Four Ways To Dig For Gold In Last Year’s Fundraising Campaigns

Whether your 2015 fundraising strategy was a success or a total bust there are likely a few hidden gems to uncover in the data. Before you finalize your 2016 fundraising calendar, go through the information that you gathered from last year’s campaigns and look for trends or unusual activity that you can leverage for better results in 2016.

Hopefully you have a CRM, but even if you don’t there are still ways to analyze data from previous campaigns. Below are a few suggested areas of focus. Start here but keep your eyes open for anything that stands out as a potential opportunity.

1. Recurring Donors

If you’re not checking your donor lists, that’s a mistake that could be costing your organization thousands. One of the most important pieces of information to look for is donors who gave to multiple campaigns or scheduled recurring donations either on a monthly or quarterly basis.

A donor who gives more than once to your organization has already made an emotional connection to the mission so you want to make sure to segment them out for special outreach when you start managing a new campaign.

The other important thing to remember about human behavior is that it’s much more effective to market to existing customers than it is to attract new ones.

The same goes for donors. If they’ve given to your organization once, it’s more likely they will give again.They just need to feel the love and be in the loop on what the organization is accomplishing and how their donation will impact the goals of the mission.

2. Demographics

You probably have a good idea of the demographics of your typical donor – or so you think. It never hurts to take a fresh look at as much demographic information as you can access. Consider:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital status
• Income
• Geographic location
• Education level
• Other

Once you have the demographic information, share it with others on your team and give everyone a chance to spot the opportunities. Sometimes there are hidden trends that you hadn’t considered.

For example, it’s possible that the average age of your donors has increased or decreased. Analyzing the information with a new perspective and goals in mind will likely mean that you will be better equipped to manage future fundraising events with more targeted messaging and tactics.

The more you know about your supporters whether they be donors, volunteers, or board members, the more you will be able to tailor messages to each group. If you have a CRM that allows you to create custom data sets, take advantage of that and begin to capture information that is important to your constituents. For instance,

• Do donors and volunteers have any special hobbies or interests?
• What do they do for a living?
• Do they belong to any professional organizations?
• How many pets do they have?

These are just a few ideas of things you can capture when you engage a new donor, volunteer, or any constituent. The more you know about them, the more information you have to personalize messaging and rally the right troops for the task at hand.

3. Matching Gifts

Taking your 2016 fundraising to the next level means that at some point you may want to run a matching gifts campaign or start including matching gifts as a part of all your campaigns. If you have employment information on your donors but you’ve never solicited an employee match, it’s not too late to start and it can’t make a big difference in fundraising results.

Check to see if there are any corporate trends in your data. Is there a company that seems to be showing up more and more in donor roles? Do you know if they have a matching gift program? If not, would they be willing to start one?

While planning the next fundraising campaign, make sure to call out matching gifts so that people remember to connect with their human resources or employee benefits team. Often, an employer’s matching gift program is underutilized because people don’t think about it when they’re in the giving mood.

A service like Double the Donation is an excellent tool to automate the employer matching gift process. Automating the process on your website so that donors can access their employer’s matching gift forms will ensure that more people take advantage of the benefit.

You can remind donors at every level of your campaign how important matching gifts can be for your mission. But making it easier to access the forms they need to request a match means you’re more likely to benefit from employers who have those types of programs.

4. Influencers

Whether your 2015 fundraising campaigns included social media, traditional marketing tactics, or a combination of both,  go back and find the people who liked, shared, or promoted your campaigns or events and get to know them.

Influencers, as they’re known in the digital world, are people who have a large and loyal following and whose opinions their audience values.

Although some influencers may never have donated to your organization, the fact that they’re interested and engaged enough to spread the word to their friends and followers means that you could literally have thousands of new potential donors.

Influencers are key to spreading your story.

If you need guidance on how to engage through social, check out our Comprehensive Guide to Social Media for Nonprofit Crowdfunding. It’s full of tips to help you make the most of social media.

Get to know your influencers and engage them well before your next campaign begins, something you can easily do with a service like Attentive.ly, or just careful social media management. Thank them for helping to spread the word about the campaign and encourage them to do so again. You may even want to help them set up their own page related to your campaign.

There are endless ways to improve fundraising outcomes. No matter how successful your fundraising campaigns have been in the past, looking at the data to find those hidden gems and identifying areas for improvement can breathe new life into your 2016 fundraising efforts!