We Got Donor Commitment Scores – want to see who is “Great” and “Poor”?

September 22, 2011      Kevin Schulman, Founder, DonorVoice and DVCanvass

DonorVoice conducted an online, nationally (US) representative survey among 1200 recent (last 12 months), frequent (more than 2 gifts to cause based charities) donors.

The survey responses were collected between July 6th and 15th.  The fielding process adhered to best practices to assure maximum coverage across all days of the week and times of day.

The sampling margin of error on this sample is +/- 2.8% at the 95% confidence level.  These Donor Commitment Scores ™ are the best indicator of future behavior.  Moving donors from low to high Commitment results in a 131% improvement in 3 year lifetime giving.  Said another way, for every 1,000 donors you move from low to high Commitment, your organization can expect $200,000 in increased revenue.  This is the power of retention guided by Commitment.

A few things to note:

1) There is a lot of variance in these scores, ranging from 90’s to 50’s.  Variance means it effectively discriminates among organizations to identify real differences in the level of Commitment among their donors.

2) You will also notice that Commitment is not some proxy for superficial brand familiarity or market share – there are plenty of small groups that do well and large groups that do not.

3) The organizations with an asterisk are based upon small sample sizes and should be considered directional only.  That said, we have separate data that validates and supports the general hierarchy among these groups and therefore, if an organization is near the top, middle or bottom (even with an asterisk) it is likely this matches reality.

4) For what it is worth, we have applied this model in commercial settings and monopoly based cable companies (generally the scourge of the Earth when it comes to customer service and satisfaction) score in the upper 50’s with Walmart – a store you either hate of love – in the 60’s.

 

 

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