Predicting Revenue in Your Multi-Channel Fundraising Campaign
Nonprofits know that the most effective fundraising campaigns are multi-channel. In order to raise more for your mission, you need the ability to plan campaigns, target donors, track activity, and analyze your results – all across your donors’ preferred channels. Here’s how to start planning your next multi-channel campaign, based on revenue predictions from your different donor subgroups.
In the planning stage, fundraisers need to be able to predict overall campaign performance, including:
- number of gifts,
- average gift amount,
- total cost,
- total revenue, and
- net revenue.
Making those predictions requires the ability to dig into past performance of particular types of donors.
While the overall average gift for an email effort might be $72, using more detailed performance indicators from your different subgroups of donors lets you more accurately predict your revenue.
For instance, your strongest donors might be your 0-6 months, $250 to $499, multi-gift donors. The average gift of those multi donors, or those who give multiple times per year when asked, might be $347.
Meanwhile, your weakest donors might be those who give infrequently (meaning 18 months or more between gifts), making gifts under $30, as single donors – those who give no more than once per year when asked. Their average gift might be $17.
Identifying donors across channels so that you can first predict and then target your chosen subgroups of donors is key to establishing a strong multi-channel fundraising campaign that meets your revenue goals and stays within your budget.
