped the Fundraising Effectiveness Project collect the data analyzed in the report we discuss in this post.
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) recently released its Second Quarter Fundraising Report, which is full of insights and giving trends that can help you and your team with your donor acquisition and retention efforts. You can download the report by visiting FEP’s website.
In this post, you’ll learn more about two key insights from the report. You’ll also find our recommendations for how you can use your nonprofit organization’s data to fundraise more effectively.
Let’s start with the good news: The number of dollars raised increased by 6.2%!
Here’s an interesting look at which donors contributed to that increase and which showed the smallest decline in donations:
Given this information, we recommend taking these steps:
1. Define: Sit down with your team and define your criteria for small, midsize, and major donors. These segments will be unique to your organization as they will be based off of your yearly fundraising revenue and your organization’s average donation size.
2. Report: With those numbers in mind, use your donor database to pull reports that segment those groups of donors. You may also want to run reports based on the average donation size for each group.
3. Analyze: For each segment, find the number of donations they made, dollars raised, and other factors you deem relevant. Then look at the data you’ve collected to answer questions for each segment like:
4. Adjust: Now that you know where your fundraising efforts are succeeding and where your opportunities for improvement are, adjust your fundraising plans accordingly.
5. Act: Once you know how you’d like to proceed, it’s time to implement your ideas and see if you can increase the number of dollars raised and number of donors by each segment. Make sure you show the relevant data to your team so they know why you’re implementing these strategies and tactics.
Bonus recommendation: You don’t have to wait an entire year to review your data. We recommend that you collect and analyze this information monthly or quarterly so you can adjust your fundraising efforts as the year goes on.
Even though the number of dollars raised increased, the number of donors who gave decreased by 7.0%.
Here’s a breakdown of that data:
But wait! There’s good news here too: Once they receive and review the late data, the FEP is anticipating they’ll see an increase in the number of major donors.
Just like above, we recommend taking these steps:
1. Define: Take the segments you created for small, midsize, and major donors. Remember: These groups will be unique to your organization as they will be based off of your yearly fundraising revenue and your organization’s average donation size.
2. Report: With those numbers in mind, run reports in your donor database that segment small, midsize, and major donors based on the factors you find most relevant.
3. Analyze: Look at the data you’ve collected and ask questions like:
4. Adjust: Look at what acquisition and retention efforts were the most successful last year and put more resources there. As far as the areas you have for improvement, try out new strategies and tactics that you think will increase the number of new donors in each segment and retain more donors this year.
5. Act: Empower your team by sharing the data you’ve collected and start implementing your proposed tactics and strategies.
The same bonus recommendation applies here: Set aside some time to review this data monthly or quarterly and make adjustments to your fundraising plans accordingly.
In addition to the recommendations above, we encourage you to:
Here are a few Bloomerang features that can help you find major donors and retain current donors:
We’d love to hear from you about the giving trends you’re seeing and show you how Bloomerang can help you meet your fundraising goals. Schedule a live Demo now and a member of our team will get in touch with you ASAP.
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