It All Starts With A Question

This article was featured in the APRA Upstate New York newsletter. Used with permission.

In this blog entry, we cover specific fundraising issues and our analytics suggestions to solve them. We wrote this short starter list to help you explore how using statistics boosts your shop’s performance.

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When starting a data mining project, we are often challenged by our management to “go do some data mining.” We can get stuck from there, unless the tool that we’ll use has already been chosen, like a screening service or a modeling vendor. Even then, making sure that we understand the question involved helps us frame how we set up the study and then what we do with the results.

​For instance, “Find more prospects” sounds like a clear directive; however, the related study can take many forms. This Driven by Data post considers the underlying questions related to this one request.

Issue	Suggestion
Your shop does not have enough major gifts prospects	Find donors whose single gifts are the highest of your group, and model for prospects who look like them
Your major gifts effort is waning	Find donors whose giving is escalating in the current fiscal year, and model prospects who look like them
Your annual giving program is not producing prospects for your major gifts program	Look at the top of the class – prospects whose average giving during your most recent complete fiscal year, or on average over the previous three years, indicates that they are your top donors
Your shop hired more gift officers who need prospects	Look more closely at capacity rather than giving, or at philanthropy to other organizations, to find new prospects for in-person qualification
Your shop is starting a campaign	Look for your donors whose lifetime giving is highest and model prospects who look like them
Recent economic changes have reduced your prospect base	Look for prospects whose giving was good during poor economic times (1981-84 or 2008-09, for example).

​The request, “Find more prospects for us,” can mean a variety of problem statements that are derived by understanding your business needs. Once you have established the underlying question, choose a good dependent variable for your study.
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Tweet us some of the questions you’re trying to answer: @Staupell or leave a comment below.