Let’s face it: acquiring new donors is an expensive, difficult proposition. Due to increased costs, short audience attention spans, media fragmentation, and a high signal-to-noise ratio, it is increasingly difficult to break through the clutter and introduce your organization to potential supporters. It seems increasingly unlikely that the expense of donor acquisition will ever decrease.
Savvy fundraisers no longer evaluate acquisition solely by short-term indicators of success such as percent response and average gift. Instead, they use statistical analysis to predict the potential lifetime value (LTV) of the donors they acquire by various media channels and recruiting methods as soon as a minimum amount of giving history can be mined for answers. Armed with these forecasts, they will evaluate the cost of acquiring and cultivating these donors against their potential lifetime income – however long that donor lifetime might be – directing media resources toward the most productive channels.
For this reason, Campbell Rinker has developed turnkey processes to deliver estimates of lifetime value for your key media channels, campaigns or donor giving groups. We work with you to collect the necessary data, analyze the numbers, and synthesize the potential income and cost factors into the insights you need to succeed.
Specific estimates are important because both the cost and the value of new donors vary widely (and not always in the same direction), depending upon the source, list/audience, offer and creative, etc. Over time, Campbell Rinker helps you develop your knowledge-base of the factors that affect your lifetime costs and the values we forecast your various new donor strategies will produce.