Analytics

In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of two approaches to fundraising practice. I’ll call them the schools of data-nique and incantations. That’s studying data and learning magic. Both make promises they can’t deliver. Although data analysis certainly has its uses, when most organizations haven’t even mastered the basics of human interaction (that is reaching…

Giving Tuesday, a charitable initiative that uses social media as its catalyst, raised nearly $117 million in online donations, a jump of 155 percent over last year, according to preliminary calculations exclusively provided to Reuters by the event's organizers. In the 24 hours starting at midnight Eastern time on Tuesday, U.S. charities reported receiving 1.08 million…

Households with more than one child are more likely to give, and donate a bigger share of their income, if the eldest is a son, a new study finds. But parents with only one child are more likely to give, and to donate generously, if that child is a daughter. The report from the Women's…

The 2015-2016 Nonprofit Accounting Insights & Analysis Survey sought information central to nonprofit financial management, including the amount of time spent inside and outside an organization’s financial system pulling and manipulating data, as well as specific software features used to manage nonprofits...

Nonprofits can grow faster, solicit donations more successfully and better accomplish their missions through greater use of analytics. If you doubt the benefits of data, you can read the book Moneyball. The book and movie of the same name relate the true story of how Billy Beane, general manager of baseball’s Oakland A’s, rebuilds his…

At Turnkey, we try to turn every "gut instinct" decision into one made with data, analysis and supporting theory. But I see people, like me, who seek only information confirming their currently held beliefs, instead of that with which to make the best decision. Why do we do this?

For every $100 in new donations nonprofits gained in fiscal year 2014 over the previous year, they lost $95 in lapsed or reduced donations, according to a new survey. While that five percent net gain in gifts is "disappointing," said Nathan Dietz, senior research associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute,…

The movie Moneyball shows us a situation in which Oakland A’s Major League general manager Billy Beane, due to enormous pressure to perform, casts aside his natural bias (using visual attributes about players to make decisions) and instead turned to a non-natural way to make decisions: using statistics. Who but a crazy person would rely almost totally on statistics to make decisions?...

There are many times when customers reach out to us to help them increase response rates. When that happens, my first question to them is, “What was the response rate on your last mailing?” Now, you would think that after 24 years in the business the standard response to this question would no longer shock…

Data silos make it hard to manage across an organization. They are barriers to a single view of a donor. But for many fundraising teams this situation is the reality of life today. Given that multiple technology systems led to these silos, how can you use technology to improve this situation? You’ve heard the phrase “what gets measured gets managed.” This is particularly true for fundraising teams...