Charities have a wealth of information about donors, and a growing number of organizations are using data analytics to determine which supporters are most likely to make a big gift or give in response to a direct-mail appeal.
“Your database is a gold mine,” says Emily Courville, director of analytics at the Humane Society of the United States. “There is so much you can learn about what your donors are doing if you just start to look.”
Nonprofits have long used data to drive their fundraising efforts. But the complexity of charities’ analyses has shot up as statistical tools have become easier to use, the cost of computing power has dropped, and more vendors provide analytics services designed specifically for fundraising.
Here are a few resources to help you use data to make smart choices on where to focus your nonprofit’s development efforts — and to boost the amount of money you raise.
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Advice
How to Rate the Potential of Prospective Women Donors
A prospect researcher created a scoring system to vet and rank potential women donors — or any group of untapped supporters. -
News
A.I. Is Ready for Fundraising. Are Fundraisers Ready for A.I.?
Artificial intelligence can help you write appeals, find new donors, figure out how much to ask for, and prioritize tasks. -
Advice
How to Identify Donors With the Greatest Potential to Give
A college fundraising executive uses a data-driven strategy to zero in on supporters who can make large gifts and build strong ties with them. -
Advice
Data Analysis Boosts Revenue at Art Institute of Chicago
Information the museum collects on visitors’ movements through the galleries is helping it identify patterns that guide marketing decisions. -
News
Analytics Expert Offers Advice on How to Use Data to Raise Money
Fundraisers have long debated whether their discipline is an art or a science; author and Blackbaud executive Steve MacLaughlin says it’s both. -
News
Data and the Search for Big Donors
How fundraisers crunch numbers, sift Facebook chatter, and analyze their results to learn exactly what donors want. -
Advice
How to Find Big Donors Among the Women in Your Database
A prospect-research expert provides tips for the hunt for major gifts. The piece includes Readiness Checklists to help you identify prospective female donors — both within your database and elsewhere. -
News
The Future of Fundraising and Data Analytics: Two Ideas
Ideas that analysts noodle around with today could become the cutting-edge approaches of tomorrow. Here are two still largely on the drawing board. -
Fundraising
Fundraisers Reap Millions by Using Data ‘Gold Mine’
Nonprofits are stepping up their powerful analytical techniques to make smarter fundraising decisions and increase donations. -
Advice
Using Data to Advance Fundraising: Advice From the Experts
Start small, look for differences among groups of donors, and other first-steps to find new ways to appeal to donors. -
Advice
How PBS Stations Used Data Sharing to Set and Meet Fundraising Goals
Public broadcasting stations formed a group to collect, analyze, and share their fundraising data to help stations identify weaknesses, adopt effective practices, and raise more money. -
Fundraising
Data Analysis Helps Boston College Hold Onto Talented Fundraisers
Figuring out which donors have the most potential helps staff members get early wins—and makes it more likely they’ll stay on the job, say the institution’s leaders. -
Fundraising
Gay-Rights Group Turns Activists Into Donors
The Human Rights Campaign used sophisticated data tools to figure out who among its activists to ask for money. -
News
2 Colleges Score Big Gains Using Data-Driven Fundraising
A statistician and alumnus used sophisticated analyses to test dozens of ideas at once. -
Advice
Finding the Best Donors Through Data Cooperatives
Donor-sharing services have reshaped acquisition in the last five years. -
Fundraising
Nonprofits Find New Donors With Databases That Track Connections
New technology is formalizing and making easier the process of uncovering hidden connections between the charity’s network and prospective donors. -
Online Fundraising
An Environmental Group Studies What Donors Want
The Nature Conservancy has been adding employees, revamping its Web site, and doing all it can to measure results as it seeks to amass more online gifts. -
Best of 2011: Editor's Picks
A University Doubles Donations in a Year
Charles W. Holland taught his alma mater, Lincoln Memorial University, how to figure out the smartest ways to increase giving—all without spending any new money.