Our Donor Performance Analysis parses the key trends in fund raising activity from year to year. Armed with this information, we help explain to organizations why donors are behaving as they do. This helps your organization see what has worked, what has not worked, and what might be the best next steps. It helps identify strengths and weaknesses as well as potential threats and latent opportunities.

We often recommend a Donor Performance Analysis to investigate the reasons behind donor activity and income trends. The Donor Performance Analysis contains over 40 detailed graphs and tables that reveal in clear terms which donor segments are healthy or ailing, and provides clues as to how to revive performance if necessary. Also available is an objective, customized textual analysis of these graphs and tables. Our team has years of fundraising analysis experience.

The Donor Performance Analysis is similar to an annual medical examination, checking vital signs and a host of other indicators of file health, presenting telltale clues about the past and present condition of the file. However, just like a medical exam, the Donor Performance Analysis cannot explain on its own how the donor file came to exhibit the symptoms in evidence. The reasons and factors that contributed to the donor file’s condition must be discovered by examining the history of strategies and tactics used by your organization.

Each Donor Performance Analysis includes the following sections…

  • Analysis by Donor Life Cycle Stages: Includes analysis of trends for current donors, as well as life-cycle stages such as New Donors, Second-Year New Donors, Multi-Year Donors, Lapsed Donors, and Second-Year Reactivated Donors.
  • Donor Movement Analysis: Examines how donors upgrade, downgrade, and remain at the same level of annual giving, as well as those who lapse. Also shows donor movement trends within giving ranges.
  • Donor Renewal by Year of Acquisition: Shows how recent, successive acquisition efforts have impacted renewal in subsequent years, and clearly displays the renewal rates for donors acquired in each of those years.
  • Annual Cumulative Giving Analysis: This analysis provides a thumbnail view of actual long-term donor value and indicates how the value of donors has changed in recent years.
  • Most Recent Gift Analysis: Evaluates whether recency is increasing or decreasing. An increasing trend indicates donors are waiting longer before renewing. Further graphs help pinpoint which recency segments (e.g. 0-12 months, 13-24 months, etc) are influencing these trends.