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Sep 14, 2015

The First Thing about Analytics

past-present-futureAs 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 only thing these kinds of goals achieve is to motivate the DD to look for a new job in a less crazy environment.

I’ve often said, to create a good plan for the future, you have to know where you currently stand. And nothing gives you a better comprehensive assessment of your current situation than looking at your organization’s past giving trends.

Analytics’ first job is to look back with the purpose of helping you look forward.

It does more than that of course. But this is where it all starts.

One More Gift from Sustainers

I think we’d all agree that sustainers are great. Having a group of donors that have committed to giving every month is like money in the bank. And, not surprisingly, a lot of organizations are careful to limit additional appeals to this group so not to alienate any...

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Early Returns

We are knee-deep in analyzing last fall’s results. While there is of course some variation in results by organization, the general narrative is that last fall wasn’t great . . . but it wasn’t awful either. It was just OK. What we are seeing is that overall revenue was...

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How Fundraising Will Evolve

In honor of International Data Week, I’m sharing how the future of fundraising will evolve. Many people are concerned about fundraising (I’m not btw). For nearly two decades, the “experts” have been predicting the death of direct mail fundraising. Eventually, the...

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