Social Impact Advisory Meeting, May 2024
Kelly McGeehan (Panelist), Principal Consultant of Conduit Philanthropic Intelligence Partner
Donalda Watson-Walkinshaw (Panelist), Director of Fundraising Operations for Fistula Foundation
Solomon Belette (Moderator)
At our monthly Social Impact Advisory Group Meeting, we wanted to explore how to use data to advance fundraising. We invited moderator Solomon Belette, and panelists, Kelley McGeehan and Donalda Watson-Walkinshaw to discuss how data is used in philanthropic efforts. The following panel presentation was edited for length and clarity in printed format.
Kelley (Panelist): I am the Principal Consultant of Conduit Philanthropic Intelligence Partner. I am on the East Coast and I reside in Baltimore, Maryland. The business that I’m in is research and data. I have been helping nonprofit organizations for more than 13 years with prospect research, prospect management, gathering data, analyzing it, and helping philanthropy officers and relationship managers to build the relationships with their donors in order to make a respectful and meaningful ask for the donor and for the institution. Before looking at data, I’m really looking at it through the eyes of the gift officer, which is a lot of fun.
Donalda (Panelist): I’m the Director of Fundraising Operations for Fistula Foundation. I’ve been working for nonprofits for almost 29 years and I really love it. I have the benefit that I have managed huge databases so I understand the data side, but I’ve also been a fundraiser. So I understand both the need to have the data and how to store it, how to analyze it, how to use it and so I feel like it’s given me a real advantage over the years.
Solomon (Moderator): How do your clients use data to advance fundraising and what type of data do they use?
Kelley: Data is at the base of the operations for the philanthropy team. Whenever we talk about philanthropy, and philanthropic relationships, and looking at donors, oftentimes organizations look at it through the context of building relationships specifically with individuals. It’s looking at an individual’s capacity, their affinity, and their propensity to give. When we talk about those three areas, the capacity being their ability to give, the affinity being how they feel about the organization, and the propensity is how charitable are they?
There is no secret door. There’s no private information that we as researchers, we as nonprofit organizations have access to. This is all publicly available data.
So when we’re talking about data and the way that my clients use data, in order to meet those criteria, we’re really focusing on the capacity and the propensity. So how do we figure that out? Well we look for the data, we look for where they’ve donated previously. Do they have a donor advised fund? Do they have a private foundation? And we analyze what types of gifts they’ve given. What level have they given? How frequently and how consistently have they given to their charities of choice? What are the wealth indicators? I should pause here for a second and mention that whenever I’m talking about data and data that relates to philanthropy, it is all public information.
There is no secret door. There’s no private information that we as researchers, we as nonprofit organizations have access to. This is all publicly available data. So when we’re looking at capacity there, we’re looking at wealth indicators, we look at real estate holdings. What type of home do people live in? What is the value of the home? Do they own stocks? Do they volunteer on nonprofit boards? Do they serve on corporate boards? All of this data is pulled together.
So the question is, where do we find the data? So when we are looking at gathering the data, we can find it out in cyberspace and we can use data aggregators in order to identify the information more quickly. So you can use a donor search or LexisNexis, or a database in order to gather the information together.
Solomon: Donalda, as the director of funding operations at Fistula Foundation, how has your organization used data to advance fundraising and has your approach changed in the past few years?
Donalda: Our organization uses data in many ways, and we have a very complex fundraising model in that we have a lot of international donations. We look at the cost of our mailings, the response rate, we can look at all of this information plus, we also want to really concentrate and try to build our new donor base. We noticed along with many nonprofit organizations, that it’s harder to bring in new donors. We’ve been making a concerted effort to do more of that.
I’m kind of old school. And so I still believe in acquisition mail, but the response rates are not what they used to be. They’re still at a point where it’s worth doing a small amount just to test the waters on and so I actually really still recommend doing that. But we’ve tried to look at our expenses more carefully, and be more efficient and effective. We’ve also looked at the data when it comes to our stewardship efforts and cultivation. That’s also really important to look at: if you had a boost in numbers after you’ve added another “thank you.”
Solomon: The timeliness of your gratitude to your donors is so important. I mean, the sooner you do it the better way and it’s still fresh in their minds. Kelley, what are some of the biggest challenges your clients face in gathering and maintaining the data? And what are some of the major costs that are involved in that effort?
Kelley: It’s a blessing and a curse the more data we have, because we have to maintain it. And for me, whenever I hear the question of cost, I look at the cost in two lights. One, the cost in money, and two, the cost of time, because maintaining the data is going to be one or the other, it’s going to cost us. We just have to choose how we manage that cost with either time or money. One of the biggest challenges is having clean data and maintaining the information. For example, I was just on a call yesterday morning with one of my clients and we had worked on a project earlier this year. We were analyzing their database, because they had noticed that they had a large number of individuals who had given the prior two fiscal years, but not yet this year. They were trying to identify who they were and why they hadn’t given and they wanted to have a special solicitation before the end of the fiscal year in order to reengage those individuals in a very respectful way.
So the biggest challenge: keeping clean data. One of the things that I advocate for with my clients is to set up a regular schedule. It is those things that we find boring, mundane and unsexy, but are so vitally important.
We looked at the velocity of giving for the individuals, had their giving been increasing, among other data points. I segmented all the data down, submitted the project, they were getting ready to do the mailing. The very first name on the list of those prospects was the CEO of the organization, because the CEO of the organization had been miscoded. And so there’s a cost to having data that’s miscoded. The biggest challenge was scrubbing through the donor record for the CEO trying to identify that piece of data that was coded that pulled him into our pool. So the biggest challenge: keeping clean data.
One of the things that I advocate for with my clients is to set up a regular schedule. It is those things that we find boring, mundane and unsexy, but are so vitally important. Regularly going through and cleaning up and running queries to make sure that all of the coding is up to date, that there are no inconsistencies with addresses with constituent codes, etc. That is just such a huge, huge challenge and something that we all just need to be disciplined to maintain our data to keep it clean.
Solomon: I get the sense that your typical nonprofit clients may have a lot more work to do before they come to you. Otherwise, you end up sort of doing the work on your end or back and forth. So I think maintaining clean data, it’s got to be done. Thanks for sharing that. Let me turn to Donalda. How has the use of data enhanced the fundraising capabilities at Fistula Foundation? And what advice would you give to organizations who are just embarking on a data strategy?
Donalda: We have used our data to determine that we can actually mail more campaigns during the year. There’s money’s still left on the table, so to speak, based on our response rate, and so we have incorporated two more mailings this year, and so far the results have been very positive. We have not seen much in the way of donor attrition which is really exciting. That’s one of the exciting things that data allows you to do is to test and try new things, and identify areas of opportunity. It’s allowed us to also see over a period of 10 or more years, trends in our data. So we recognize that just recently, we’ve just seen an increase in the lack of new donors. And so we’re able to jump on that and create some new efforts to remedy that issue.
Your organization may be really interested in finding out the number of people that participate in a program, or find out their satisfaction or the amount that they’ve learned from that. So your process for collecting that data may be different than another organization. Just start with writing down some ideas of what you believe that you would need.
What would I recommend to organizations that want to embark on data collection and have a data strategy, I would say, first, find out what data points would be most important for your organization, because they differ. Your organization may be really interested in finding out the number of people that participate in a program, or find out their satisfaction or the amount that they’ve learned from that. So your process for collecting that data may be different than another organization. Just start with writing down some ideas of what you believe that you would need.
Another thing you can do is look at grants that you’ve applied for. Oftentimes, grants will ask you how many people do serve? How many to expect to serve? So take that into consideration, too. Some government grants are far more complicated and so you need additional data to be able to complete those grants. So that’s one thing that’s really important. Also, you’ll want to track the basics, you’ll want to know the number of donors, dollars raised, your expenses, your ROI, your average gift. And it can be broken down into giving levels like 1000 to 5000, 5000 to 10,000, what those response rates are within those sections.
Whatever data you collect, it should be to support the mission of your organization, your strategic plan and to also better understand the needs of the people that you serve. I also recommend that you look at national trends for nonprofits in general and also for nonprofits that are within your sector, like healthcare or education. Look at the research done so you can see if the data that you’re getting from your organization is similar to that, or if you’re bucking the trend, and you’re getting more donors, or if you have a little bit of a slide in one area. Also, speak with other nonprofit professionals; share information. If you see someone using a graph or chart or spreadsheet you really like, ask if they’d be willing to share that with you. I think copying things is a form of great flattery, and most nonprofits are willing to share their documents with you to help you out.
Solomon: You’ve really given us a number of very specific strategies that nonprofits could apply, especially those that may not have a data strategy in place. I’m sure you’re aware of reports like the Giving USA report and the pulse report that CCS fundraising does. Just wondering if you have any quick reflections on those on that data?
Donalda: I think that you have to take some of it with a grain of salt in that, just because it seems to be a national trend or something that’s happening, doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily happen to you. But if there is a trend that we’re seeing nationally, I think it’s helpful to pay attention to that. How many organizations were not prepared for the difference in their donations after the tax laws changed, for being able to itemize nonprofit donations? A lot of people weren’t prepared for that.
Kelley: I love the reports when we’re looking at that larger picture and I think of the Giving USA report and the trends over the years, as far as you know, where individual giving is, and corporate giving, and gifts through bequest. It can help organizations kind of look at a larger picture of where is the population as a whole thinking as far as their charitable donations. At the end of the day, whether it’s a corporate donor, an individual donor, it’s about building relationships. And you have to couple that with how your organization relates to that bigger picture. Is your organization a very small arts organization that is more liberal leaning or more conservative leaning than the overall population? Is it more environmental as an educational institution that has a very defined donor base? These are all things that you have to take into consideration as well. So I don’t I don’t believe that you can look at just the large reports or just your data, you have to look at both in concert with each other.
Maya Tussing: Donalda —You had indications that money was on the table. Could you go deeper into what that was and how you responded?
Donalda: I’m going to give an example that’s a little different than what my organization is doing. When I was in public television, public television is well known for mailing, mailing, mailing, and then mailing again. But one thing that we did is we looked at the response rate, and we looked at the total cost that we had spent to bring in that one donor, whether it was through lapsed or acquisition. For lapse mail, we would look at where we would break even
If at that point, we stopped making money from it, then we knew that that was sort of our break even point and beyond that going five to 10 years, we would only mail them say once a year rather than the lapsed donors that we would mail to once a month or once a quarter. And so when I say money on the table, it’s looking at that breakeven point.
Maya Tussing: How do you get line fundraisers to embrace using data? Many are not numbers people and feel overwhelmed or simply don’t like working with data.
Kelley: It’s hard. I find as I’m constantly straddling the line between the relationship managers, frontline fundraisers, philanthropy officers, with the data team with the operations team. There are different mindsets and different ways of working. So when I think of how to present the data, for the frontline gift officers, I constantly look at how are they going to use that data in order to advance the relationship. I try to minimize the amount of information whenever possible, and focus the pieces of information, the data points on what is going to help them move the relationship, move that engagement forward with the individual donor, so that they can make a respectful ask at the right amount for that particular prospect or donor.
I am a firm believer that the frontline fundraisers are so exceptional at their jobs. They know how to talk to people, they know how to draw them in and draw them out and to learn about the donors’ feelings about their inclinations, and to learn about what makes that donor compelled to talk about the organization.
The real art is being able to take that data and the information and the relationship that your frontline fundraisers are building and bring them together. So if you can minimize the data down into usable, digestible pieces for the gift officer to use, and always think how are they going to use it to advance that relationship, that would be ideal.
I feel that data is so important because it is solid. In many ways, it’s black and white.You know how many assets we can see somebody has, how much their company is worth, where they have given to before that we can identify, we can take this information. The real art is being able to take that data and the information and the relationship that your frontline fundraisers are building and bring them together. So if you can minimize the data down into usable, digestible pieces for the gift officer to use, and always think how are they going to use it to advance that relationship, that would be ideal. It’s not going to be the same for every gift officer but if you can focus on the largest gifts that they’ve made, the types of gifts that they made.
The Social Impact Advisor Network (SIAN) is on a mission to support overall resilience in the nonprofit eco-system through education, advocacy, board and donor education. To learn more about the network, visit the website at: www.socialimpactadvisornetwork.com
Fairlight Advisors
Latest posts by Fairlight Advisors (see all)
- Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit’s Cyber Security Strategy - October 31, 2024