Campaign performance reviews are important in all sectors of the business world. Fundraising for nonprofits also requires organization heads and teams to review the performances of their campaigns. Although annual reviews of fundraising campaigns and strategies are very common in the nonprofit world, mid-year reviews largely improve work efficiency.
Why, you ask? When you take a step back to critically evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign in the middle of the year, you become clearer on where you stand and what you still need to do to accomplish your previously set annual goals. If need be, you have the opportunity to redefine your strategies for better results. In this article, GiveCentral sheds light on how you can prepare to ace your mid-year reviews. Read on for a few tips and tricks.
Early preparation
Mid-year program reviews require you to have data and performance numbers easily accessible. It is ideal to make use of a donor management software like GiveCentral that can keep a track of all this important information and make accessing it quick and easy. Key information you’ll want to analyze would include your donors, amount raised, sources and so on.
- Prepare by thoroughly going through the details of your previous campaigns.
- Move on to diagnostic fundraising analytics in which you study past campaigns, Here, you identify the strengths and weaknesses.
- Make use of predictive fundraising analytics by comparing performance metrics over time. This is to predict future donor behaviour. Then move on to knowing your fundraising metrics.
Know your fundraising metrics
In relation to the first point, fundraising metrics for nonprofits will help you through each step of analyzing. For example, a clear knowledge of a donor’s gift amount and frequency will help you in creating a precise descriptive fundraising analytics.
Some of the metrics to monitor fundraising for nonprofits include:
- Gift frequency: The frequency at which a donor gives to your organization
- Donation volume: The number of single/individual donations that you received during a specific campaign
- Demographic metrics: Information like age, location and gender that you have been able to collect from donors
- Preferred giving method: Mode of donation such as cash, checks and online giving
- Conversion rate: The number of times that a donor completed a target action of making a donation
- Cost-per-dollar-raised: The value is determined by dividing expenses by revenue for the given campaign or time period
Team performance on campaign
This may seem like the job of the HR department, but that is not entirely it. As a nonprofit professional, you need to be well aware of the team assigned to a specific campaign.
- What was the goal for each team?
- Was the defined target achieved by all departments?
This will allow you to identify any need for re-shuffling of teams.
Review donor feedback
When it comes to fundraising for nonprofits, donors will always be an integral part. Therefore, it’s important to get their feedback. Make sure that you build in feedback mechanisms into your campaigns and be sure to go through the reviews left by your donors and supporters, even volunteers. Mid-year fundraising effectiveness review should not be focused just on the funds that have been collected for several campaigns. It should also consider donor satisfaction in their engagement with your organization. This will help you identify room for improvement in the donation process and your team’s communication.
Conclusion
Every campaign provides key learnings that nonprofits can and should incorporate into future initiatives. That’s why it’s important to adopt a “looking forward” approach and evaluate your campaigns in real-time so you can be nimble and incorporate new best practices in future campaigns. Mid-year program reviews will give you the opportunity to take a step back, analyze and pivot where needed, setting you up for greater success.
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