Raising money can sometimes seem to be outside of traditional business rules but applying business intelligence principles to fundraising can be extremely helpful. Fundraising — whether it be corporate fundraising or not-for-profit — runs on numbers. And those numbers translate into data.

Data helps your organization spot new opportunities and growth. It paints a picture of how you’ve been doing, where you currently stand, and helps predict where you can go. But in order to make use of the data, you need to measure it.

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are just as important for corporate fundraising or not-for-profit management as they are for other areas of business. The following KPIs can be extremely useful for your fundraising efforts.

1. Donor Growth (Year-Over-Year)

If you’re losing donors, it can be a red flag that something else is off in your organization. Similarly, if you’re gaining donors, it can be a sign that your company or non-profit is doing something right. But you can’t know what’s happening unless you track it.

2. Donation Growth

Tracking how much you’ve received and when can give you significant insight. For example, if donations tend to always drop off around January, you can use that data to create a new strategy. Or if a particular time of year always does well, you can leverage that to do even better.

3. Average Gift Size Growth

In addition to receiving more donations, increasing the size of the donations you’re already receiving can bring about better results. Do you have many donors giving small amounts, or a few donors who give a large sum? Knowing where you stand can help you leverage relationships and shift strategy.

4. Donor Retention Rate

Securing a new donor often costs more than leveraging an existing one. If you’re losing donors, you need to know why they are leaving.

5. Pledge Fulfillment Percentage

If you’re taking pledges, it’s a good idea to track how many actually follow through. That way you can budget and plan for a retention rate in the future.

6. Donor Channel

Tracking where your donations are coming from will significantly help focus your marketing. If you’re putting a lot of emphasis on social media and online gifts, but only receiving 10% of donations from those channels, it may be too much effort. Or, it may be an indicator that what you’re doing isn’t working and you need to fine tune the process.

7. Fundraising ROI

This is a big one — if you’re spending more than you’re bringing in, you likely need to look at your operations and scale back, especially if you have a limited budget. You need to know how much money your efforts are costing and what kind of return on investment they are achieving.

In general, you want the fundraising KPIs you choose to help answer three key questions:

• How many donations did your organization receive this year?
• What channels did the donations come through?
• What were the standard donation sizes?

When you’re relying on corporate fundraising or raising money for a non-profit cause, your budget is key. You need to make sure you’re not spending more money than you bring in. Creating a strong data analysis metric will help you stay on track.

Another way you can stay on track is True Sky. Our software simplifies the budgeting process, allowing you to work with complex fundraising budgets quicker and with more accuracy. We save you time and money, so you can focus your efforts where it counts: the fundraising.

Want to learn more about True Sky? Visit www.truesky.com or call 1-855-878-3759.