DECISIVE SYSTEM's in-depth analysis of the database is a real goldmine. It allows us to better understand and segment our donors, thereby optimizing our fundraising strategies and profitability.
Your fundraising database is like a leaking bucket you constantly try to fill with water, and two key factors will predict your success in the long run: your ability to fill the bucket with more and more water (through acquisitions) and your ability to limit leakage and losses (by encouraging donor loyalty and limiting donor churn and disinterest over time).
While the first factor (acquisition) is usually measured and tracked with great precision, a fine-tune analysis of the second factor (loyalty) can lead to incredibly useful insights.
At DECISIVE SYSTEM, whenever we perform a strategic diagnostic of a donor database, we always pay close attention to loyalty rates: where they are today, how they compare to similar organizations with comparable characteristics, and how these rates have evolved over the last few years, hence allowing us to identify long-term trends that might go unnoticed otherwise.
Disappointing loyalty rates can be traced back to a host of factors, each with different roots, and each with perfectly tailored solutions to put in place, whether it is the disappointing long-term value of the donors you acquire through specific channels or offers (see lifetime value analysis), the lack of synergies between the various offline and online channels (see multi-channel analysis), or a less-than-optimal solicitation plan that does not properly adapts your organization’s marketing pressure to the true potential of each of your supporters (see donor potential scoring).
