Learn more about the future of Salesforce NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud and what the recent changes mean for your organization in this guide.

The Future of Salesforce: Nonprofit Cloud and NPSP

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If your nonprofit currently uses Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), you might feel uncertain about the future of this tool. In the spring of 2023, Salesforce announced it would switch focus to supporting Nonprofit Cloud, a nonprofit-focused Industry Cloud solution, as their primary platform for nonprofits.

This announcement is exciting news, as Nonprofit Cloud is a core product that offers nonprofits access to exciting features, from AI data analytics to easy-to-use online experience builders. Additionally, Nonprofit Cloud and its data model will receive investments and innovation from Salesforce over the coming years. 

Currently, Salesforce has no plans to stop supporting NPSP, but it could still be in your nonprofit’s best interest to shift over to Nonprofit Cloud. In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of this change and what it means for nonprofits using NPSP:

  • What is the difference between NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud?
  • Why release Nonprofit Cloud?
  • What do these changes mean for your nonprofit?

Understanding the differences between NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud enables nonprofits to make an informed decision about which tool they should use. To get started, we’ll break down these differences.

What is the difference between NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud?

Salesforce NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud are solutions designed by Salesforce for nonprofits that provide nonprofits with various management tools for charitable organizations. Both rely on Salesforce’s core CRM platform to function, but each solution’s level of interoperability, features, and cost differ. 

Here are the key differences in more detail:

NPSP

NPSP is a set of managed packages developed by Salesforce. This package’s main objective is to provide nonprofits with the tools to manage essential operational processes like case and project management, fundraising, and donor management. 

Here are some NPSP basics:

  • Interoperability: NPSP is an app built atop Salesforce Enterprise Edition. Through NPSP, your nonprofit can use other Salesforce-native apps and integrate third-party solutions as needed.
  • Features: NPSP provides nonprofits with a set of managed packages such as Recurring Donations, Relationships, Affiliations, Contacts & Organizations, and Households. NPSP features are designed to help your nonprofit manage contacts and households, donation payments, grants, relationships between contacts, and more.
  • Cost: Nonprofit organizations receive their first ten subscriptions to NPSP for free. 

NPSP offers an industry-standard data model that organizations can use to manage anything from donor relationships to recurring donations to fundraising events. Keep in mind that for larger organizations, various projects or specific needs may require investing in other Salesforce apps or third-party tools.

Nonprofit Cloud

Nonprofit Cloud is now part of the Industries vertical and is a core product rooted in cloud-based Salesforce solutions like Service Cloud and Sales Cloud. Core products are foundational to the Salesforce platform, while managed packages tend to be extensions of these core products that are adapted for specific industries.

Other details about Nonprofit Cloud include:

  • Interoperability: With Nonprofit Cloud, your nonprofit can access the Industry Cloud Common Components (tools available for use in multiple Industry Clouds), other Salesforce products, apps listed in the AppExchange, and more. Additionally, you can build custom integrations with the help of a Salesforce partner.
  • Features: The Nonprofit Cloud data model includes solutions that aid constituent management, program management, case management, and more. Salesforce is also building other tools and features to assist in grantmaking.
  • Cost: To use Nonprofit Cloud, organizations need to pay licensing fees. These fees range from $60 to $100 per month as of 2023.

Overall, Nonprofit Cloud is a more robust, flexible tool than NPSP. Essentially, nonprofits using Nonprofit Cloud will be able to more easily scale their software and customize it as their needs change.

Why release Nonprofit Cloud?

Because thousands of nonprofits use and find success through NPSP, many wonder why Salesforce released Nonprofit Cloud. Here are a few reasons Salesforce may have come to this decision:

  • It makes nonprofit work easier. Nonprofit Cloud makes it easier to keep your data tidy and complete the tasks you need to further your mission. Since this solution is an Industry Cloud product and uses the Industry Data Model, it will continue to be improved by Salesforce.
  • It’s easier to connect with donors. Features like the Actionable Relationship Center (ARC) and OmniStudio allow you to accurately track critical moments in donor relationships and craft positive online experiences.
  • It is suited to large and/or growing organizations. As a core product that easily integrates with other Industry Cloud solutions, Nonprofit Cloud has a more stable infrastructure suited to large organizations with complex needs.

These large-scale improvements benefit different organizations depending on how they leverage the tool. Remember that working with a consultant can help you implement and adapt to the changes associated with switching to Nonprofit Cloud.

What do these changes mean for your nonprofit?

It can be difficult to conceptualize what switching to Nonprofit Cloud means within the context of your organization. Here are some of the benefits you can expect and examples of how those changes could impact your nonprofit:

  • Improved scalability. Nonprofit Cloud can accommodate your organization’s growth in multiple areas. Leverage improved connections with other Salesforce Clouds to customize your software. For example, you might use Marketing Cloud to launch an in-depth donor communication strategy or leverage an industry-specific cloud with compliance reporting tools for your field.

  • Access to new features. Through Nonprofit Cloud, you’ll have access to more than 40 Common Components, such as OmniStudio (for NPSP users, this is similar to Flow or Apex). According to Fíonta’s guide to Nonprofit Cloud, OmniStudio is a digital engagement suite with drag-and-drop capabilities that make creating prebuilt guided experiences quick and straightforward. You might use this feature to create a seamless, user-friendly volunteer onboarding experience or a donor portal where supporters can track their past involvement.

  • Improved fundraising and community building. While yet to be offered, Salesforce is set to roll out robust fundraising tools for Nonprofit Cloud. These features will help you align with the best practices in NXUnite’s guide to donor relations like researching prospects, communicating during important events, and inviting donors to opportunities and events that align with their interests. For instance, life events and milestone tracking features allow you to record these crucial occurrences to visualize the donor’s journey with your nonprofit. 

Remember that one of the most essential benefits of Nonprofit Cloud is its ability to adapt alongside your organization. If you find your organization outgrowing NPSP, attempting to navigate complicated integrations, or strongly considering a shift to Nonprofit Cloud, reach out to a Salesforce partner to review your options and next steps.

The decision to continue using NPSP or switch to Nonprofit Cloud lies with your organization, and it depends on your nonprofit’s unique needs, existing resources, and goals. Your tool should have the technology needed to manage operations in a scalable, sustainable way.

This guide will cover how you can use data to track your recreation program’s effectiveness.

Using Data to Track Your Recreation Program’s Effectiveness

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For programs that rely on municipal or grant funding, like parks and recreation departments and school districts, it’s essential to track data and create reports that accurately prove your impact. To advocate for your department or district and secure the necessary funds and resources, you’ll need to consistently track data and perform analyses to demonstrate the positive effects of your programs on your community.

But, tracking this data can be a pain point. Outdated methods can cause attendance tracking slowdowns and inaccurate records for parks and recreation departments. Similarly, schools using disorganized methods like spreadsheet reporting can find it challenging to stay on top of tracking information like participation in clubs, sports, and other extracurricular programs.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the most important data you need to collect and how you can use software to demonstrate your program’s positive effect on your students or community. Let’s get started!

Why track your program’s effectiveness?

As a professional in a school district or recreation department, you know the value of your institution and the programs you offer well. However, it’s important to relay these positive impacts to those who don’t see them each day by using concrete numbers. Just as you would communicate the success of a fundraising event by reporting the amount of money raised, you need to use quantifiable data to prove your efficacy.

As a public program, monitoring and reporting performance metrics is vital to understanding your program’s operational health. Using these metrics, your district or department can identify areas that need improvement and seek additional support for programs or initiatives that are performing well. With data, you can make informed decisions that help you increase funding to boost your department’s budget. This allows you to improve facilities and programming, start new initiatives, and enhance participant outcomes.

With this concrete information, you can feel more confident when submitting requests for support from funders. This can directly impact visitor and student experiences, helping facilitate sustainable growth for your organization.

Which data points are important to track?

Because you’ll need to collect data over months or years to demonstrate growth and prove strong performance, it’s key to know which metrics to record. For example, if your school is hoping to secure additional support for its after-school program, you’ll need to carefully track and analyze enrollment and attendance in the program.

Here are some of the essential metrics to track with your school or parks and recreation software solution:

  • Registration and attendance. Record how many visitors register for and attend your department’s events to measure event success. Schools can also track attendance to estimate the number of students on campus at any given time, ensuring that they provide the right number of staff members for a safe student experience.
  • Donations. Public programs often hold fundraisers to support specific initiatives or causes. According to CommunityPass, the right school software will empower you to accurately report the donations you receive and provide tax write-off information to donors. And, when it’s time for your school or recreation department to break down its performance metrics, you can make a case for additional funding by showing off how you used the donations to make improvements.
  • Memberships. For recreation departments, it’s common to offer membership packages as well as seasonal or day passes to visitors. Offer memberships online and facilitate recurring charges, autorenewal, and expiration reminders for membership packages through a robust software solution. Using this data, you can see your total number of memberships sold, how many visitors choose to renew, and any impactful changes over time.
  • Facility rentals. Many parks and schools have facilities your visitors may want to rent out for events, parties, and athletic use. Track this data to identify how often you rent facilities, when most visitors rent, why visitors need the facilities, and how much revenue these rentals supply. Using these reports, you could illustrate how many people use your park’s facilities and advocate for additional funding to improve them.

In addition to these metrics, make sure to carefully track your school or department’s finances. Make sure to create a detailed budget, record any costs you incur, and carefully note all sources of revenue. You should also keep records of how you allocated funds from specific funders to clearly show the impact of their support later on.

How can your program simplify the process?

To collect and report this crucial data, it’s key to invest in school or recreation management software that will streamline data into one easy-to-use platform. When researching solutions, check for features that facilitate data collection and analysis, including the following:

  • Pre-built reports. Software solutions make data analysis simple by providing pre-made reports. Using these reports, you can select the best template for your program, load data in, and start analyzing. These reports span a variety of categories, from website interaction data to attendance to revenue.
  • Custom report designer. If your school district or recreation department needs a report that is tailored to its specific needs, some software solutions offer report designers, where you can build reports customized to your needs. This can be helpful if you want to compile data from various sources and timelines into a single report.
  • Formatting options. Choose a software solution that offers flexible formatting for reports so you can present them to funders, share them over email, and choose files that fit into your office suite software. You can choose between formats like on-screen renders, Excel sheets, and PDF files.
  • Compliance reporting. Compliance reports demonstrate that your department or district is following the set of rules and standards set by the government. Whether the report is for a specific compliance initiative or just an overview, the right software solution can save you time and effort when creating the report.

In addition, be sure to invest in a software solution that keeps your school or recreation department’s data clean. According to AccuData, data hygiene refers to keeping your data error-free, which is important for all organizations. “Dirty” data contains errors, whether it’s outdated, incomplete, duplicated, or incorrect. As you decide on which software solution to use to track your program’s effectiveness, ensure that you pick a tool that makes maintaining data hygiene easy.

Tracking the impact your programs have helps you prove your program’s worth and champion more support. A comprehensive report with data-backed performance tracking can make the difference between receiving the same amount of funding and getting a meaningful increase. Recreational programs and school districts can greatly benefit from investing in a solution that empowers them to collect data that helps them make better decisions.

Image shows text reading Finding Major Donors with Data: 3 Markers to Look For next to an image of a man looking at a laptop.

Finding Major Donors with Data: 3 Markers to Look For

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Major donors are crucial for your organization’s success—according to 360MatchPro, donations over $1,000 account for 85% of the average nonprofit’s revenue. However, finding supporters who are willing and able to make major monetary contributions can be a challenge for any nonprofit.

To find the best prospects and use your team’s time effectively, take a data-informed approach by conducting prospect research. This process involves taking an in-depth look at your donor data to find those most likely to make a major gift. Specifically, prospect research searches for individuals who have each of these three types of markers:

  1. Capacity (Wealth)
  2. Affinity (Warmth)
  3. Propensity (Habit)

As you dive into prospect research, focus on potential major donors that your organization already has some kind of connection with. Whether they’ve donated smaller amounts, attended events, or they’re friends with one of your board members, starting from a place of connection will save you time and increase your chances of success. Now, let’s explore each of these key markers in more detail.

1. Capacity (Wealth)

Start by looking for capacity, or wealth, markers. Capacity markers are data points that indicate a prospect may have the financial means to give a major gift. 

Formerly, nonprofits would only use financial capacity to determine if donors were good prospects for major giving. Thorough prospect research now takes more than wealth into consideration, including the affinity and propensity markers which we’ll discuss below. However, it’s still important that all of your prospects have some capacity markers so you know you’re appealing to those who have the means to give the sizable gift your organization needs.

Before you begin looking for wealth makers, take time to establish your nonprofit’s major gift threshold. Major gifts are different for every nonprofit, depending on factors like average donation size and fundraising goals. To find out what size gift your nonprofit should consider a major donation, identify the range of the largest individual gifts you received in the past year. If the range is $7,000 – $10,000, for example, you could set your major gift threshold at $8,500.

Once you’ve established your threshold, look for the following indicators that prospects could have a high enough capacity to give a gift of that size:

  • Real estate ownership
  • Business ownership
  • Stock holdings
  • High-income careers

While you may have supporters’ career information in your donor database, you’ll likely have to use additional resources like wealth screening tools to find more accurate data on individuals’ financial capacity. 

2. Affinity (Warmth)

Along with financial capacity, prospects also need to have sufficient warmth for your cause to be willing to give a major gift. Affinity markers indicate that a prospect has a personal investment in your cause, that your work aligns with their values, and that they may be interested in making a major contribution to further your mission. 

Donorly’s prospect research guide explains that affinity markers include:

  • Donation and engagement history with your nonprofit. If a prospect has already donated to your cause, volunteered, or attended your nonprofit’s events, it’s safe to assume that they have a personal interest in your mission.
  • Involvement with similar organizations. Any engagement with or donations to nonprofits with similar missions demonstrates cause alignment, even if they haven’t donated to your organization before. 
  • Political affiliations that align with your nonprofit. Donors who are active in politics are more likely to take an interest in your charitable work, especially if they support political groups whose beliefs align with yours.
  • Personal or professional connections to other supporters. Any connection to your nonprofit can indicate an interest in your mission, including having strong relationships with existing major donors or board members.

Your nonprofit’s donor database will be a valuable resource for finding these indicators. Look through the data you’ve collected about your supporters to uncover their previous donations, involvement history, and any relationships you’ve documented. Then, explore other nonprofits’ and political campaigns’ donor lists to find additional affinity markers. 

3. Propensity (Habit)

Even if your prospect has the means to give a major gift and a personal interest in your cause, they may not be in the habit of donating to nonprofits. To make sure they are, look for data that demonstrates that your prospect has a history of charitable activity, known as propensity markers. 

Data that indicates a habit of charitable giving includes:

  • Past donations to your nonprofit
  • Frequent donations to other organizations
  • Board service
  • Consistent fundraising event attendance 

To gather this information, you can use the same resources you used to find affinity markers. Start with your own donor database, then look at other nonprofits’ websites and annual reports to find their donor lists and board members. 43% of wealthy donors give to at least five different nonprofits, so it’s likely that you’ll find a good prospect’s name on several different donor lists.

How to Get Started with Prospect Research

Although prospect research can feel overwhelming for beginners, there are plenty of resources you can use to make the process easier! 

Start with the information already in your database, then turn to Google to do more initial research on individual prospects. Beyond a standard Google search, you can use these free resources to find more data on prospective major donors:

  • Government filings: There are a variety of public government filings that can give you information on prospects’ donations to other nonprofits, political contributions, and nonprofit board service. Search for FEC individual contributions, other nonprofits’ Form 990s, and SEC filings for business information. 
  • Property records: Use real estate search tools like Zillow to find a property’s purchase history and estimated current value. This information helps you determine a prospect’s financial capacity to give.  
  • LinkedIn: Go to LinkedIn and other social media sites to find prospects’ employment information and any listed volunteer activities. If a prospect is active on LinkedIn, they may also post about causes and political groups they’re interested in. 

These free resources are great places to start, but for best results, consider working with a nonprofit consultant. They’ll have more robust prospect research tools at their disposal and the expertise to use them. This will save your team time and give you access to more accurate information about your prospects, faster.  

If you want to learn more before diving in, read up on prospect research best practices. Or, learn the latest strategies for prospect research and major donor fundraising by attending free educational webinars, panels, and conferences for nonprofits.

Once you’ve identified several prospects with all of these markers, you can begin the major donor cultivation process to start developing relationships. Be sure to craft a thorough cultivation strategy and give yourself enough time to strengthen these relationships before making any asks. And once you’ve received your donations, don’t forget to prioritize donor recognition. 

This guide explores how nonprofits can create corporate partnerships to help boost their fundraising success.

Creating Corporate Partnerships to Boost Fundraising Success

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Your nonprofit is no stranger to the stress that comes with putting together a strong fundraising event. On top of brainstorming the perfect idea, assembling your fundraising team, and setting actionable goals, you also have to consider your overall budget and how much you can spend on your event.

Spend too much, and you risk missing out on a profit. Spend too little, and your event might not reach its full potential. What if there was a way to receive free fundraising dollars and support to bring your events to life?

Fortunately, corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs continue to grow in popularity, giving your nonprofit a prime opportunity to partner with a business and benefit from their philanthropic initiatives. A corporate partnership can earn your nonprofit much-needed resources to lead engaging fundraisers and build lasting relationships with donors in the process; in turn, your corporate partner will receive a boost in their reputation as a community-minded business.

To create a successful corporate partnership for your next fundraising event, leverage these top tips:

  • Find the right corporate partner
  • Create a compelling corporate sponsorship proposal
  • Highlight key fundraising metrics
  • Express appreciation

Businesses across the country are eager to support important causes, from funding charity galas to providing in-kind donations for food drives. You just need to demonstrate that your nonprofit is worthy of their support. Let’s get started!

Find the right corporate partner

Not every business will be a perfect fit for your nonprofit, so it’s important to do your research and find a company who will help you see your goals through. Consider the following questions in your search for the ideal corporate partner:

  • What companies in our community have similar values or purposes and would complement our mission well?
  • What companies have a similar audience base and would be a natural extension of our target audience? What companies have a mission-minded audience who would care about our cause?
  • What companies already have a philanthropy program and would be interested in expanding their efforts to a nonprofit like ours? What kind of support did these companies provide and what impact have they had on their communities?

Keep in mind that the most successful corporate partnerships should benefit both parties, so it’s not only important to consider what your corporate partner can do for your nonprofit, but also what your nonprofit can do for your partner.

For example, if a prospective corporate partner is selling a product or service that would be of interest to your target audience, you can help promote it on your marketing materials in exchange for corporate sponsorships, volunteer grants, in-kind donations, or another form of critical corporate support.

Note that this kind of arrangement, often called a commercial co-venture, needs to be backed up with regulatory research and compliance as well as be registered in advance and audited. Do your research to learn more about this partnership possibility and determine if it makes sense for your nonprofit and its audience.

To kickstart your research into prospective corporate partners, ask your board members and well-connected supporters (like your major donors) for references. They may work for companies that have philanthropy programs in place and would be interested in partnering with an important cause like yours. Plus, they can help facilitate introductions with the company’s staff so you can get to know the business and their values better.

Create a compelling corporate partnership proposal

Once you’ve brainstormed a list of prospective partners, it’s time to formally reach out to them with a partnership proposal. This is your opportunity to pitch your nonprofit and show why it’s worth a company’s time and resources to back your nonprofit and its fundraising campaign or event.

In your proposal, make sure to:

  • Introduce your organization and its mission: Your prospective partner might not be familiar with your mission, so sum up who your nonprofit is, the history of your founding, and your vision for the future. Use statistics to convey the impact your nonprofit has had on its community so far to legitimize your cause.
  • Explain the type of support you’re seeking: Explain the type of fundraising event or campaign you’ll be hosting, your goals for this event, and what support you’re hoping to receive from a corporate partner. For example, the OneCause guide to online fundraising suggests asking businesses to lead corporate fundraising challenges and involve their employees in peer-to-peer fundraising. Or, you might ask your prospective partner for a certain amount of revenue upfront to cover the cost of reserving an event venue. Regardless of the type of support you’re seeking, be specific about your ask so your corporate partner knows exactly what they’d need to provide and can determine if it’s within their capabilities.
  • Explain how this support will advance your mission: Connect the type of support you’re requesting to the impact this will have on your community. For example, let’s say your nonprofit is hosting a silent auction and needs financial support to procure items that will appeal to your audience. You can explain how the right items and packages will help your nonprofit drive a higher return on investment which will all go back toward your programs and initiatives to power good. Where possible, use statistics to help illustrate your projected impact.
  • Demonstrate how this will benefit your corporate partner: After reading through your proposal, your prospective partner might be wondering “This all sounds good, but what’s in it for me?” Explain what kind of support your nonprofit can offer the company, such as including them in your marketing plan before, during, and after your event. If your nonprofit and the company have the same target audience, you can share your audience demographics and highlight how this is a prime opportunity for your company to expand its reach and earn new customers.

Along with writing a formal proposal letter, set up a meeting with a point of contact from the company to discuss this partnership in greater detail. Here, you can come to a mutually beneficial agreement and work out the specifics of your partnership.

Highlight key fundraising metrics

Once you’ve secured a corporate partner’s support, it’s important to keep them in the loop and let them know how their efforts are making a difference. Create a standard communication cadence, such as updating your corporate partner when you’ve hit the halfway point to your fundraising goal or letting them know how many attendees have registered for your event.

After your event concludes, let your corporate partner know how your fundraiser performed by sharing key data metrics, such as:

  • Total donations raised (including whether or not you met your goal)
  • Return on investment
  • Total number of donors
  • Average gift size

This will help to illustrate the impact of their support and show the tangible connection between their involvement and the difference it makes in your community. If you included your corporate partner in your marketing materials, it can also be valuable to share marketing metrics around how these materials performed.

For example, if you included a section about your corporate partner on your event landing page with a call-to-action button that takes supporters to their online store, you can highlight data points like:

  • Total page views
  • Time spent on page
  • Click-through rate

These data points can demonstrate the marketing value in partnering with your nonprofit, allowing your corporate partner to effectively expand their reach.

Express appreciation

Along with sharing metrics, you’ll also want to take the time to express appreciation to your corporate partner for playing such a pivotal role in your fundraiser’s success. For instance, you might:

  • Write handwritten thank-you letters: A handwritten note adds a personal touch to your thank-yous and can help your corporate partner feel recognized for their efforts. For example, if several of your corporate partner’s employees participated in peer-to-peer fundraising, Fundraising Letters’ guide to volunteer thank-you letters recommends writing personalized notes that reference how much they raised and how this made an impact on your mission.
  • Shout-out your corporate partner during your event: Marketing doesn’t just take place before your fundraiser! Give a shout-out to your corporate partner during your event for everyone to hear; this will automatically increase your partner’s brand visibility and connect their business with your cause, boosting their philanthropic reputation. As a result, they’ll be more likely to secure new customers.
  • Share a video about your corporate partner on social media: Film a short sit-down interview with your corporate partner’s founder and shine a light on how they’ve played an important role in your nonprofit’s success. Make sure to tag their social media account in the caption or share a link to their website to expand their reach.

A strong recognition strategy can help you retain your corporate partner’s support for the future, empowering you to meet and exceed your fundraising goals for future campaigns and events. After your fundraiser concludes and you’ve expressed heartfelt gratitude, give your corporate partner a heads-up about the next fundraiser you’re planning to host and see if they’d be interested in extending their support again.

The right corporate partner can help you take your fundraising strategy to the next level and secure meaningful support to power change. Make sure to evaluate the success of your corporate partnership by tracking fundraising metrics with the help of a comprehensive fundraising solution. This way, you can ensure you’re deriving as much value as possible from this partnership or make adjustments as needed to optimize your agreement.

This is an image of a person analyzing data.

What to Look for in a Data Analytics Company: Top Must-Haves

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When it comes to effective decision-making, accurate data is the most powerful tool at your disposal. According to a PwC survey, over 1,000 senior executives found highly data-driven organizations are three times more likely to report improvements in decision-making compared to those who rely on minimal data.

Regardless of your industry, data should back every decision, so how organizations collect, manage, and analyze data will directly influence their outcomes. In the case of nonprofits, GivingDNA’s nonprofit analytics guide states that “data analytics helps nonprofits identify broad patterns among donors, track changes, and spot opportunities for growth.” 

However, many organizations struggle to tap into the power of these rich datasets and end up making uninformed, costly decisions as a result. To avoid this pitfall, you can partner with an analytics provider and uncover key insights that revolutionize your strategy. 

In this guide, we’ll discuss the top non-negotiables to look for when researching an analytics company, so you can choose one that complements your goals. Let’s get started!

Expertise and experience

When looking for an analytics provider, prioritize one with a proven track record of experience. Specifically, they should have extensive knowledge of the nuances related to your industry. For example, healthcare analytics providers need to be well-versed in EHRs, claims management, and population health management data.

For nonprofits, this means finding a provider that exhibits knowledge of CRM platforms, fundraising analytics, corporate giving, and/or prospect research. 

In general, there are a few key indicators you can rely on to assess a company’s expertise. These include:

  • Impartial third-party reviews: Research third-party sites for professional perspectives on similar providers. Sites like softwareadvice.com and G2 are informative resources that provide a quick summary highlighting recommendations, awards, and pricing. Software users often leave reviews that can give you a more in-depth look at pros and cons for each provider. 
  • Use cases: Dive into specific use cases or testimonials mentioned on a provider’s website. Look for organizations that mirror your cause, size, or vision. How did the provider meet or exceed their needs? If you have additional questions, reach out to current customers and ask for their opinion — are they satisfied with the provider? Would they recommend a different option?
  • Software demos: Once you’ve narrowed down your list, consider requesting a software demo to see a provider’s offerings in action. These can be especially useful to visualize complex functionalities and decide if a solution will be user-friendly for your nonprofit. 

Though not as essential, thought leadership can be another telling indicator of a provider’s expertise. If they keep their blog roll updated, provide a video series, or host a podcast, these are signs that they are attuned to your industry’s shifting environment. Therefore, they might be more reliable when it comes to keeping your database updated with the newest technologies. 

Strong data protections

Nonprofits handle sensitive data such as donor details, beneficiary information, and financial records. The mishandling of this information can lead to significant legal consequences and a breach of trust. 

Safeguarding against these outcomes begins with selecting a provider with strong protections. Ask these questions to ensure your provider practices these precautions:

  • Are they compliant with data privacy regulations? Data privacy regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and other relevant legislation help protect vulnerable data. Failing to comply with these laws can lead to irreparable repercussions, like a loss of audience trust. 
  • What data security measures do they use? No organization is immune to cyberattacks. Encryption, user authentication, and intrusion detection systems protect against hackers and other cybersecurity threats. 
  • Have they had any significant breaches? A provider can boast strong data security, but their track record will indicate whether their technology is vulnerable or not. 

It’s better to determine a provider’s security measures beforehand than risk partnering with a company that has weak protections. Maintain and cultivate your community’s trust by choosing a company with secure data handling capabilities. 

Relevant tools and technologies

Effective data analysis requires relevant and intuitive analytics tools. Look for a provider that can sufficiently organize and compare large data sets with user-friendly applications. Then, compare their capabilities to your organization’s needs. For instance, an organization looking to refine its matching gift functionality might look for corporate giving software with advanced autosubmission to streamline its internal processes. 

As a starting point, identify analytics providers with the following capabilities:

  • Customization. Assess their ability to cater to your organization’s individual growth needs. Avoid choosing a provider with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, look for a provider that allows flexibility in marketing communication, team coordination, and fundraising analysis.  
  • Integration. Analytics tools need to be able to integrate with multiple additional solutions, including databases, spreadsheets, cloud services, and external sources. Look for a provider that can reduce manual data handling for faster analysis. Additionally, identify providers that offer data enrichment capabilities such as demographic appends to support your outreach efforts. 
  • Reporting. Reporting integrations can help access key insights. Consider providers that have extensive reporting capabilities such as interactive dashboards or speedy ad hoc reporting. For example, Arcadia’s healthcare dashboards illustrate how data can be visualized to empower decision-makers. 
  • Collaboration. Make sure to choose a company that promotes seamless collaboration between teams with a user-friendly interface. This includes data sharing and export, access controls, and real-time notifications to foster a culture of data-driven decision-making. 

Consider fleshing out each of these capabilities in more detail to align with what your organization wants to achieve. That way, you’ll find a provider who can offer the best ROI. With this in mind, you should still prioritize finding a provider that will support your growth long term. This means their infrastructure should be able to handle increasing data volumes and quickly resolve any future bottlenecks you may encounter. 

Support and maintenance

Especially if your organization is new to analytics tools, choose a provider that offers helpful support you can rely on to get you up and running and answer any questions along the way. See if they offer any training videos, help hubs, or other online resources you can reference.

In some cases, there are online communities of users who can walk you through implementation speed bumps with helpful tips. Other times, providers will offer eTraining options and libraries to fill in any knowledge gaps or explain new features. These online resources can help you get the most out of your data analytics and make changes that will set you up for future success.

Data analytics providers can help your team make strategic decisions that benefit your operational health. Choose a provider that not only has a great reputation but also meets your organization’s data management needs. This means prioritizing features that further meaningful collaboration and profitable analysis. 

 

In this guide, learn more about how your organization can do a better job at retaining members by effectively using your data.

3 Important Steps for Leveraging Data to Retain Members

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Retaining current members costs less than recruiting new ones and saves your staff time and energy. Additionally, a high retention rate shows that people find their membership value in line with the price, which bodes well for enticing new members to join. Overall, retaining members is vital to the long-term success of associations and nonprofits with membership programs—and data plays a key role in this effort.

Collecting data and extracting insights from it helps enhance the member experience and boost member retention. Member preferences and interests differ from organization to organization, so it’s essential to have accurate, up-to-date information that will guide your membership program’s decision-making. Below, we’ll walk you through three ways to make your data work for you.

1. Calculate your member retention rate.

The first step in leveraging your data for member retention is to know what your member retention rate actually is. A retention rate provides a baseline for how well you’re preserving members between renewal periods. It allows you to set a goal for the rate you’d like to achieve or maintain. Future updates show how different approaches impacted your efforts to reach that goal.

This ongoing calculation is important to prioritize for several reasons:

  • Member retention impacts your association’s overall reputation. If you can’t retain members, you don’t benefit from word-of-mouth marketing. Prospective members may come to view your organization as unreliable or unsustainable.
  • Retaining members allows your organization to generate more revenue with fewer expenses. The more members you retain, the less you have to emphasize your resources toward a membership recruitment budget.
  • High membership retention can lead to a higher acquisition rate. When you retain members, they’re more likely to tell their wider network about your association. These peer referrals can make recruitment easier.

Calculating your annual member retention rate is simple. Divide the number of members you currently have by the number of members you had in the previous year on that same date. Multiply the resulting number by 100 to get a percentage.

2. Collect key types of member data.

To start collecting data that will help boost member retention, look at your association’s existing data and identify information gaps. You can add fields to your membership applications, send surveys to existing members, or take notes during member engagements to help fill these gaps.

Using membership software makes keeping track of member data easier. All your information is organized in one place for gleaning crucial insights into your member experience. In particular, here are three data types you can collect to help retain more members.

Member Engagement

To build lasting relationships with members, you need to know when and how much they interact with your benefits and services, such as:

This lets you determine which activities your members prefer. It can also provide insights on the days and times that work best for members.

Event Attendance

Events are an important way to bring members together and engage them with your association. Use your event management tools to track event attendance. You can identify the event types your members value most, including whether they’re virtual, hybrid, or in-person. If you keep throwing monthly happy hours that few members attend, but find that your quarterly online webinars are packed, use that data to adjust your event calendar accordingly.

You can also collect member data through pre-event and post-event surveys. These let you gather feedback directly from attendees and gauge their satisfaction with each event. They’ll appreciate that you’re taking the time to seek their opinions—just make sure you follow through on their suggestions.

Membership Level

If your membership operates as a tiered model, one of your association’s goals likely involves promoting membership upgrades. Organizations with different membership levels should track how many members they have in each and how that number changes from year to year.

This can indicate how appealing each membership level and its associated benefits are to members, letting you make adjustments, as needed. It can also shed light on which member cohorts are most likely to upgrade each year, which can inform how you conduct renewal outreach to these individuals.

3. Implement improvements to retain members.

Your data is only as good as you use it! Once you’ve gathered the information above, it’s time to leverage insights from the data. Use these to improve your membership program in ways that encourage members to renew year after year.

You may want to make a list of the different aspects of your association that you’d like to address, along with notes on the next steps you’ll take for each. Here are a few areas to consider, plus questions that can help you determine next steps:

  • Member onboarding: Do members feel welcomed when they join our association? What frequently asked questions come up that we can better address upfront? Is anything missing from our welcome packet?
  • Member benefits: What benefits do our members use most? How can we better promote or change our underperforming activities? Would investment in learning management software help our members with their goals?
  • Member communications: What forms of communication do our members prefer? Are we checking in with members frequently enough? Is there a social media platform we could better leverage?
  • Member appreciation: Do our members feel appreciated? What are we currently doing each year to thank our members? What is a new event we can try to ensure our members know we value them?
  • Membership website: Is our membership website easy to use? Are there additional resources or discussion boards we should add to our website?

Remember that improving your membership retention strategy should be an ongoing process. The more information you collect, the more equipped you’ll be to make impactful improvements to boost your results.

Use Data to Retain Members and Grow Your Association

Retaining members is key to your membership organization’s growth, as doing so reduces recruitment costs and improves your reputation.

By using member data to inform membership decisions, your association or nonprofit can better communicate with, appeal to, and appreciate your members—three steps critical to retaining members year after year.

In this guide, learn how data about your supporters and past campaign performance can help you raise more for your school.

Help Your School Raise More Using Fundraising Data

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Need money to support your school and its programs? Fortunately, it’s a great time to fundraise as an educational institution. Research shows that in 2022 K-12 schools saw a 5.7% increase in overall fundraising and a nearly 13% boost in online giving alone. But while there are willing, generous supporters out there, it’s up to you to rally their support. 

It can be hard to motivate students’ parents, relatives, and other community members to give to your fundraiser. And even if you choose the perfect fundraising idea, have great supporter turnout, and meet your goals for this year, how can you be sure that you’ll achieve the same or better results next time?

Collecting and analyzing your fundraising data is the key to understanding and replicating your school’s fundraising successes. In this guide, we’ll cover three steps for using fundraising data to improve future fundraisers:

  1. Learn about your donors.
  2. Analyze your marketing efforts.
  3. Evaluate campaign results.

To get started, let’s explore how you can get to know donors and create a customized fundraising appeal that inspires them to support your school.

Step 1: Learn about your donors.

GivingDNA’s guide to data analytics explains that “donors come from varied backgrounds, have different life experiences, and have unique reasons for giving to your organization.” This means that to understand which strategies work best for them, you’ll need to look at past and current donor data.

Here are some of the basic types of donor data and what they can tell you about your supporters:

  • Demographics. This data tells you about donors’ baseline characteristics. It includes socioeconomic traits like age, gender, race, income, education, marital status, and more. For example, if you know that in the past your donors have been parents of students, are between the ages of 35 and 55, and have an average income of $50,000 or more, you can tailor your efforts to the typical preferences of those demographics.

  • Psychographics. This data tells you more about your donors’ lifestyles. It should reveal information like their morals, values, political leanings, hobbies, and interests. Let’s say you learn that a group of parents plays tennis together each weekend. This makes them a great target audience for your initiative to raise money for renovations on your tennis court.

  • Involvement history. This reveals a donor’s past involvement with your school, such as donations made, events attended, or hours volunteered. Pay attention to average gift size and when donors made their last contribution to identify major donors as well as those at risk of lapsing. Once you know who they are, you can send tailored messages that suit their level of involvement and dedication.

  • Communication preferences. Everyone has preferred communication platforms, whether that’s receiving a personal phone call from your school or engaging with your social media posts. Reaching your audience where they already are shows that you understand and value those preferences. Plus, donors will be more likely to see the messages you send them.

  • Wealth indicators. These markers signal your donors’ giving capacity, or the amount they are able to donate. Keep in mind that this is different from giving affinity, which indicates their willingness to give to you. When you have an idea of a donor’s wealth through information about their household income, past donations, employer, or stock and real estate holdings, you’ll have a better idea of what donation amount to ask for from them.

Make sure you are correctly managing your donor data to ensure it stays organized and up-to-date. Keep data fresh by collecting information about supporters via donation forms and surveys, making sure to prioritize data security. Additionally, you can work with a data appending service to fill in any information gaps. 

Step 2: Analyze your marketing efforts.

Once you know who your donors are and what makes them want to give to your school, you need to translate those findings into actionable next steps. In other words, you’ll tailor your marketing efforts to the preferences and motivations of your target audience.

Here’s how data can shape marketing efforts for each communication channel:

  • Digital marketing. Your digital marketing efforts can include your website, social media posts, email marketing, and more. This channel is one of the most flexible and adaptable, making it extremely easy to create text, images, videos, and other content that pinpoints donors’ motivations. For example, you might design two marketing emails with slightly different strategies and perform an A/B test to see which strategy is most effective. Then, you can edit and adjust your email marketing tactics for better results.

  • Direct mail. Because direct mail can be costly, it should only be sent to supporters who strongly prefer this form of communication and are likely to open and engage with the message. Make sure to use language, imagery, and stories tailored to those donors’ giving behaviors. If most recipients are students’ grandparents, for instance, you might tell a story that makes them feel nostalgic and inspired to provide fun experiences for the next generation. To track your direct mail success rate, add a unique, scannable QR code linking to your donation form and attribute donors who scan in to direct mail outreach.

  • Out-of-home or outdoor. This channel includes any print signage or flyers you hang at school or in the community, ideally with language that matches your donors’ giving motivations. While it can be difficult to track how effective these efforts are, you can emulate the direct mail strategy and create unique QR codes linking to your website or donation page. To get even more specific, you might create a different code for each location to see which area gets the most engagement.

Make sure to share these results with your staff, teachers, or PTO to ensure everyone is on the same page when sharing about your campaign online. This way, all communications will feel cohesive and no efforts will go wasted due to ineffective marketing strategies.

Step 3: Evaluate campaign results.

It can be tempting to stop working on a campaign as soon as your fundraiser ends. However, it’s critical that you take the time to carefully analyze your results, learn about new donors, and understand how you can make future improvements.

Using your fundraising software, you can study data from each step of your fundraiser to see what worked well, identify opportunities for growth, and determine profitability. 99Pledges’ guide to kids’ fundraising ideas lays out the steps to a pledge fundraiser—let’s see how you can extract valuable data from each step in the process:

  1. Create a pledge fundraising campaign. By creating both a school- or campaign-wide fundraising page and individual pages for your participants, you’ll understand how many participants are contributing to your fundraising efforts.
  2. Ask participants to share their fundraising page. Track how participants share these pages and who engages with them. This way, you’ll get a feel for which communication channels the audience uses.
  3. Participants collect pledges from friends and family. Keep track of who donates to any of your donation pages. Gather as much data about each donor as you can from the donation form, making sure to cross-reference your database for repeat donors.
  4. Track campaign progress. As you fundraise, keep track of how many donors you have, your average gift size, and the total amount raised. Then at the end of the fundraiser, you can pick out trends in the data (e.g., a spike in donations after trying a new social media marketing tactic).
  5. Receive pledged donations. Once you receive all donations, you can determine the average donation amount, total revenue, and your ROI for the campaign. This is also when you’ll know whether you hit your goal and, ideally, be able to target what strategies got you there.

Regardless of what your results are, remember that it’s essential to steward your donors. Use your fundraising software or another communication tool to send them customized thank-you messages that acknowledge their contributions and convey your genuine gratitude. This will go a long way in cultivating a dedicated supporter base.

Data is only valuable if it is accurate, up-to-date, and organized. So, it’s essential to prioritize data hygiene by frequently auditing your files for outdated information, typos and other errors, duplicate entries, and data that is not entered in your standardized format. By committing to frequently cleaning your data, you’ll ensure that data insights are fresh and accurate to your donors’ current needs.

The Power of Data: KPIs for Your Nonprofit’s Next Event

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Events are a fundamental part of the nonprofit world. Whether they’re raising money, spreading awareness, engaging volunteers, providing education, or giving back to your community, events can be incredibly powerful. However, as nonprofit professionals like you know, events take a lot of time, energy, and money to execute, so you definitely want to do everything you can to ensure success and improve year over year. Collecting and acting upon data during the event planning process is crucial, as is monitoring important metrics that correspond to your nonprofit’s goals by establishing key performance indicators, or KPIs.

Let’s review some common KPIs for nonprofit events in four major categories: attendance, fundraising, marketing, and impact.

Attendance

Attendance KPIs help you better understand the overall draw of your nonprofit’s events, both among your regular supporters and the general public, and track it year-over-year. It’s also useful to help you compare the response to the various offerings in your nonprofit’s event portfolio and inform decisions about continuing or discontinuing certain events. There are a number of KPIs to track related to event attendance, including:

  • Registration numbers. The sheer number of attendees for each of your events gives you a good idea about where your supporters’ interest lies in terms of event type and format, and where you should invest your time and effort moving forward.
  • RSVP response rate. Track the number of invitations you sent and the number of responses you received, in addition to the actual number of event attendees. This can give you valuable insight into the strategies you employ to invite potential registrants, your ticketing and RSVP process, and price points for registration.
  • Attendee demographics. The demographics you target versus those that actually attend paint a more detailed picture of your donor base for future marketing and donor cultivation purposes. For instance, let’s say you’re organizing a charity golf tournament. If you find that you get the best response from recurring donors or corporate partners, you can aim your future marketing efforts at these groups to boost your turnout.

Fundraising

The majority of nonprofit events are held with fundraising in mind, whether it’s the sole focus or just a component of another effort. To better understand how the fundraising outcomes of each event are affecting your organization’s bottom line, keep these fundraising KPIs in mind:

  • Total funds raised. This is perhaps the easiest metric to track, and helps you determine if you met or surpassed your fundraising goal for the event. Continuing with the golf tournament example, you’ll want to aggregate the dollars raised from golfer registrations, sponsorship sales, on-course games and contests, mulligan sales, raffle tickets, live or silent auction proceeds, and straight up donations to determine your gross funds raised.
  • Donation conversion rate. The donation conversion rate is the number of donations per number of attendees. The more attendees that responded to the ask to make a contribution to your cause, the higher your conversion rate. This metric helps you understand how engaged attendees are in the event and your cause and how you can make better asks during the event.
  • Average donation size. Look at the average size of the donations made during your event to glean whether your development team should focus on stewarding a few major donors or if you should more broadly target many, smaller donors.

Marketing

Successfully marketing your nonprofit’s event is crucial to its success. Tracking metrics to help you better understand the effectiveness of your marketing strategy lets you grow and scale your event year over year and make improvements to reach even more people. Consider using UTMs in any online marketing, which are a way of tracking where folks come from in online marketing campaigns, and tapping into analytics to get additional data about your marketing efforts. Here are a few marketing KPIs to consider:

  • Social media conversions. Social media has several KPIs you can track, such as post impressions, number of followers, and conversion rate. Impressions and number of followers can indicate how big of an online reach your event marketing has, while conversion rate can tell you how many of your followers feel inspired to take a desired action from your posts.
  • Email open/click-through rates. Email marketing is extremely effective if you can make your messaging compelling and inspire action, which is what your click-through rate measures. These metrics tell you the number of people that opened your and how many people click on your email’s calls-to-action.
  • Registration sources. Look at where folks are coming from to register for your event. Compare paper registration forms to phone calls to online registrations to determine the most effective ways to collect registrations in the future. Consider the time it takes for staff to process registrations and payments through the various methods to determine the most efficient ways moving forward.

Impact

The ultimate goal of your nonprofit’s events is to create an impact that furthers your mission, so it’s important to track metrics that show the direct results of the event. These KPIs could include:

  • Tangible outcomes. Determine how the dollars raised from the event will directly impact the populations you serve or the cause you champion. For example, the number of people helped, projects funded, or other specific outcomes achieved. If the event raised money for a specific project or initiative, be sure to share that information with donors so they better understand how their attendance contributed to the impact.
  • Donor retention. Measure how many donors who contributed to the event have continued to support the organization in subsequent months or years. A high donor retention rate indicates a successful event in terms of building long-term donor relationships.
  • Comparative analysis. Compare the event’s performance to previous events or similar initiatives to identify trends and areas of improvement.

How to Monitor KPIs

If collecting and tracking the above KPIs feels overwhelming, not to worry—technology makes it much simpler to monitor KPIs while keeping your data clean and up-to-date. A simple way to start collecting this important information is through feedback and surveys from event participants, donors, and volunteers and pulling information from your CRM or event management platforms.

Look for a powerful software solution that fits your nonprofit’s specific needs. For instance, charity golf tournament organizers should consider using golf tournament management software, like GolfStatus, so they can not only track the most relevant data, but streamline their event management strategies.

No matter what tech tools or software your nonprofit utilizes, ensure you keep data hygiene best practices in mind, such as regularly auditing your records. NXUnite suggests completing your dataset by appending missing information so you always have the best understanding of where you stand.

Final Thoughts

Data is powerful, and when collected and analyzed properly, can tell a story about your nonprofit’s events that sets you up for continued success. If you don’t have software in place to manage your nonprofit’s events, start by researching options tailored to the specific event and how the platform will help you collect and manage data. Next, do a deep dive into data hygiene practices and implement recommendations. Finally, determine a strategy for collecting the important data that inform KPIs that help your nonprofit reach its goals.

In this blog post, you’ll learn how to use data to enhance your nonprofit’s website.

How to Use Data to Enhance Your Nonprofit’s Website

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Your nonprofit’s website is an essential tool for marketing your mission and pulling in support for your cause. It’s where your supporters learn about your organization, give online gifts, sign up to volunteer, register for your events, and more.

But sometimes it can be difficult to discern exactly how well your website is working to encourage your supporters to take these actions, or even what it is that gets them to visit your site in the first place.

The missing piece to this puzzle? Data, and lots of it—information about who your supporters are, what motivates them, how they journey to your website, and what they do once they’re on it. And learning to harness the power of data can help you in your efforts to enhance your website’s performance and improve it as a marketing and fundraising tool.

In this quick guide, we’ll help you get started tapping into your donor and website analytics data so that you can take your web presence to the next level. Let’s get started.

Gather relevant data about your supporters.

Start by gathering data about your supporters and your website. There are lots of ways you can do this, but you’ll typically need two main tools:

  • Your nonprofit CRM. Your CRM is where your organization stores everything it knows about your donors, volunteers, and other supporters. Use it as a resource for learning about your target audience’s demographics, giving histories, and participation in campaigns, events, and volunteering opportunities. If your CRM is disorganized or your data hasn’t been updated in a while, consider investing in data append services to ensure everything is accurate and up-to-date.
  • Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a data collection and analysis tool that gathers information about the people who visit your nonprofit’s website, like what channels they took to get there, what pages they view, and what actions they take. Google Analytics is free to use and even allows you to set and track goals for your website so that you can optimize your digital presence. To learn how to get started with Google Analytics for your website, check out Cornershop Creative’s ultimate guide.

While these are two solid resources to get started with gathering the relevant data you’ll need to improve your website, you can also use:

  • Surveys to find out what your supporters think of your website, including the user experience (UX) and content
  • Performance tracking tools like Google Search Console to track organic search traffic and monitor your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts
  • Email analytics to understand which email content drives traffic to your website
  • Social media insights to see which content gets the most engagement and drives traffic to your website
  • A/B testing to compare different versions of website elements (like your donation page) to see what version performs better

Gathering data from the right tools will allow you to get a holistic view of your website’s target audience and how well your website is accommodating your audience’s wants and needs.

However, as you gather this wealth of information, it may start to feel overwhelming. This is why you need a solid strategy for analyzing your data.

Analyze your data for patterns and trends.

Learning to tease out actionable insights from your supporter and website data can be tricky. But once you unlock the patterns and trends that are in your data, you’ll be equipped to make design choices for your website that will meet your audience’s needs and expectations.

Here are some tips for analyzing your data:

Get a general idea of who your target audience is and what motivates them.

Begin by looking closely at your audience’s demographics (age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, employment status, etc.) and psychographics (attitudes, values, interests, beliefs, etc.).

Next, examine their engagement history, reviewing past donations, hours volunteered, and events attended. You’ll also want to look at your donors’ communications preferences and how past outreach and marketing efforts have been received.

From there, you should be able to identify in general terms who your supporters are. For example, an animal shelter might determine its supporters are (generally):

  • Women in their twenties and thirties
  • Making $60,000-$80,000 annually
  • Passionate about animal rights, the environment, and outdoor activities
  • Giving to and volunteering with multiple environment- or animal-focused nonprofits each year
  • Donating $250-$500 to the nonprofit each year
  • Apt to engage with the organization the most via text and social media

Create a supporter persona.

Get more specific by creating a supporter persona. A supporter persona is a fictional representation of a real supporter comprised of traits that represent the trends you see in your organization’s data.

For instance, continuing with the example above, the animal shelter’s persona might be “Camille Adams,” a 30-year-old woman who cares about animal rights and the environment and who enjoys hiking and mountain biking. Camille volunteers with a climate advocacy group and gives the animal shelter $300 on an annual basis. She also follows the shelter on Instagram and Twitter and responds well to text-to-give campaigns.

With a supporter persona like this, you have a clear audience member to keep in mind when optimizing your website or creating content. You can ask yourself questions like, “What would they think of this web page?” or “How would they respond to this blog post?”

Examine supporters’ conversion journeys.

Understanding who your supporters are is only half the battle. Next you need to understand how they behave on your website and what it takes for them to complete a desired action, like making a donation, signing up for your newsletter, or registering for an event.

Here are a few tips for analyzing conversion journeys:

  • Look at your website’s traffic sources (such as organic search, social media, email campaigns, etc.).
  • Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to identify the pages visitors view and engage with before taking an action.
  • Take a close look at how well your content guides visitors through the conversion funnel from awareness to action. This will include looking at the calls-to-action (CTAs) across your website and how you link pages to one another.
  • Identify any parts of your conversion funnel where visitors are prone to dropping off.

As you begin to see what is and isn’t working on your website, take note of the good things you’re already doing that you can apply to any problem areas. Also prioritize the most important fixes. For example, the steep drop-off you’re seeing on your donation page should likely be addressed before you figure out why one of your blog posts isn’t getting as much attention as the others.

Use audience insights to improve your website design.

Now that you’ve discovered the trends and patterns awaiting you in your data, you can begin to make positive changes to the design of your website that will enhance the UX and encourage more of your visitors to use your website to take action for your cause.

Here are some areas to focus on as you make improvements:

  • Navigation. Prioritize smooth and easy navigation. Ensure your navigation menu links to your most important pages and is easy to view and click on no matter what page a visitor lands on.
  • Overall visual look and feel. Your website should have a cohesive look to communicate your organization’s professionalism and help visitors feel they can trust your site. If your brand look needs some defining (or refining!), Kwala recommends building out a brand kit that includes elements like your color palette, typography, and logos.
  • CTAs. CTAs are phrases, often formatted as clickable buttons, that encourage website visitors to take an action. Ensure your CTAs are eye-catching and brief, directing your visitors to your most important action pages.
  • Mobile optimization. Since over 55% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, making sure your website is mobile-friendly is a must. Ensure that your web design will adjust to fit multiple screen sizes and that buttons are thumb-friendly. You should also compress any large files, like images, that could slow down your load speed.
  • Accessibility. Ensure that people of all abilities can access your website. Review the Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines and follow best practices such as ensuring that your website can be navigated by keyboard, images include alternative text (alt text), and text and background colors provide a high contrast for readability.

After making initial changes to your website, monitor your progress using Google Analytics and make adjustments as needed. You can even set goals for seeing improvements in things like event sign-ups or online donations and establish metrics that you’ll track to see your progress toward those goals.

For your own site to join the ranks of the best nonprofit websites out there, you need data on your side. When you understand who your supporters are and what they need from your website, you’ll be able to make enhancements to your website that lead to more support.

Revisit your data often and practice good data hygiene to continue gaining useful insights about your community. And, to take your website to the next level, consider leaving the design work to nonprofit web design experts. You can do this!

In this guide, you'll learn six ways to measure your nonprofit's fundraising success as it relates to silent auction events.

6 Ways to Measure Your Silent Auction’s Fundraising Success

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When your nonprofit hosts a silent auction fundraising event, most of the planning process is typically focused on logistical details and procuring auction items. After all, your supporters are more likely to attend a well-organized event that features prizes they’re excited to bid on!

However, there are two other critical steps in planning a successful silent auction that are sometimes overlooked. The first is taking the time to set specific, achievable goals for your fundraiser, and the second is determining how you’ll know if you reached those goals after the event ends.

There are a variety of objectives you could be working toward as you plan your fundraiser, and each of them will be best measured by a different metric. In this guide, we’ll look at six popular metrics nonprofits use to evaluate their silent auction’s fundraising success, including:

  1. Return on Investment (ROI)
  2. Items Sold
  3. Donor Acquisition Rate
  4. Donor Retention Rate
  5. Marketing Conversions
  6. Participant Satisfaction

Applying any or all of these metrics to your nonprofit’s silent auctions will help you identify what you did well, where there is room for improvement, and how you can adjust your strategy as you plan future auctions. Let’s dive in!

1. Return on Investment (ROI)

One of the easiest metrics to calculate from your silent auction fundraising data is the total amount raised from ticket sales, winning bids, financial sponsorships, and additional donations made during the event. However, this doesn’t take into account the upfront expenses that tend to be associated with auctions—venue rentals, fundraising software payments, marketing materials, any prizes that your organization purchased rather than receiving as in-kind donations, and more.

Return on investment (ROI) is a more holistic metric that considers both the revenue your nonprofit generates from your silent auction and the expenses you incurred while planning it. You can calculate it using the following equation:

ROI = [(Total Amount Raised – Total Costs) / Total Costs] x 100

If your ROI is negative, it means that your auction cost more money than it raised, and you’ll need to find ways to reduce your expenses when planning future events. On the other hand, a positive ROI means your auction was financially successful. Ideally, you’d want your ROI to be a larger positive number, as this would indicate that you raised significantly more money than you spent.

2. Items Sold

At an auction, the items are the star of the show. Plus, procurement is often the most time-consuming and resource-intensive part of the planning process. So, it makes sense to include metrics related to the sale of your silent auction items when evaluating your fundraising success.

Review the completed bid sheets from your event to calculate the following item-related metrics:

  • Sell-through rate. This is simply the percentage of items that sold at your silent auction. For instance, if you had 100 prizes up for auction and 95 of them were purchased by participants, your sell-through rate would be 95%.
  • Average bid amount. Determine this number by adding up all of your supporters’ winning bids, then divide by the number of items sold. This metric demonstrates how valuable participants perceived your items to be.
  • Number of items that sold at or above their fair market value (FMV). Winspire defines FMV as “[an auction] item’s worth relative to what supporters would pay if they purchased it elsewhere.” Since participants often choose to purchase items at auction because they’re hoping for a discount they couldn’t get otherwise, any prizes that sell at or above their FMV are particularly appealing to your supporter base.

Knowing this information about the items that sold at your silent auction can help you hone the procurement process for future auctions—you can make sure to find items that your supporters are interested in and perceive as high-value to maximize your ROI.

3. Donor Acquisition Rate

In the context of a silent auction, donor acquisition rate refers to the percentage of participants who engaged with your nonprofit for the first time by attending your event. If 200 people participated in your silent auction and 80 of them were first-time supporters of your organization, your donor acquisition rate would be 40%.

Auctions are particularly effective for attracting new supporters because while some participants will sign up specifically to contribute to your nonprofit, others just want to purchase one-of-a-kind items that also happen to support a good cause. Make sure to follow up with these new donors after your auction to encourage them to learn more about your mission and stay involved with your organization.

4. Donor Retention Rate

Donor acquisition and retention are complementary to one another. Acquisition allows your organization to engage more community members and plan for growth, and retention helps you cultivate lasting relationships with supporters and sustainably fund your mission.

The most common way to calculate donor retention rates in the context of silent auctions is to determine the percentage of participants from a previous auction that also attended your most recent one. For example, if 75 of the 150 supporters who participated in last year’s silent auction came to this year’s event as well, your donor retention rate would be 50%.

5. Marketing Conversions

Leveraging multiple print and digital marketing channels is essential for attracting as many participants to your silent auction as possible. After the event, conversion data can help you determine which methods were most effective for generating registrations.

Track the number of auction signups from each of the following promotion channels:

  • Direct mail invitations
  • Email marketing messages
  • Your nonprofit’s various social media accounts
  • Google Search Ads
  • Redirections to your event registration form from other pages on your website

Understanding which methods compel the most supporters to register can help you allocate your marketing budget more effectively in the future. For instance, if you find that direct mail had the lowest conversion rate of any channel and social media generated the most signups, you may decide to reduce your spending on mailed invitations and instead put that money toward paid ads on Instagram and Facebook for your next auction.

6. Participant Satisfaction

Participant satisfaction is a less objective measurement than the other fundraising success metrics discussed above. However, it’s still important to consider when evaluating your silent auction. After all, a major purpose of nonprofit events is to bring your community together around a cause, and learning what supporters thought about your auction can tell you whether you did this effectively.

Post-event surveys are one of the best ways to track participant satisfaction. MemberClicks’ guide to event feedback surveys recommends referencing your auction check-in list to ensure you get feedback from actual participants and incentivizing survey completion by entering respondents’ names into a drawing for a gift card or branded merchandise. Additionally, include both multiple-choice and open-ended questions on your survey to encourage supporters to share their honest opinions.

The metrics your nonprofit will find most useful will depend on the primary goal of your silent auction. If the main objective is revenue generation, your ROI and item-related data analysis will tell you how successful your event was. Marketing conversions are the most important metrics if your goal is to spread awareness about your organization. And measuring donor acquisition, retention, and satisfaction is essential if you’re focused on supporter engagement.

No matter how you plan to measure your silent auction’s success, make sure to store all of your event data in one place so it’s easier to analyze and evaluate. Happy fundraising!