Nonprofits often need to be as numbers-oriented as commercial businesses, reaching various benchmarks to achieve success. Most concentrate on the number of donors or the total amount of donations — Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be sure, but not the only ones that deserve attention. Although prioritizing KPIs differ by organization, here are five popular KPIs to track.
New Donors: A nonprofit that grows the number of donors is a growing organization. Not every quarter will show a gain, but the general trend should show an increasing, not decreasing, level of support.
Donor Retention Rate: If you donor list is shrinking, you may need to change your outreach effort, perhaps by changing your marketing approach, to maintain the loyalty of your current donors. It’s usually easier to keep existing donors than gain new ones. Expending extra effort to secure these relationships can help keep the donations flowing to your nonprofit.
Fundraising ROI: Calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) from your fundraising events helps determine if your efforts are effective or not. Remember to include all costs that support an event. If you find that you are generating only a small profit, or worse, failing to turn a profit, you may want to reevaluate your methods for raising funds, or even reconsider your target audience.
E-mail Conversion Rate: An e-mail campaign can bring in donations…or not. The conversion rate can tell you about the effectiveness of your pitch. If this number is low or falling, you may need to re-examine the content of your call-to-action. Are your emails too long? Too vague? Filled with errors? Too frequent? If you answer “yes,” a re-evaluation may be in order to help improve the response.
Social Media Engagement: Your website hosts the home page where individuals can donate, volunteer, and otherwise help your nonprofit. Convincing them to head to your nonprofit’s home page should be the goal of posts, tweets, and other social media conversations. Tracking the number of visitors from social media sites – and their donations — can help determine the value of your efforts and help tailor future posts.
Worthy causes appeal to our altruistic nature, but nonprofits compete for attention just like any other business. A hard, numbers-oriented look at KPIs can help focus on the efforts that succeed in keeping the nonprofit profitable.
To learn more about how our firm can serve your nonprofit organization, don’t hesitate to contact Kathy Corcoran at (302) 254-8240.
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