Recognizing no dollar or data left behind

When you’re in the nonprofit or community service arena, one of the most important things you can do is a careful audit of all the dollars and donations you are receiving. As you look at your revenue streams, focus on the opportunities that certain sources may present for future, additional funding. With a careful look back, you can plan ahead!  

Nonprofits typically receive donations from sponsorships, matching funds, individual donor dollars, legacy giving campaigns and even special donation campaigns like #GivingTuesday. You likely want to grow and identify potential major donors. Look at each of those funnels, utilize the giving data you receive, and do a deeper dive on the donors to setup your future success and organization’s health.  

The GivingTuesday Data Commons estimates that 34.8 million people participated in GivingTuesday 2020, a 29% increase over 2019. Further, GivingTuesday reported total giving increased from $1.97 billion to $2.47 billion in the United States alone, representing a 25% increase compared to GivingTuesday 2019.  

So how do you recognize and tap into the power of data from donors and dollars?

Make the time now to drill down into the data of your giving. Some important questions to ask include: 

• Did you have donors that regularly contribute to your cause – give you additional funds on GivingTuesday? If so, have you reached out to them personally (handwritten notes are still in style) and thanked them for the additional funds?  
• Did you have new donors give? Have you reached out to them with a personalized thank you, and asked them how they might like to continue to be involved in giving or in your cause? 
• Have you compiled a report from your GivingTuesday donations and analyzed data –  even by zip code – to see where your donors came from? With this information, you might be able to highlight to those donors specifically what services or events you have in their area.  
• It’s also valuable to break up donations by amounts in a report and look at who gave the highest amounts and diligently reach out to them to see if you can engage them more in your mission. Even just a virtual tour on Zoom of your mission, clinic, or services would be a way to start the stewardship of those higher dollar donors.  

Beyond GivingTuesday, one thing to look for in February is those donors who gave you pandemic relief in the form of donations – monetary or otherwise. Send them some love in February by sending an important thank you and spell out how those additional donations helped your mission. You could do a blanket Valentine, or you could do a Facebook campaign of highlighting all those who helped.  

The more data you utilize to identify and empower your knowledge about your donors, the better off your new fundraising initiatives will be!  

By the way, if you held some successful virtual fundraising events this year, you can pull out those donors who were also new to the virtual event and do some planning around stewarding them. If these are donors who have never been to an in-person event, they might just be people who prefer being part of a virtual event, but not an in-person event. Using data from your reporting allows you to prioritize reaching out to them as you plan a future special virtual or hybrid event.  

For inspiration as you plan your upcoming virtual events visit GiveSmart’s blog for ideas and examples.  

To learn more about our MIP modules that grow with your mission go here .