“I think it’s understandable that gaining donors is and should be a primary objective for charities but without a balanced approach to delivering donor experience excellence and achieving sustainable levels of supporter retention then most charities find themselves in this constant cycle of gaining and losing support…” - Bernard McCabe
In this episode we speak with Bernard McCabe, Founder and Director of Dreamscape Solutions about the benefit and need of charities using KPIs, and specifically in relation to developing and improving donor recognition and long-term relationship building with donors.
1. Leaky buckets
How do we keep our existing supporters engaged and committed to supporting our charities, while delivering against our fundraising targets to ensure our work can continue?
The risk of focussing too much time and effort on recruiting new donors at the cost of our existing supporters is a challenge that key performance indicators, KPIs, may help us to overcome.
It’s impossible to manage what you’re not measuring. Bernard talked about the key performance indicators (KPIs) of acquisition, retention, attrition, average gift values and average giving frequency. By taking steps to measure these organisations can identify room for improvements, test and learn, and substantially grow their organisation’s impact on both those they exist to support and donors.
2. Bring on the cultural evolution
We need a cultural evolution to identify what is proportionate and what is sustainable. By better understanding our KPIs we can better understand our audiences, the needs of our supporters, and calibrate our offering to deliver for them and in doing so our charity.
3. Using technology to improve experience
Donor satisfaction KPIs could help charities to identify where they can embrace technology to support a more efficient use of their resource, while also evolving their approach to delivering for their supporters.
Donors need to see the charities they support as being effective and efficient and there might be better ways for charities to balance this with delivering emotional value and determining when to use automated or bespoke means of delivering this value.
This episode of Charity Chat has been brought to you by our platinum sponsor Work for Good.
Work for Good is a fundraising platform helping businesses raise funds for charities through their sales. The platform makes the legal agreement needed for businesses to fundraise from sales quick and simple. Saving charities time and resource, and enabling them to raise more unrestricted income.
Pop to www.workforgood.co.uk to learn more and book a free demo.
We hope you enjoy this week’s episode.
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