The Magic of Knowing: How characterizing your top donors' engagement helps you raise more.
Written by S. Ian Martin, Junior Data Scientist
Have you ever had that magical moment when the product that you needed showed up at just the right instant? It’s likely that was no accident. Organizations who leverage their customer data are able to manufacture that magic. And so can you.
When you fundraise, you collect oodles of data on your donors. And that data is incredibly valuable. It provides insight into who your donors are, what themes engage them, and how you can keep your cause top of mind.
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) Q1`24 report suggests that donors who give at or above an organization's threshold (I’ll define that below) are more likely to be retained by that organization in the future. Getting donors above threshold and driving retention means having insight into what makes your donors tick. That insight is central to building those magical moments for donors and it is the key to long run fundraising success.
Today we are going to do a simple data mining exercise and use it to grow your donors.
First, grab your donor data set:
Amongst all donors, what is the median net giving amount per donor over the last 12 months? We’ll call this our threshold.
Select all donors that have given in the last 24 months.
Sum their total donations and divide by two, to get their running average net donations.
Drop any donors whose average net donation is below your threshold.
Of the remaining donors, group their purchases by event type, item type, amount, and donor zip code.
See any patterns? Almost certainly your will. These are your target characteristics.
Concrete attributes that your top donors are responsive to. And the stuff magic is made of.
Next, as your are finalizing your Q4 live auction and event plans, ask yourself:
Am I selecting items with attributes that align with the target characteristics I’ve uncovered?
Were top donors more responsive to a particular type of event?
Are the price points of my auction items reflective of the demographics of my top donors?
The more your answer ‘yes’, the more likely it is that you are creating impactful experiences for your donors. And building long term engagement. That’s the magic of knowing.
GiveGrove makes events and auctions for fundraising easy. Check us out at GiveGrove.com or email info@givegrove.com for more info. Click here to sign up for our mailing list.
