Performance analytics can help with the overall operations of an organization. They can cover anything from employee alignment, to systems and resources, to strategic goals and priorities. If you’re not tracking performance analytics, you’re likely missing out on greater insights into your business or non-profit agency.

Performance analytics can be taken from many forms of data — even donation data. Your donor data reveals your best strategies for corporate fundraising or non-profit management.

For example, it can help answer questions such as:

• Did your new cultivation program actually make a difference?
• When do you stop spending money on recruiting a prospect or renewing lapsed donors?
• Where are your best opportunities for new donors?

Mining your donation data doesn’t have to be hard. A few simple steps can make it easier than ever to find and track performance insights.

Step one – identify your donor markets.

For example, you may have several different markets — current donors, new donors, lapsed donors, or multi-year donors — and you may have some special groups, too. Alumni, former clients, and grant organizations are some examples. Knowing your donor markets can help you target your metrics.

Step two – determine what key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to track.

See our blog Establishing and Using KPIs When Fundraising for some examples of good KPIs to track for fundraising. In general, you want to track the KPIs that will allow you to move forward. Picking too many can be overwhelming and cause analysis paralysis.

Step three — analyze the data.

You need to take a holistic view of your organization, which means identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Do you have a lot of first-time donors in your database? Are you spending most of your budget on door-to-door marketing but not seeing donor leads from it? Once you have an overview, you can create a strategy.

For example, if your analysis revealed that in the past year you gained 30 new donors, you may want to focus on turning those into multi-year donors or encouraging them to donate 25% more next year. Or perhaps you held a community event where 100 people attended who aren’t current donors. You may want to craft a campaign aimed at them to encourage donations.

The best way to mine your donation data is to make it accessible. When your data is automatically collected, and custom reports can be built at the push of a button, the performance analytics revealed within is that much closer to you.

True Sky can help you turn data into action. Our budgeting software works with Microsoft Excel to let you drill down into the numbers. True Sky’s data analytics capabilities enable businesses and non-profits to understand every aspect of their past performance, so that they can prepare confidently for their future.

Learn more at www.truesky.com or call 1-855-878-3759.