Fundraising & String Theory

Last month at DMA-NY, the American Cancer Society presented the adverse effects on their fundraising when they pulled out of direct mail acquisition. And though they received some undeserved criticism, I for one appreciated the fact they shared their results with all...

The First Thing about Analytics

As fundraisers, we plan to succeed. And to maximize our chances for success, our plans have to be grounded in empiricism. Far too often, we’ve seen inexperienced boards or EDs make up crazy revenue goals for their DDs. These goals seem to be based on whim and wish....

The Age of Acquisition

This graph is beautiful. One look at the correlation between the age that a donor is acquired and their LTV is like taking that first sip of coffee in the morning. Ahhh. The r² on this relationship is over 0.85. That means that age alone accounts for 85% of the...

LTV SchmeLTV

If there is one metric our industry is fixated upon, it’s LTV (long-term value). And, like so many other things, though it started out as such a good idea, it is in serious need of a tune-up. Now don’t get me started about the 7-ways to Wednesday that LTV is...