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What Data Should Nonprofits Collect? Overview & Top Tips

December 1, 2021/in Data Management, Top Articles /by adam

Far too many nonprofit organizations collect data without using analytics to drive success. In an increasingly data-driven world, it’s important to evaluate your nonprofit’s facts and figures. This process of data collection will allow your nonprofit to transform data into actionable knowledge.

Data collection is essential in measuring your nonprofit’s hard work. It reveals valuable insights such as how many people you serve, how best to target your supporters, and which campaigns are the most successful.

At NPOInfo, we strive to improve your fundraising efficiency using data. We’ve written this guide to give you insight into everything you need to know about data collection, including the importance of data analytics and the types of data your organization should be tracking.

We’ll cover the following points:

Why is Data Collection Important for Nonprofits?
6 Types of Data That Your Nonprofit Should Be Tracking
Nonprofit Data Collection: Top Tips
Our Final Tip: Invest in nonprofit data append services.

When collected and managed properly, data can be an asset to your organization. Let’s dive into the benefits of data collection.

Why Is Data Collection Important For Nonprofits?

According to a study by NonprofitHub, 90% of nonprofits collect data. Nonprofits can better serve their communities with a comprehensive data collection plan, as data allows nonprofits to track trends, make informed decisions, strategize for future fundraising efforts, and more.

Most nonprofits already hold valuable information about their donors, campaigns, and marketing efforts in their constituent relationship management (CRM) systems. However, nearly half of nonprofit organizations are unsure how data can support their work.

Effective data collection can help your nonprofit:

Update your donor database. Collecting relevant donor data allows you to regularly update your donor database and, in turn, make informed decisions about your donor retention efforts.
Build relationships. Nonprofits need to build strong relationships with their supporters to survive. With the right data, your nonprofit can personalize interactions with donors, increase engagement, and solicit donations successfully.
Improve communication. Data empowers your nonprofit to quantify and communicate your impact to the community. This both builds your nonprofit’s credibility as a trustworthy organization to which to donate.
Inform decision making. Make adaptive decisions based on the data that you receive. Data can answer key questions, support or refute assumptions, and assess the efficacy of campaigns.
Drive marketing and fundraising efforts. Data-driven nonprofits are more likely to be financially successful. Use metrics to focus your nonprofit’s development efforts and boost donations.

From driving donations to informing decisions, data collection can be an asset to your organization. However, you don’t want to collect every data point available to your nonprofit— that would quickly grow overwhelming.

7 Types of Data That Your Nonprofit Should Be Tracking

Now that you understand the importance of data collection, it’s time to review the types of data that your organization should capture and analyze. As a general rule of thumb, prioritize growth by tracking data that will lead to more funding, quantify your impact, and help target areas for improvement.

To ensure data is relevant, collect information on your donors, campaigns, marketing efforts, finances, website traffic, and mission. From mailing preferences to campaign performance metrics, these details will help your nonprofit shape engagement and retention efforts. There are countless data points that you could collect, but the following list will serve as a strong foundation for your nonprofit’s data collection process.

Donor Data

It can be difficult to strengthen donor relations without collecting or understanding your donor data.

Donor metrics reveal who your supporters are and how best to reach them. Donor data is crucial in catering to your specific audience. The data that you collect can strengthen your fundraising efforts and increase donor engagement.

To better understand your donors, start by tracking the following basic personal information:

Name: Address donors by their preferred name and title in your solicitations to improve your chances of receiving a response.
Age: Direct mail is the best way to reach donors of all ages, while younger supporters are more likely to respond to marketing outreach efforts on social media.
Email Address, Phone Number, and Physical Address: Updated contact information allows for regular donation solicitations and matching gift reminders.
Employment Status and Employer: An individual’s business affiliations can give you an idea of their net worth and potential connections. Plus, if they work for a company with a matching gift program, you can reach out to begin the gift match process.
Educational Background: Student involvement and areas of study will reveal the causes that your donors are most likely to support.

If any of this information is missing, your organization can invest in a nonprofit data append service which will be discussed later in the guide. Once you have an idea of who your donors are, you’ll want to dig deeper to determine their motivations and propensity for giving. Consider collecting this advanced information:

Giving History (Recurring, One-Time, Major Gift): Assess how recent a donor’s last gift was, the frequency of their giving, and the typical amount of their monetary contributions. This information can help you predict the timing and amount of future donations you will receive.
Hobbies and Interests: Apply this information to your fundraising efforts. For example, if the majority of your donors are avid readers, host a volunteering event at the library.
Advocacy Participation: Target potential donors that have a history of donating, volunteering, attending events, or advocating for charitable organizations more generally. Consider the organizations that your prospective donors support and focus on those whose interests align with your mission.
Business Connections: These connections can help you leverage major gifts since donors are more likely to respond to appeals from acquaintances.

Before gathering these facts and figures, clean your donor database by removing duplicate profiles and requesting updated contact information. That way, you can more accurately identify and communicate with donors, rather than simply adding more information to a cluttered database.

Campaign Data

Chances are your nonprofit works diligently to plan and execute campaigns. Don’t let that time and energy go to waste by neglecting campaign data. This vital information can help your organization raise donations, engagement, and event attendance in future campaigns.

The following forms of campaign data will help you understand the effectiveness of your past efforts:

Event Attendance: Events generate a lot of data. Keep track of how many people attend your virtual or in-person events as well as how many registered in advance and opened your post-event thank you emails.
Supporter Satisfaction: Gathering feedback should be a top priority for your team. Information received through surveys can help supporters feel included and staff improve their efforts.
Donor Acquisition Cost (DAC): DAC is the financial price you pay to convince a potential donor to make a gift. To determine this cost, sum the price of appeals and marketing efforts over a given period, and divide it by the number of donors you acquired in that time.
Revenue: Track appeals, fundraising proceeds, matching gifts, corporate sponsorships, and online gift frequency. With this information, you can make informed decisions about your budget and strategy.
Campaign Conversions: Measure how many people your campaign converts into first-time donors, volunteers, newsletter subscribers, or website visitors. Use these numbers to run tests on campaign efficiency and set objectives for the future.
Donor and Volunteer Retention Rates: Donor retention rates reveal the successes and setbacks of your engagement efforts. Review this information with your team to discuss strategies for retaining donors and volunteers.

Campaign data is crucial in measuring the success of your fundraising and outreach efforts. Use these stats to identify trends across campaigns, manage your budget, and raise awareness for your mission going forward.

Marketing Data

Not only does marketing data clarify how best to reach your audiences, but it also assists in amplifying your mission and soliciting donations.

Nonprofit marketing encourages long-term relationships with donors and solidifies credibility. When marketing your mission, data analysis can be used to determine the appropriate marketing channels and engagement strategies for your nonprofit.

Let’s review the forms of marketing data that can be used to communicate your impact:

Website Traffic: Determine how many people visit your website, how they get there, and how long they stay. This information will help you to optimize your site to receive the most traffic.
Subscriptions: Donor retention rates increase drastically when supporters subscribe to newsletters, emails, and recurring donations. To encourage subscriptions, offer clear incentives and add pop-up forms to your website to advertise the opportunity.
Social Media Engagement: Social media engagement can be measured through likes, shares, comments, and link clicks. Create content that encourages the most valuable engagement.
Email Open Rates: According to MailChimp, the average open rate for nonprofit emails is 25%, meaning three quarters of your audience won’t open your emails. To increase your chances of reaching donors, write compelling subject lines, keep the frequency of your emails consistent, ensure subject matter is relevant, and send emails at an appropriate time.

To gather this information, conduct an audit on past marketing efforts using the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, a strategic planning technique that identifies the effectiveness of your nonprofit. To learn more about incorporating data into your marketing, check out this comprehensive guide to creating a nonprofit marketing plan.

Financial Data

Like for-profit corporations, nonprofit organizations rely on data to boost revenue and cover operating expenses. Financial data allows nonprofits to assess cash flow, maintain financial stability, and strategize budgets for future fundraising efforts. Consider the following types of data associated with accounting and budgeting:

Expenses: From staff salaries to campaign and fundraising costs, nonprofits can easily rack up expenses. While you might be tempted to keep expenses low, it’s important to invest in your organization. In turn, you’ll see higher rates of engagement and donations.
Income: Nonprofits can receive revenue through donations, membership fees, selling products, and more. Examine past expenses and revenue to project growth targets.
Cash-on-hand: Cash-on-hand, or the total amount of money accessible at any given time from paper bills, bank accounts, and assets, will show how long your nonprofit can survive without donations or funding. Track cash flows to determine whether or not your nonprofit has enough revenue to cover expenses.
Volunteer Hours: Volunteer hours reveal the labor, time, and resources needed to accomplish your goals. Log these hours to secure grants and raise awareness for your organization.

Through collecting this type of data, your nonprofit can increase return on investments and improve the quality of programs.

Website Data

Most nonprofits have a dedicated website with blog content, donation buttons, contact forms, testimonials, and more. Data analytics can be used to show which content is the most popular, determine content strategies, and create a better user experience. In order to increase traffic and prompt visitors to take action, it’s important to measure how the site performs.

If you haven’t already, start tracking these three important pieces of information:

Traffic Sources: Potential donors can land on your site through an organic search, a referral from another site, or a redirection from social media. Once you understand how most users get to your website, you can optimize the most-trafficked referral sources to increase site visitors over time.
Bounce Rate: This refers to the percentage of visitors who visit your site and leave, rather than continuing to view other pages or take action on your site. If your bounce rate is high, prioritize updating your web pages to provide a better user experience.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR is the percentage of users who click on a specific link to view a blog post, email, or advertisement. If you have a low CTR, revamp your calls-to-action and tailor messages to specific supporters.

You can use website analytics tools to track these details. Google Analytics is free for nonprofits through the Google for Nonprofits program. Plus, if you venture into PPC (pay-per-click) advertising like Google Ads, you can monitor site performance with this tool and tweak your ads with ease.

If that sounds too far out of reach, turn to an expert to help out. Marketing experts and paid advertising managers know how to leverage these tools to improve your website’s performance and drive more meaningful traffic.

What it all boils down to is that website data can help you convert visitors into donors. Using that data to optimize your website will boost your online presence and raise awareness for your mission. Make sure you’re using all available resources to monitor your website’s performance.

Turn to a paid advertising expert to manage your web analytics.

External Data

While collecting data from your own organization is important, harnessing information from third parties helps to promote growth and productivity. External data comes from sources outside of your organization and offers information related to your organization’s mission.

External data allows nonprofits to stay updated on field-related information. Your organization can access these facts and figures through public records or private data shared by other organizations. Examples of external data include water quality, homeless populations, and census information.

Whether a national average, industry standard, or third-party idea, external data can be used to shape decision-making and communicate your impact to the public. For example, let’s say a homeless shelter serves a community in which 56% of individuals suffer from food insecurity. That statistic becomes more powerful when compared to the national average of food insecurity, which is only 10%.

From donor data to external data, your nonprofit has plenty of information to collect, which can be overwhelming. Fortunately, we’ve created a list of best practices to help you achieve the maximum value from data collection.

Sponsors and Potential Corporate Partners

Staying on top of donors’ business connections can help you identify prospects for potential corporate partnerships. However, while a major donor facilitating an introduction with a business’s leadership is helpful, successful sponsorship agreements need data to back them up.

Before meeting a potential sponsor, ensure you have the following data ready:

Philanthropic history. If a business has shown a positive affinity to causes like yours in the past, they may be inclined to support your nonprofit this time around. Most businesses proudly promote their past philanthropic initiatives by having a dedicated page or even an entire website dedicated to their philanthropic mission and the causes they’ve contributed to. Look for these resources and press releases from nonprofit organizations similar to yours about their recent sponsors.
Giving capacity. What is a business partner able to give? When approaching potential sponsors, you should already know what you intend to request of them. Make sure this request, whether it’s a financial donation or free or discounted services, aligns with their giving history. If you’re unsure how much a business will be willing to contribute, consider presenting sponsorship tiers with pre-set benefits and donation requirements for them to choose from.
The success of past sponsorships. When approaching businesses, emphasize the benefits of working with your nonprofit, and when possible, back it up with data from past successful sponsorships. This might include the number of guests that attended an event that featured sponsors or positive press coverage.

Like with other types of data, keep careful records of your past deals with sponsors. Ideally, your nonprofit should ensure businesses always reach out to the same point of contact at your organization to build a relationship and provide consistency. If you experience turnover or expand your team, your records will be vital in maintaining business connections and avoiding disruptions in your ongoing sponsorships.

Nonprofit Data Collection: Top Tips

Data collection is necessary for every organization, regardless of the size of your nonprofit. There are plenty of ways to gather information, from giving histories and surveys to management software and audits. Now that you understand the importance of strong data and the different types, it’s time to devise a data collection strategy.

In the next sections, we’ll introduce you to the best practices for data collection. Through these tips, you will learn how to audit data, organize your information, and identify areas where you can improve. Let’s get started!

Perform a data audit.

A data audit is a critical review of your organization’s data collection process. examine the quality of your nonprofit’s current data and data collection process.

Performing an audit can help you discover areas for improvement in your database and collect data more effectively going forward. Here are the four basic steps of performing a data audit:

Gather: Collect quantitative and quantitative data from surveys, reports, interviews, emails, and donor profiles.
Reflect: Consider the purposes for each dataset and how it can be used to better your organization.
Assess: Evaluate your findings to determine if you’re collecting the right data to learn about and build relationships with supporters.
Identify: Locate areas for improvement and work with your team to devise a data-driven strategy.

During a data audit, you might notice that your data is unorganized. That’s where the next step comes into play. You’ll need to optimize your information to more easily understand it.

Keep your data clean.

Prioritizing data hygiene will help your organization to remove inaccurate and unnecessary information and standardize the data collection process. Your nonprofit should focus only on harnessing high-quality information that will help you raise donations and awareness towards your mission.

Holding onto excessive or incorrect data is a detriment to your organization, as it overshadows valuable information. Don’t waste time and money sending marketing material to people who won’t answer your calls-to-action. In order to rid your data of useless information, you should remove:

Deceased donors.
Duplicate profiles.
Outdated contact information.
People on do not call or do not mail lists.

When you eliminate this extraneous information, you’re left with a clean database containing information about attainable donors. You should also work to standardize your data, ensuring numbers, abbreviations, and mailing addresses have the same format (i.e. St. verus street).

Store data in a database.

Now that you’ve optimized your data, it’s time to store this quality information in your customer relationship management (CRM) database. With the right features, your CRM can store data, track interactions, and share information with your team. In turn, this highly organized information will strengthen and grow your mission.

Here’s a closer look at the CRM features that can benefit your nonprofit’s data management:

Third-Party Integration: Integrate your other fundraising software directly into the CRM. That way, the CRM will function as the main database for your organization, holding the most comprehensive information.
Real-Time Data: Automatically track personal information about your supporters and organize that data through filters. This is a far quicker process than manually inputting information into a spreadsheet.
Data Visualization: Turn raw data into engaging visuals. Graphics and charts will help your organization tell data-driven stories.
Mobile Access: Access your CRM on the go to ensure you always have the updated information you need to drive your mission forward.
Searchability: Easily pull data and search for particular records using search features. This will allow you to quickly find important information.

The more functional your CRM is, the more of an asset it will be to your organization. Just make sure your database protects sensitive data like the personal information of donors and financial information. Work with your team to create protocols that implement data protection.

Our Final Tip: Invest in nonprofit data append services.

A data append is the process of adding new data points into an existing database with the goal of filling any gaps in the nonprofit’s information. Most data appending services will organize your data and set up automation for verifying it regularly. NPOInfo goes a step further.

At NPOInfo, we guarantee a high degree of accuracy in appending your donor data and ensuring your fundraising efforts are built on data you can trust. Take advantage of the following services:

Employer Appends: Discover where your donors work to increase corporate matching gifts and deepen corporate relationships.
Email Appends: We’ll maintain an accurate list of your donors’ email addresses, so that you can promote fundraising opportunities to supporters using correct email addresses.
Phone Number Appends: Keep up-to-date phone numbers for regular donation solicitations and matching gift reminders.
Date of Birth Appends: Get dates of birth to target donors in specific age brackets and improve your marketing efforts.
Address Appends: Find out when your supporters move and update your database with accurate mailing addresses to more effectively reach your audience.

We’ll guide you through the appending process, making sure your nonprofit understands the data it’s collecting and how that information can be turned into meaningful action.

Data is power in the nonprofit sector. It allows you to attract donors, improve campaigns, and promote your mission. Collecting, analyzing, and cleaning data reveals what’s working and what’s not working in your organization.

NPOInfo’s team of experts offer services and resources to help your nonprofit organization make the most of its data. Get a quote today!

Want to continue your research on data collection or learn how to manage data more effectively? Explore these additional resources:

Why Nonprofits Need to Utilize Donor Data Read this guide for relevant, up-to-date information on the importance of comprehensive donor data.
7 Strategies for Keeping Your Nonprofit Database Clean Successful fundraising depends on keeping your nonprofit donor database clean. Follow these best practices for data hygiene.
Get to Know Your Donors Better: 4 Data-Driven Tips Understanding your donors is the key to improved fundraising and increased revenue. Read this guide for the top data-driven tips to get to know your donors.

Donor data management is important for successful nonprofit fundraising.

Donor Data Management: A Quick Guide for Nonprofits

November 22, 2021/in Data Management, Top Articles /by NPOInfo

90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years, with no slowdown in sight. The world is both a data-filled and data-driven place— and data is only becoming more prevalent.

But, why does that matter to nonprofits? Data can help your mission-driven organization perform an action vital to its success: cultivating donors. Donors are the people who keep your nonprofit going by giving their time, money, and support to your cause, and it’s imperative you maintain your relationships with them to hold their attention and support.

However, data will only work magic for your donor relationships if it is properly managed. Incorrect contact information, statistics, and reports will do more harm than good.

That’s where we come in! Your friends at NPOInfo will cover these topics related to stellar donor data management to help your nonprofit make the most of its data:

What is donor data management?
How do you keep your donor information organized?
What donor data should you collect?
Donor Database Best Practices

Ready to learn the ins and outs of donor data management? Let’s dive in.

What is donor data management?

Donor data management is the process of maintaining your nonprofit’s data over time, ensuring it’s accurate and well-organized.

Donor data management is important for a number of reasons. Good donor data management will ensure your nonprofit has accurate and easily accessible information to get in touch with your donors. When properly segmented, your data will let you know which ones to reach out to for which specific reasons.

Donor data management will allow you to produce thorough and exact reports detailing your nonprofit’s operations. You’ll have all the stats you need to illustrate the impressive work of your organization!

This is an ongoing process with no clear beginning or end. Your nonprofit will constantly be acquiring new donor data, updating old donor data, and using current donor data to support its initiatives.

Here’s a list of the three main components of donor data management:

Collecting Data: This is the step where you gather new donor information. Collecting data could be en masse, like sending out a survey that garners many responses or investing in a nonprofit data append. It could also be ongoing, like collecting donor details one at a time as they donate.
Maintaining Data: Maintaining data refers to checking it and making corrections as necessary. Whether it be weekly, monthly, or a different time span that suits your nonprofit, you should make a habit of regularly updating your data. For more information on maintaining your nonprofit’s database, check out this full guide to data hygiene here.
Using Data: Here is the part where you reap the benefits of your hard work! You can use your donor data to fundraise, generate reports, thank your donors, reach out to volunteers, advertise for an upcoming event, and more.

Now that you know what donor data management is, we’ll tell you how to keep your donor data organized.

How do you keep donor information organized?

Even if you have hundreds, or thousands, of donors to keep track of, donor data management does not have to be a scary, complicated, or intimidating process. There are many simple tips and tricks to keeping your donor information organized.

Here are seven of our most dependable strategies:

Keep your data in one place. When you need to do anything data-related, it’ll be much easier to have all your information in the same spot. Keep all your data in the same constituent relationship management (CRM) system to save yourself from constantly digging around for the data you need. Make sure your various nonprofit technologies integrate with your CRM, so data can flow seamlessly into your main donor database.
Use a standardized format. There are many ways to say the same thing— for instance, St. versus St versus Street. Make sure you’re staying consistent across entries so that it’s easier to find and organize information later on.
Develop data entry guidelines. Your nonprofit should have an outlined data entry process. Who will enter the data, one specific person or many people? Also, will you always search the database before entering to avoid duplicate entries? To see the best results and greatest efficiency, decide your rules in advance.
Plan for exceptions. When there’s a rule, there’s always an exception. Your nonprofit will inevitably run into a piece of information that poses a previously unconsidered problem. Go ahead and think about how you want to deal with those details in advance.
Review your data. Like with data maintenance, it’s important to have a routine when it comes to data review. You could go over it daily, weekly, monthly, every other month, etc., all depending on your nonprofit’s priorities. Just be sure to review it and make necessary changes— it’ll be so nice to have updated data ready when you need it as opposed to putting it off for later.
Train your staff. Even if not everyone will be involved with data entry, all nonprofit employees should at least be familiar with your donor data management processes. Chances are someone might need help with data in the future, and they will have the help they need if the whole organization is in the loop.
Segment your data. Once you have all your data organized in the same place, you should break it down into helpful categories. There are many possibilities for segmentation: location, age, frequency of giving, and more.

You’re now a data organization pro, but what kind of data should you even be organizing? Read on for our recommendations for what types of donor data to collect.

What donor data should you collect?

Donor data is an invaluable resource for your nonprofit. Within the donor data realm, there are many specific pieces of info you can gather that will be useful to your organization. There are also pieces that wouldn’t be useful at all.

Follow our guide below to get the best donor data for your nonprofit.

Demographics

Demographics categorize members of a population by defining characteristics. As a nonprofit, it’s important to know who your donors are in order to figure out the best ways to reach them. Here are five types of relevant demographic data:

Age: Different age groups have different donation habits. For example, all ages prefer to give online via credit or debit cards, but each generation’s second preference varies greatly. Millennials prefer cash, Gen X leans toward bank/wire transfer, and baby boomers will secondarily opt for direct mail. Collect data on your donors’ ages to strategically reach them based on their birth year.
Gender: Donor habits vary by gender, too, making it a worthy demographic to track. Female donors are more inspired by social media marketing, whereas males respond more to emails.
Location: If you’re a local nonprofit, it’s safe to assume most of your donors will be from your operating area. However, for national and global nonprofits, it’s helpful to know where the majority of your donors live to design campaigns in their locations that are tailored to their interests.
Income: A person’s income will impact their giving capabilities. Knowing a ballpark estimate of your donors’ annual incomes will allow you to target the right donors for specific giving initiatives. To illustrate, you wouldn’t want to ask someone with limited disposable income for thousands of dollars. Instead, you’d rather reach out asking for a smaller amount they’d be equipped to send.
Employment: Take income a step further and learn where your donors work. With this demographic information, you can figure out which donors work at businesses that offer robust corporate matching programs. Almost $3 billion is donated through matching gift programs annually, so it’s not an opportunity you want to overlook.

Next, let’s take a look at the donor contact information you should collect.

Contact Information

In order to reach your donors, your nonprofit needs accurate and accessible contact information. Here’s a list of four reliable points of contact to gather on your donors:

Home address. This may seem old-fashioned, but direct mail offers a personal touch that’s often absent in digital communication. Even if you never use your donors’ physical addresses, you should still collect this data— you never know when it might come in handy!
Phone number. The rate at which people open SMS messages is as high as 98%, and mobile users made up 33% of online donation transactions in 2019. Keep track of your donors’ cell numbers to leverage these impressive stats for your fundraising efforts.
Email address. Email has the highest return on investment of any marketing channel. It’s easy to send emails to large groups of donors with one click, and you can even use software to customize each email to the individual to make it feel more personalized.
Social media profiles. All social media platforms offer some fundraising value to your nonprofit. Facebook itself accounted for 3.5% of online donations in 2019. There are even platforms like GoFundMe and Kickstarter that are specifically designed to raise money for a good cause through crowdfunding— check out this guide to crowdfunding to learn more.

So far we’ve looked at more general categories of data. Now, we’ll dive into data that’s specific to donations and engagement with your nonprofit.

Giving Habits

No two donors give exactly the same. For instance, some are more sporadic in their donations, and others are consistent and use monthly recurring gift programs. Collect these useful pieces of donor data related to giving habits:

Gift amount: Donations can range from single digits to multiple figures, and all are worthwhile. Collect this data to be sure you’re targeting each donor correctly according to their amount preferences.
Frequency of giving: For regular donors, their donations could come weekly, monthly, annually, or at another interval. If you know a donor’s general schedule for giving, you can easily send a reminder around the time you’re expecting their contribution.
Method of giving: Cash, credit, debit, PayPal, check— the options for donation format are seemingly endless. Save yourself the time of reaching out to someone via text who prefers to mail a check by keeping track of your donors’ methods of giving.
Lifetime value: This measurement refers to someone’s all-time total contribution to your nonprofit organization. It is helpful to know who your biggest supporters are to keep reaching out to them, as well as to thank them when they reach certain milestones.
Number of years as a donor: How long a person has been donating to your nonprofit is another great way to assess who your biggest advocates are. You could also thank people according to their year milestones.
Upgrades and downgrades: Numerically speaking, an upgrade would be someone giving more money than usual. On the other hand, a downgrade would be someone giving less than usual for them. These terms are purely numbers— all donations are valuable regardless of size! However, this info is worth keeping track of for follow-up purposes. For instance, did they donate less because their income went down, or are they feeling less drawn to your organization? It’s a question worth asking.

Tracking your donors’ giving habits will allow you to find patterns in giving and strategize your fundraising efforts based on those patterns. You could figure out who to reach out to more or less often for the greatest efficiency and even what time of year is best to reach out to certain donors.

Use this data to create a donor pyramid and use it to organize your donors. Donor pyramids are a way of conceptualizing your donors’ overall value and where they are in their giving journey with prospective donors at the bottom and major donors at the top of the pyramid. With accurate, well-managed data, a donor pyramid can be effective for visualizing your donor base and determining where to focus your efforts when reaching out to your supporters.

Interactions

Where giving habits are limited to a person’s donation behavior, interactions describe their general engagement with your mission-driven organization. Through interactions, you can learn who your most committed supporters are in ways that go beyond money.

Here are six examples of donor interaction metrics your nonprofit could track:

Event attendance: Event attendance is a great way to assess the success of an event. Also, by knowing the specific people who attend your events, you can figure out which audience you are attracting: young or old, men or women, families or individuals, etc.
Email open rates: We’re all guilty of letting our email inboxes pile up with unopened promotional materials, and your donors are no exception. With data on email open rates, figure out what types of content your donors are responding most to and what types of content they’re not interested in at all.
Website visits: 44% of nonprofit website visitors in 2019 arrived at the website organically. However, your nonprofit’s website visit data may look way different than the overall data. Keep track of website visits to figure out how donors arrive at your website and what makes them stick around.
Direct mail response rate: Direct mail can be expensive— plus, digital methods of communication are increasingly popular. To make the best use of your time, look at data around which donors respond to your direct mail. Focus your efforts there, and stop sending mail to unresponsive addresses.
Social media engagement: From likes to comments to shares and more, social media offers a wide variety of data for your nonprofit to gather. Like emails, you can evaluate what types of content perform best and calibrate your social media strategy from there.
Volunteer activity: Donations don’t only exist in the form of money— many of your donors are willing to give their time to your cause. Keep track of the individuals who volunteer both once and on a regular basis, thank them for their time, and do what you can to retain their participation.

Data on interactions, like giving habits, will also allow your nonprofit to spot patterns and adjust its marketing strategy accordingly. Use this to your advantage and raise more money with greater efficiency.

For an even more in-depth look into what data your nonprofit should be collecting, check out this guide on nonprofit data collection. But for now, you’re well on your way to creating a robust database full of useful information— next, we’ll give you a guide on the best practices for keeping up your donor database.

Donor Database Best Practices

After reading about donor data management and what data to collect, don’t neglect the amazing donor database you’ve put together! Here are five of our donor database best practices.

Organize Data

Donor data will not be useful to your nonprofit if it isn’t properly sorted and managed. You can keep your database organized by keeping it all in one place, using a standardized format with clear entry guidelines, regularly reviewing it, and training your staff on data management.

For a more thorough refresh on how to organize your data, refer back to our previous section here where we explain how to do so.

Collect the Right Data

Your nonprofit should focus on collecting data in these categories: demographics, contact information, giving habits, and interactions.

Also, make sure you adjust your giving forms so that they only ask for information you need. To guarantee you get the data you need and donors don’t leave items blank, make certain fields like contact information required.

Purge Your Data

If you’re like most nonprofits, 88% of your donations come from 12% of your donors. Purge your database by removing inactive donors from your contact lists— it’ll save your organization time, money, and effort. Plus, you’ll see a greater return on investment for your campaigns.

Use a Data Append Service

Data appending is the process of supplementing existing data with more information from external sources. This is valuable both to fill in gaps in your database and to check the accuracy of your existing data by comparing it against external resources.

NPOInfo is a data appending service that works specifically with nonprofits. We provide accurate, quick, and thorough data enrichment for your nonprofit.

NPOInfo offers five different types of data append services:

Employer appends: This type of append will verify where your donors work. With this information, get ready to double your donation amounts through corporate matching gift programs.
Email appends: Our email append services will verify the emails in your donor database, guaranteeing more accuracy for your email fundraising tactics.
Phone number appends: Just like email appends, this service will double-check your donors’ phone numbers and be sure you’re using the correct ones.
Date of birth appends: Date of birth appends will confirm your donors’ birthdays, and subsequently, their ages. You could run a fun Happy Birthday campaign or simply segment your donor database by age group.
Address appends: Did you know that more than 40 million Americans move each year? That means about 10% of addresses become outdated annually. Use our address append services to keep your donor database as up-to-date as possible.

Data append services are a great way to make sure your donor database is as correct and complete as possible. For more information on data appending and data append services, check out our complete guide here.

Incorporate a CRM System

Constituent relationship management (CRM) systems stores large amounts of constituent data for businesses and organizations.

If your nonprofit’s CRM isn’t supporting your data management efforts, it may be time to invest in a new solution. Here are four characteristics to look for when choosing the right CRM for your nonprofit:

How many donors it can track: Depending on the size of your nonprofit, you’ll need a CRM system that can accommodate how many donors you need to gather and store data about.
How many users the software allows: You’ll want a few employees involved in the process of collecting, maintaining, and viewing your data. Make sure the CRM system you select permits your ideal number of authorized users.
What features are available: Different CRM systems will offer different services for you to use. Investigate what’s out there and decide which features will be most useful to your organization.
If it has integration capabilities: Many CRMs can connect to other softwares, and with that you can send your data back and forth easily. For instance, you could send the most accurate data from your online donation software straight to your CRM instead of manually transferring the information. That will save you time, money, and stress.
How much it costs: You’ll want to be sure the CRM system you pick fits your nonprofit’s budget.

Now you have all the best donor database practices under your belt! Go out and work some donor data magic for your nonprofit.

Wrapping Up

We’ve covered what donor data management is, how to keep donor information organized, what donor data you should be collecting, and the best practices for maintaining a donor database. Let’s take a step back and remember the why behind donor data management.

Data analytics is invaluable for nonprofits. With all the effort you put into acquiring data and managing it in the form of a database, don’t forget to use it to your benefit by deriving data-driven insights.

An insight is an intuitive understanding of a pattern found in facts. All of your nonprofit’s decisions should trace back to insights found in your data for best results. After all, data is a concrete illustration of what works. It’s an important tool to generate awareness and enthusiasm for your nonprofit among its donor base.

Want to start using data better? NPOInfo can help! Contact our team today to get a quote.

In the meantime, for more helpful nonprofit marketing information and resources, check out these three articles:

Your Ultimate Guide to Employer Appends for Nonprofits. Employer appends add information about your donors’ employers to your database. Use this resource to make the most of corporate matching gifts and other forms of corporate philanthropy.
The Fundraiser’s Guide to Improving Nonprofit Data Hygiene. Maintaining your donor database is essential to effectively running your nonprofit. Read this article for the best advice on improving data hygiene.
The Nonprofit’s Ultimate Guide to Data Append Services. Data appending can be an intimidating process, but not with the help of data append services. Check out this guide to how data append services can help your nonprofit, and to find one that’s right for your nonprofit.