It can be easy to collect donor information and let it sit in a spreadsheet or management software gathering dust. In order to retain, and gain, donors it is important to use your donor data effectively. Here we want to go over the things you can track to help.
Profile information
It’s important to keep track of names and contact information, but your donor profiles should probably include work information, volunteering interest, and other organizations or interests they support. This will help you gain an understanding of who your donors are and why they choose to support you, which will make future fundraising efforts easier. Having well developed donor profiles will make segmentation easier and help you personalize your communication efforts.
Donation and Engagement history
By tracking when, and in what amounts, your donors have made contributions it can become easier to gauge what their future donations could look like and what CTAs work on them. You can also adjust your efforts when you use engagement metrics to determine how your email communications perform and what your event participation looks like. Understanding this data will help you adapt your strategy to your base.
Communication Preferences
While you’re likely to use a mixture of email, social media, and print communications to reach out to your current and potential donor bases, not everyone responds to every communication method. When you track donor engagement you can also narrow down which communication types work for specific donors. This will help you determine how to reach out to donors you hope will increase their donation amounts by connecting with them in a way that will be most engaging for them.
Collecting donor information and having the ability to track engagement metrics is not enough. Using the data, you have to improve your communications and increase your engagement is essential to effectively raising funds and retaining donors. By starting with in-depth donor profiles and then continuously monitoring engagement across channels you can help your organization grow.
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