4 Nonprofit Data and Reporting Trends for 2015

To get a handle on what’s in store for 2015, NonProfit PRO rounded up some of the nonprofit industry’s finest, who were kind enough to share their nonprofit trends for 2015. Here are four trends on data and reporting.

DATA/REPORTING
Miriam Kagan, senior fundraising principal, Kimbia
1. Staffing for data. As nonprofits consolidate their data and interaction for their constituents in one place, many are finding themselves sitting on a mountain and not knowing which data really matters. Understanding how to develop a data- and analytics-driven organization, finding the right resources to really drive insight and then leverage it, is very important. Good analysts and data officers are like unicorns; staffing correctly will mean having the ability to leverage all that integration work. This also means investing in the right data visualization toolsets — if your awesome analyst spends 80 percent of her time just wrangling the data into submission, then you are wasting a precious resources.

Richard Perry, founding partner, and Jeff Schreifels, senior partner, Veritus Group
2. An increase in accountability and measurement of fundraising, program and management effectiveness as the donating public demands more transparency and reporting on how their giving made a difference.

Rich Dietz, senior product manager, digital fundraising, Abila
3. Donor loyalty and lifetime value: Tracking donor engagement will be crucial. Organizations will spend more time analyzing characteristics and behaviors of all of their constituents — not just major donors — to better understand what drives their giving behavior. By tracking donor engagement, organizations will be able to further segment their appeals, personalize their outreach to donors, significantly increase donor loyalty, improve lifetime value and treat all donors like major donors.

Allison Porter, president, Avalon Consulting Group
4. Donor analytics are a best practice. Analytics used to be a nice add-on if you had some money left in the budget to get a better read on your program and donors. But now, with the case for donor analytics so well-established, analytics are an indispensable tool for strategic planning, smart targeting and even creative development. Now that more nonprofits employ analytics, we know that they are essential to good fundraising and are no longer an optional competitive edge. This is a tall order — effective analysis requires a commitment to data hygiene, specialized statistical and interpretive knowledge, and a purposeful strategic-planning loop that both incorporates new information and establishes priorities.