How do you measure success? We're not talking about your life's worth here (though your answer in that context is uber important, too). No, we're talking about the much easier to measure, though often no less scary, world of fundraising.
So, how do you measure your fundraising success? Your answer to that question could alter your next fundraising campaign completely.
If your answer was, "Measure? Hmmm. That's an interesting idea. Let's try it sometime," then, stick with us baby, because you're gonna need it.
There are many ways to measure a campaign's success. Here are few:
- $$$$. The most obvious measure is clearly how much money you raised. That is, after all, the point of fundraising, isn't it?
- Response rate. This is the measurement of what percentage of your recipients responded to the campaign. You calculate it by dividing the total number of responses by the total number of letters (or emails) sent.
- Average gift amount. This measures the average gift amount you received per donor.
- Cost per dollar raised. Fairly self explanatory, you need to know how much each dollar is costing you. As a general rule of thumb, you want to keep your organization's average overhead to under $0.20 per dollar.
- Clickthrough rate. This measures what percentage of your recipients responsed (or clicked through) to the links in your email (or letter). If you are sending an email through a service like iContact, then you can easily see a detailed report of clickthroughs, right down to who clicked on what. If you're dealing with a paper mailing or other marketing medium, this is harder to measure. We recommend using a combination of a unique URL and Google Analytics. It's simple and free.
So, how do you measure your success? Share with us in your comments below.
Need help creating a successful fundraising campaign or interpreting the data you've already collected? Get in touch with us; we can help.
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