Tag: Audience Building

Long Read: What does it take to deliver an outstanding donor experience?

Posted on by proppec

Hundreds of development professionals shared their views in the sector’s first professional study into what it takes to deliver an outstanding donor experience.

Holly Palmer, Lee Durbin and their team on volunteers crunched and analysed the results to produce a pretty unique report, chock-a-block full of insight. This is an essential read for everyone involved in HE fundraising.

https://hedonorexperience.com/research-report-fundraising-in-higher-education-the-donor-experience/

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The BIG 5 in fundraising performance metrics

Posted on by proppec

Reinier Spruit discusses how we’re in the relationship building business and how we need to measure and register every response.

Ironically, we must quantify the relations with our donors, so we can improve the quality of the contact we have with them.

There are a ton of metrics we can track, and should track, like email open rates, sign-up rates per hour, one-off cash donations and appeal response rates. But there are 5 that are simply much more important. Mainly because they are the building blocks for making sensible decisions for the longer term.

I call them the Big Five. The Big Five are Volume, Expenditure, Income, Retention and Return on Investment.

Find out more by clicking the link below:

https://101fundraising.org/2014/05/big-5-fundraising-performance-metrics/

Why crowdfund?

Posted on by proppec

Philippa Christoforou has been part of the OxReach team at Oxford University Innovation since 2016. Since then over £200,000 for social good projects originating at the Uhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-crowdfund-philippa-christoforouniversity of Oxford has been raised.

But why crowdfunding? Why not just apply for grant applications? What is the benefit to the project in watching the pledge count slowly creep towards the target, whilst the anxiety builds that we might not make it?

Here, Philippa describes her experience of crowdfunding and the benefits gained.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-crowdfund-philippa-christoforou

Colleges are going online to crowdsource donations, and they’re raising millions

Posted on by proppec

Getting alumni, especially younger graduates, to donate is a challenge for many colleges and universities, especially those that rely on approaches that could end up in voicemail or the rubbish bin.

Crowdfunding models are increasingly popular for students to undertake peer-to-peer and social fundraising on behalf of a fundraising program to bring in new donors.

In this article in the Washington Post, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel provides a number of real life examples of crowdfunding campaigns and the impact they’ve had on college and university fundraising.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/19/colleges-are-going-online-to-crowdsource-donations-and-theyre-raising-millions/

Should you be Crowdfunding?

Posted on by proppec

Crowdfunding isn’t a new concept; it’s been around for nearly two decades. However, it has recently become more prominent as an alternative tool for the Higher Education sector.

In this blog, Eliott Falvert-Martin explains how Crowdfunding gives donors a unique opportunity to get interested in a cause on an emotional level and becomes an acquisition tool.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-you-crowdfunding-elliot-falvert-martin

13 Ways Working at a Nonprofit is Like Star Wars

Posted on by proppec

If you’re anything like me – a quick escape into space can work wonders – you will enjoy this blog. If, however, you’ve never seen a Star Wars movie before, you can use this blog to bluff your way through a conversation by realising how similar a sci-fi romp and fundraising really is! 🙂

Regardless how you feel about Star Wars, this is a lovely intro on the fundraising characteristics needed to excel in fundraising by Ellie Burk.

https://www.classy.org/blog/ways-working-nonprofit-like-star-wars-gifs/

7 key considerations before you embark on major donor fundraising

Posted on by proppec

Major donor fundraising is not about quick wins. Instead, careful and considered relationship building between key stakeholders can support the process in much more effective terms.

How can this be achieved and institutional expectations met? UKFundraising comes to the rescue with 7 key considerations to make.

https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/02/03/7-key-considerations-before-you-embark-on-major-donor-fundraising/

Learn Everything about Sentiment Analysis using R

Posted on by proppec

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

A simple predictive score you can probably build in Excel

Posted on by proppec

Many smaller fundraising and non-profit teams can’t make the investment to fully utilise analytics.

In this blog, the great Peter Wylie uses data from two schools to demonstrate how to build a very simple predictive score using nothing but Excel.

https://cooldata.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/a-simple-score-you-can-probably-build-in-excel/

The change imperative

Posted on by proppec

When deciding on what to focus your time on, it’s also important to understand what makes you or your cause distinctive. The change imperative helps you to manage your competitive position.

In this insight written while developing the book “The challenge of being distinctive”, Susannah Baker explains her thinking.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/change-imperative-susannah-baker