Your data tells a story: Are you listening?

Do you want to grow planned giving? Do you have a shrinking annual fund? Is your fundraising campaign stalled? Graham Pelton explain how you can look at what your data is telling you. If you are willing to transform the way you fundraise, data-driven strategies will yield better decisions, improve performance, and accelerate your growth. […]

How do we know philanthropy helps students succeed?

There is little doubt that philanthropy supports student success. Just don’t ask how many students receive meaningful supports thanks to donors, or how donations correlate to increases in student retention. The way universities usually silo their data, those questions are nearly impossible to answer. We ought to have answers. Reporting income raised is not the […]

More Than Just Data: Why Actionable Insights Matter

There’s no question that customer experience (CX) is a data-driven discipline. After all, at the foundation of most CX programs are close-ended surveys designed to capture and analyze customer feedback. Yes, metrics are a crucial element of every successful CX program. With metrics, you can establish a clear performance baseline and track trends based on […]

Big Data Analysis

Big Data is not just the ability to store large amounts of data, more important is what we can do to the data in that large volume, how we use the data with such large volumes. One of its uses is for data analysis needs. Big Data Analysis can be done in order to assist […]

Business intelligence vs. business analytics: Where BI fits into your data strategy

Traditionally, enterprises have focused their data strategies around business intelligence (BI), but the rise of predictive and prescriptive analytics platforms, in part thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence, is changing the equation. Even business intelligence itself is evolving, tipping in capabilities previously exclusive to business analytics platforms. Analysts and consultants agree that understanding the […]

What’s the difference between data, analytics and insights experts?

Utilising data to make better business decisions is on the agenda for the majority of organisations, with almost three-quarters (74%) saying they want to be “data-driven,” according to a study by Forrester. However, data is only valuable if it transpires into meaningful actions – only 29% of organisations said their data efforts have led to […]

Experts on How Technology Is Changing the Future of Fundraising

Five key figures in fundraising tech reflect on how technology has changed fundraising and what’s next. With contributions from Mike Gianoni (President and CEO, Blackbaud), Bill Strathmann (CEO, Network for Good), Mike Geiger, M.B.A., C.P.A. (President and CEO, Association of Fundraising Professionals), Steve Spinner (CEO, RevUp Software) and Jean-Paul Guilbault (President and CEO, Community Brands). […]

New edition of What Small Charities Need to Know About CRM Systems

Ivan Wainewright acknowledges that buying a new CRM system or fundraising database is a daunting challenge for most charities and not-for-profit organisations, so he has written this book to feature issues that smaller not-for-profit organisations need to consider and be aware of. This free book has been written for people whose day job is not […]

Data Governance: 3 Key areas to focus your efforts

Data governance is needed to ensure your organisation can consume data which has integrity and quality. But how do you focus your efforts so that your governance programme can deliver the results needed? Toochukwu Philip Ibegbu MBA shares with us how he was able to successfully launch data governance initiatives that made the most impact. […]

Learn Everything about Sentiment Analysis using R

In this technical blog, Suresh Kumar Gorakala explains how to turn written comments into descriptive sentiment. This is extremely helpful when trying to categorise, segment and understand your audiences better. This example focuses on Twitter comments, but this technique can be applied to any text field, including telephone call notes and emails. http://www.dataperspective.info/2013/08/sentiment-analysis-using-r.html?m=1