4 powerful ways charities can use data analytics
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How well do you really know your donors?
Data is everywhere. Yet despite this, less than half of charitable organisations find it easy to analyse and take action on their donor data.
The truth is that data analysis has never been more important, especially in the current climate where the cost-of-living crisis is having a knock-on effect on donor behaviour.
Basically, if you want to make informed decisions, reach new audiences, and create campaigns that resonate with your donors, you need to use your data.
In a nutshell, data analytics can help you to:
- Monitor your fundraising performance and strategy
- Monitor, evaluate, and improve results across your campaigns and appeals
- Optimise and automate your communications
- Target supporters in the right way
- Provide structure and strategy to your programmes
- Plan and refine your strategies
Pretty powerful stuff, right? So, if you’d like to find more about how charities can use data analytics to get ahead, let’s dive in…
4 ways charities can use data analytics
1. Use your data to get to know your donors
If you’re going to make solid, informed business and strategy decisions, you need to utilise your data to get to know your donors. It’s as simple as that.
You might think you already have a pretty good understanding about who your donors are, but you need to go one step further and use your data to uncover key data points about your donors.
How old are your donors? How do their preferences and values align with your current fundraising programmes? How often do they donate? And how do they donate?
By using your data to really get to know your donors, you can tailor your approach to optimise donor engagement and nurture your donor relationships.
2. Provide structure and strategy to your programmes
Another powerful way that charities can use data analytics is by using donor data to segment your audience so you can determine your next steps.
Profiling and segmentation enable you to truly understand your donors, giving you the information you need to provide structure to your programmes by working out exactly who you should be speaking to and why.
By segmenting your audience into subcategories based on demographic, donation amounts, and overall engagement, you can refine your processes, inform your campaigns and engage with your supporters in the best possible way.
3. Improve supporter experience
All of this leads to the same thing: enhancing supporter journeys and improving supporter experience.
Supporter experience has never been more important. 93% of charities say that supporter experience is important to them, whilst two thirds make it a priority. However, despite this, only 25% of charities think they are delivering a good supporter experience – which is why you need to use your data.
By looking at statistics such as donor retention rate, the lifetime value of donors, and the average value of donation, as well as information such as email open rates and bounce rates, you can get a complete picture of your supporter journey.
For example, if your acquisition rates are higher than your retention rates, you might be doing a brilliant job at attracting supporters but be struggling with donor retention – or it could be that you’re targeting the wrong audience in the first place.
This analysis will help you to identify what’s working and what’s not, so you can pinpoint areas for improvement and improve targeting, response rates, and prompt levels.
4. Robustly plan for the future
Finally, charities can also use data science and analytics to refine strategies and plan for the future.
By utilising your data, you can reveal key trends and important patterns for accurate forecasting that can help inform your future decisions.
Essentially, by turning your data into insights, you can make data-driven decisions that enable you to hone your strategy, improve efficiency and performance, and ultimately take your fundraising to the next level.
Want to use your data to get ahead?
We don’t mean to brag, but at Wood for Trees, there’s nothing we don’t know about data analytics for charities.
In fact, our team of awesome analysts are experts in modelling and presenting your data in enlightening ways to drive in-depth insights and effective actions.
We do it by using a range of tools and techniques such as post-campaign analysis, segmentation, machine learning, and forecasting, combined with storytelling and data visualisations, to help you unlock the power of your data.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help, simply get in touch with our team today.