The Annual Giving Exchange

Before your next annual fund appeal, stop and give yourself a pop quiz.

1. Do you have more men or women giving to your organization?
2. What percentage of your donors lives within 20 miles of your organization?
3. How many donors have made more than five gifts to your organization?
4. What is the average age of a $100,000 donor to your organization?
5. What percentage of your donors has ever attended an event at your organization?

While most of us could find answers to these questions very quickly, it’s unlikely that many of us could answer them without doing a little research first.  Finding the answers to questions like these is called data mining, an over-utilized term and an under-utilized tool.

Data mining, like physical exercise, has the greatest benefit when it’s done consistently.  Just as you wouldn’t expect an annual trip to the gym to be enough to keep you fit, don’t expect that counting the number of LYBUNTS, SYBUNTS, and Non-donors once at the beginning of the fiscal year to be sufficient for your annual fund.  It should be part of your regular routine.

Once a month, create a pop quiz for yourself.  Invent new questions.  Recruit help finding the answers.  Consider ways to use your findings, and over time you’ll refine the definition of your organization’s “typical donor.”  Let this exercise guide your future segmentation strategies.