BLOG - Are you using data to drive constituent engagement?
Are you using data to drive constituent engagement?
“Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong.”- Suhail Doshi, CEO, Mixpanel
In the fundraising world, we take this path or we just do what we have always done. Why change? Well, I will never forget the quote by Henry Ford that a senior development officer had on his desk in the 1990's "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got." For whatever reason, the fundraising world has been afraid of going against past history, especially if the organization has been successful. They continue the tried and true, what worked at another organization or resort to Doshi's hypothesis.
In today's world, we have the opportunity to do something different, if we are willing to gather, analyze and then make decisions based on our data. We all have data, some have it more organized and others not so much. How many of us have taken the time to actually use it to make decisions?
At a former organization, I forced myself to do a deep dive into our data. We were fortunate that we were able to gather on and off-line giving, email marketing, website usage, wealth screening, as well as event registration and attendance. I was somewhat amazed that 57% of our constituent base had not done anything, made a gift, opened an email, or visited the website, in the last three years.
It astonished me, especially given we had sent out well over 2 million emails to a database of about 60,000. We had "good" email addresses for about 60% of those people which meant that 36,000 people received an average of 55 emails in that time frame, not including those emails asking them to make a gift. They also had the opportunity to participate in one of nearly 300 events in the three years. 57% did nothing. It got my mind whirling.
All of us have limited resources, money, time, staff, etc. and finding the best way to utilize those resources is critical. I realized we had the opportunity to use this data to change the way we did business and it would not be based on what we had always done, a guess or a gut instinct, but hard applicable data. I started asking why are we treating the people who had done nothing in those three years the same as those who did?
I knew that even the best organizations are thrilled to get 50% participation in a given year and most would be happy with 25-30%. But typically they do not target those more likely to give in a dramatically different way. All LYBUNTS are not the same!
Have you considered your engagement/solicitation strategy based on hard data? Stop believing that what you have always done will always work or that trusting your instinct or gut will take you to new levels. Take the time to look at your data and make informed choices.
