I’ve been fiddling around with a list of favorite fundraising metrics … the fewest numbers I would most like to know about my/your donors to judge my/your direct marketing fundraising performance. Or the performance of our consultants, for that matter.

How about this list …

1. Current net cost per new donor, by acquisition media (Most nonprofits must subsidize prospecting, so it’s OK for this number to be a negative one … but how negative?!).

2. Number of new donors who were acquired at that net cost in past twelve months, by media; and number that can be reasonably projected for next twelve months (What is your viable universe looking like?).

3. First-year retention rate for new donors, by acquisition media (The linchpin of future value).

4. Percent of file participating in monthly giving/sustainer program (Do they really love you?).

5. Net lifetime value of donor (projected over, say, three to five years), by acquisition media (How else can you know how much to invest in acquisition? How else can you tell if your recruiting is well-targeted?).

6. Annual measure of ‘bonus money’ (Maybe someone else gets to count it, but it’s yours!):

• Dollar value of bequests generated from ‘small gift’ donor file;
• Dollar value of major gift donors (say, $1000+) generated from ‘small gift’ donor file.

7. Growth in e-relationships over past twelve months (No immediate dollar value here; this is meant to suggest fundraising potential):

• Unique visitors to website(s);
• Email address file size (actives only);
• Social media friends, followers, etc.

8. All of the above with their respective most recent three-year trends.

I can think of a lot of additional numbers that I would like to know. But those above, especially when reviewed in the context of any available comparables from my nonprofit’s fundraising sector, would be plenty to get me started on assessing where my program stood and what improvements to focus upon.

Any additional ‘must know’ numbers you think I should have?

Tom

P.S. Roger would note that these are largely ‘backward’ looking measures. Useful for benchmarking, assessing year-over-year progress, making basic diagnostics, and useful — to a point — in guiding future fundraising strategy and tactics. But with respect to the latter, made more powerful if combined with the latest data overlays and modeling tools that permit house files to be better plumbed. That’s what DonorTrends is all about.