5 Ways to Use the Data in Your Donor Management Software
From our friends at DonorSearch.
When used correctly, donor management software is a powerful tool to help your organization engage supporters and fundraise more effectively. Your software can help you keep track of everything, from donors and event attendees to volunteers and board members.
Your donor management software maintains records for each of these groups to answer questions like: When did they last interact with your organization? How often and how much do they donate to your organization? What are their jobs, interests, and motivations?
The answers to these questions and others can be generated from your donation records and other research tools. But don’t just gather donor data—actually put it to work in a way that supports your mission.
At DonorSearch, we provide thousands of nonprofits with the accurate and actionable information they need to achieve their fundraising goals. Over the years, we’ve learned some of the best practices for taking advantage of the data you have available. In our current climate of economic uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to make the most of your nonprofit’s existing resources.
Here are some of the most impactful ways you can use the data in your donor management software:
Plan data-driven campaigns.
Identify major gifts prospects.
Segment donors.
Optimize outreach and encourage retention.
Maximize matching gift revenue.
If you don’t know how to leverage the wealth of information in your donor database or CRM, you’re missing out on these valuable opportunities. Let’s jump in and explore each of them in more detail.
1 | Plan data-driven campaigns.
The data available in your donor database can inform your fundraising strategy and decisions. By taking the time to analyze and understand your community, your organization will be better equipped to create the right campaign, at the right time, with the right goal.
Ideally, any scale of fundraiser you plan will be supported by donor data, but it’s particularly important for a large undertaking like a big peer-to-peer event or a capital campaign. When you’re dedicating a large amount of resources and time to a large campaign, you want to know that your efforts are directed appropriately. Donor information will help your team determine the best and most effective way to use your tight fundraising expense budget.
Donor data can boost your fundraising strategy by improving your nonprofit’s ability to:
Customize your fundraiser to your community. Look at donors’ background information and histories with your organization to determine what kind of fundraiser would be most effective. Consider new avenues like text-to-give, peer-to-peer fundraising, or a virtual event like a charity auction. Data points like age and communication preference can also guide your decision on how and where to reach out about your campaign.
Set realistic fundraising goals. Donor information like giving history and business affiliation can make it easier to make accurate predictions about donors’ capacity to give. This data can help you set the target for your fundraising campaign at a reasonable (yet still goal-worthy) level.
Choose the right time and duration for your campaign. What time of year are your supporters most likely to donate? For example, most nonprofits see a huge spike in year-end giving, and if the data reveals that’s also true for your organization, you could double down on a strong #GivingTuesday campaign to round out the year. Donor data can also help you decide how long your campaign should last in order to meet the realistic goal you’ve set.
The raw data you have stored will become much more valuable to your organization when you can use it to make educated plans for your fundraising initiatives.
2 | Identify major gift prospects.
Major gifts are an important component of your fundraising strategy, and understanding your donor data can help you to secure these for your organization.
According to DonorSearch’s guide to major gifts, over 88% of the average nonprofit’s funding comes from just 12% of donors. Because major donors have such a massive impact on your organization’s total revenue, it’s critical to identify and solicit major prospects effectively.
One of the most accessible ways to identify prospective major donors is by screening your existing donor base. Which of your supporters are currently contributing at a low level but may have the potential to make a bigger impact?
You can screen your existing donor data for major gift prospects by looking at:
Wealth indicators. These markers illuminate an individual’s financial capacity to give to your organization. Wealth indicators typically include political giving, real estate holdings, stock ownership, and education level.
Philanthropic indicators. These characteristics can help you determine an individual’s affinity to give to your nonprofit and philanthropic work in general. These indicators include past giving (to your organization and others), nonprofit involvement, and interests.
Assessing these characteristics can also help you determine which potential donors to reach out to first. Analysis like prospect ranking can prioritize a list of donors to use your development team’s valuable time most effectively. This is beneficial whether you’re assessing donors who have already supported your organization or conducting outreach to previously-unknown prospects.
3 | Segment donors.
Although major donor outreach is definitely important, don’t forget about the rest of your donors! Every supporter in your system is important, whether they’ve contributed $10 or $10,000 to your organization.
Robust donor data is key to recognizing and communicating with each donor as an individual—or at least, as a group. Donor segmentation is the practice of categorizing donors based on different criteria or preferences, then tailoring your outreach to each group.
Instead of sending an email campaign to a monolithic group of your supporters, you can craft your messaging to appeal more specifically to smaller segments. For instance, you may adjust things like suggested donation amount or the overall tone of the appeal based on what you know has been effective with those segments in the past.
Here are just a few of the data points that your nonprofit can use to segment donors:
Basic demographic information
Donation frequency and recency
Average gift size
Relationship length
Volunteer history
Giving preferences
Communication preferences
More than likely, this information is already stored in your donor database, just waiting for you to put it to good use. Segmenting donors with this data can help your nonprofit build strong, long-lasting relationships with supporters.
4 | Maximize matching gift revenue.
Some of the information hiding in your donor management software may help you find funds that you’ve been missing out on.
With corporate social responsibility on the rise, many companies are offering matching contributions to employees who make gifts to nonprofit organizations. These matches are most often a 1:1 ratio, but can sometimes be double or even triple the initial donation.
Unfortunately, many individuals aren’t aware of their eligibility, leaving funds on the table. According to this Double the Donation statistic, an estimated $4-$7 billion in matching gift revenue goes unclaimed every year!
Your donor data can reveal opportunities to secure matching gift revenue from eligible supporters. By cross-checking your donors’ employers with companies known to offer matching gifts, you can maximize the total impact of each contribution. You can do this manually, but if you don’t have the capacity to handle this internally, matching gift software can automate the process.
Additionally, you can use matching gift eligibility as criteria for donor segmentation. A specialized email you send to eligible supporters may be the nudge they need to submit a matching gift request for a recent donation—or even valuable information about a program they didn’t know existed.
As an added bonus, individuals who know their donations will be matched often end up contributing even more to your organization to begin with. Beginning to highlight matching gift programs in your communications to supporters is the best way to start seeing that boost.
5 | Optimize outreach and encourage retention.
Your donor database holds useful information about your supporters’ communication preferences. Use it to meet your donors where they are!
Searching through your donor data allows you to build your communication strategy based on accurate engagement data, not assumptions. It may be easy to fall in line with stereotypes like millennials hating phone calls or older donors not understanding social media, but ask whether your supporter data actually aligns with this.
You can look at historical data to see which communication channels are generally most effective for your community, survey supporters to gather firsthand feedback, or conduct A/B testing (also known as split testing) for a more experimental approach.
Consider tried-and-true options or a more innovative marketing platform. Some of our favorite communication channels include:
In-person meetings
Phone calls
Text messages
Chatbots
Email
Video and livestreaming
Mail
Social media
Each of these options has its own benefits and drawbacks, but be sure to take your donor preferences into account when making your decision. Analyzing the past responses of your supporters will help you predict how they’ll respond to the platform in the future.
Using data to optimize your approach will help you conduct more effective outreach—potentially saving you valuable time and money. For example, save on printing costs and postage by only sending direct mail to the supporters who tend to engage with that medium.
Additionally, effective communication has more than just an immediate economic benefit. Personalized outreach strengthens your relationships with supporters, increasing retention. No matter which channel you choose, from handwritten thank you notes to peer-to-peer texting, be sure to express your deep appreciation for donors’ contributions and support.
You’ve already made a big investment in your donor management software, so make sure you’re using it to its fullest potential! “Knowledge is power” may be a cliché, but in the case of donor data, it’s definitely true. The data you already have stored can help your organization make stronger decisions about fundraising, communications, and more.
Author: Sarah Tedesco
Sarah Tedesco is the Executive Vice President of DonorSearch, a prospect research and wealth screening company that focuses on proven philanthropy. Sarah is responsible for managing the production and customer support department concerning client contract fulfillment, increasing retention rate and customer satisfaction. She collaborates with other team members on a variety of issues including sales, marketing and product development ideas.