Written by GiveCentral author• June 22, 2018• 12:42 am• GiveCentral, Nonprofit Donations, Nonprofit Fundraising

How to use benchmarks to create a foundation for growth.

Every nonprofit organization should mark its progress in realizing its mission and its success in deploying resources.

Join us for a look at using data to establish benchmarks for your nonprofit. This post talks about what benchmarking means, what it can accomplish for you as well as some common indicators to measure your performance.

Why Benchmark?

Benchmarking is an ongoing process of measuring an organization against expectations, past experience or industry norms for productivity and profitability. The organization then can make adjustments to improve performance in relation to those metrics.

Nonprofits can start by setting both internal and external goals that are relevant to their organization’s goal. This helps check and evaluate trends, based on their organization’s historical performance, as well as expectations. External benchmarks let you see where your nonprofit is flourishing and where it lags behind, based on data from peers.

In addition, benchmarking:

Provides you with key information for strategic planning

Helps you identify trends, successful campaigns over time

Gives you a way to demonstrate your nonprofit’s efficiency to stakeholders

What Should You Measure?

The first step is to define what your nonprofit needs to measure. Focus on the objectives that are most critical to th Monthly monitor e success of your mission.

Then define a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively you achieved those key objectives. Some common nonprofit benchmarks include:

Giving Level Metrics

Average donation amount
Lifetime value
Donor retention rate

Retention Metrics

First-time donor retention rate
Repeat donor retention rate
Reactivated donor retention rate
Donation retention rate

General Metrics

Gift frequency
Most frequent donation amount

When it comes to benchmarking, GiveCentral products and services include comprehensive reports which use the latest data visualization techniques to bring your data to life; innovative interactive applications and dashboards; strategic consulting services; and collaborative benchmarking reports.

GiveCentral Tools for Benchmarking at a Glance.

GiveCentral Dashboard

Dashboards are web-based platforms that provide a fast, easy, and intuitive visual interface for collecting donations, analyzing fundraising programs and donor giving behavior. Dashboards help track fundraising through the year, find mid-year opportunities for growth, and closely scrutinize individual events, donors or donor communities to take action.

Monthly Monitor

Gauge your overall giving at a micro level to quickly determine if your performance has improved and determine month-on-month growth. Your monthly monitor also gives you insights to improve your e-giving program. Use these as a good guideline for content and ideas. View event and analytics data and multiple reports into a downloadable, tailored pdf. Perfect reports for monthly, quarterly and annual reporting.

Fundraising for the Future

Often, an organization’s biggest challenge is resources. Fundraising for the Future provides those resources for you by providing a dedicated team member to help you with communications and improving your annual appeal and recurring giving. We can provide resources for the short or long-term and help with knowledge transfer. Comprehensive Reporting

Our goal is to help you create a roadmap to guide you into achieving a targeted, measurable fundraising effort.

We work closely with you and your staff to determine the best plan and approach for your organization. Our GiveCentral support consultants will help you streamline the work of fundraising and donor engagement to increase your financial health.We don’t want resource availability to be a barrier to your success. Let us help you so you can focus on your mission.

Crowdfunding

GiveCentral Crowdfunding works in conjunction with our GiveCentral online donation platform — all at a fraction of the cost of other crowdfunding tools. Use GC Crowdfunding when you need Start a fundaraise to quickly raise funds for a specific event, goal or mission. We customize and publish your own unique fundraising page, which allows you to set goals and timelines specific to your needs. GiveCentral Crowdfunding is easy to integrate with your social media accounts so you can reach more donors for your campaign.

Text-to-give

This option allows you for quick and easy donations and instantaneous communication with your donors. GiveCentral sets you up with your own unique texting numbers for Text-to-Connect and donors can text you their primary information, like name and email. Text-to-Give allows donors to make a donation directly from their mobile devices.