Lapsed or Dormant? Leveraging Statistical Analysis in Fundraising

Consider the case of a university engaging in annual fundraising drives. After a student graduates, the development office maintains a record of all of his donation activity. In each year since graduation, the university knows whether or not he has made a donation to his alma mater. The result is a sequence of observations for each individual, as illustrated below with a “Y” indicating a donation in a given year since graduation and an “N” indicating that the individual did not make a donation in a given year: