Using Data To Drive Fundraising Decisions In Culture

Are you still measuring your fundraising success by dollars raised alone? It’s time to shift the conversation. As Q1 comes to a close, here is a smarter way to evaluate the health of your annual giving program. Nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, and executive directors need to look beyond lagging indicators like total revenue—and start tracking leading indicators that provide insight into your fundraising program. What is the Dependency Quotient? The Dependency Quotient is a leading indicator that helps you evaluate how dependent your organization is on your top donors. It highlights potential risk and allows your leadership team to take proactive steps. How to calculate it: Sum of top 5–10 donor contributions ÷ Annual organizational expenses = Dependency Quotient Dig into your donor data. Map your dependencies. Spark a conversation with your board or executive leadership. This simple metric can drive smarter fundraising strategy—before it’s too late to act. Want more strategy-forward fundraising guidance? Visit www.amponow.com to explore tools and insights for data-informed fundraising, strategic planning, and nonprofit leadership. #AMPO #Metrics #AnnualGiving

AI just identified your next major donor. It also just sent them the wrong message. Here's why both matter. Your AI tool analyzed giving patterns, engagement data, and wealth indicators. It correctly identified a donor with $50,000+ capacity who's been giving $500 annually for five years. Perfect targeting. Terrible execution. The AI sent them a generic major gift appeal about capital improvements. The donor's giving history shows exclusive support for program services. Their engagement data reveals they never open emails about buildings or equipment. The organizations succeeding with AI in fundraising aren't just using better technology. They're combining AI insights with human judgment. 👉 AI can tell you who to approach. It can't tell you how to approach them. 👉 AI can predict giving capacity. It can't predict emotional triggers. 👉 AI can identify patterns. It can't interpret personal motivations. 👉 AI can segment your database. It can't build authentic relationships. Pull up your last AI-generated donor recommendations. For each one, ask: Did you review their giving motivations before crafting the message? Did you consider their communication preferences and timing? Did you personalize the approach based on their relationship history? Did you involve human judgment in the final strategy? If you answered "no" to any of these, you've found your AI problem. The most successful fundraising programs I work with use AI as a research tool, not a replacement for relationship strategy: AI identifies prospects. Humans develop cultivation plans. AI predicts capacity. Humans determine approach timing. AI segments audiences. Humans craft personalized messages. AI tracks engagement. Humans interpret relationship signals. Your AI tools are only as effective as the human strategy that guides them. Stop treating AI as a fundraising autopilot. Start using it as a relationship compass. Because in fundraising, artificial intelligence amplifies human wisdom or human mistakes equally.

Welcome to the Future of Fundraising. The Virtual Engagement Officer is still less than 6 months into engagement with its very first donors, but in those short few months, Version2 has gathered thousands of data points that allow us to better understand the impact of Autonomous Fundraising. My team has begun to analyze this data and the first question we set out to answer was: How is donor behavior shifting? Are donors giving more? Are current donors renewing? And most importantly, are lapsed donors reactivating? The results are in, and they reveal a significant transformation: ·15% of the donors who have given under VEO management were SYBUNTs and lapsed, already well ahead of the 5-10% industry average of recapturing lapsed donors, proving that the right engagement strategy can bring donors back. ·21% of total giving, over $100k, are gifts coming from these re-engaged lapsed donors, highlighting a renewed commitment. ·30% of donors have increased their giving since working with the VEO. This increase alone totals over $151k in gifts to our Innovation Partner organizations. The fact that 15% of donors and 20% of gifts are coming from re-engaged lapsed donors is more than just a statistic—it’s proof that autonomous fundraising can combat the industry-wide trend of relying on fewer donors each year. Past supporters are ready to reconnect if given the right opportunity. Bringing donors back into a cycle of regular engagement both restores their giving status and re-establishes their long-term commitment to the organization. This is particularly important with donors who have the capacity for future major giving. It directly impacts their lifetime value and warms them for future major gift conversations. These numbers make one thing clear: digital labor is redefining the future of fundraising. By leveraging AI-powered engagement, automation, and data-driven strategies, we are transforming how we manage donor relationships, build pipeline, and ensure lasting donor connectivity. Fundraising teams now have a path to scale outreach, personalize interactions at unprecedented levels, and drive meaningful engagement—without increasing the human workload. We are just getting started. If you’re considering strategies for SYBUNTs and lapsed donor engagement, my team and I welcome the opportunity to connect with you to learn more, and stay tuned as we continue to analyze and share more insights into the data in the coming week.

Solid #fundraising strategies often get derailed by one of three things: ⚠️Anecdotal evidence (this ONE donor really liked it) ⚠️Shiny object syndrome (a fundraising trend that seems hard to pass up on) ⚠️Trying to copycat another organization's approach (even though they're in an entirely different field) And quite frequently, these derailments start in the board room. Now, this is obviously not to criticize board directors - they are the bedrock of a well-functioning organization. But the power differential is real. Just as real as the fact that board seats aren't typically filled with fundraising experts. So what can you do when you're caught between well-meaning board suggestions and limited fundraising bandwidth? The answer is: Use data to build consensus. The process always starts with asking what characteristics your most committed donors have. You can ask questions such as: ➡️ How were my top donors initially introduced to my organization? ➡️ What is my top donors’ ongoing motivation for supporting my organization? ➡️ What are the activities (think cultivation/stewardship) that matter to my top donors? ➡️ What is the messaging that resonates with them? … To find the answers, you need to sit down (I mean ACTUALLY sit down) and create profiles of your top donors. These profiles will give you a pretty clear idea for strategies to a) keep these donors and b) find more of them. And they'll give you the necessary evidence to push back on distracting fundraising tactics. More often than not, my work as a fractional CDO involves not only identifying the right strategy, but also building the coalition in the board room to support this approach. But what I also find is that EDs already have a good feeling for what needs to be done. So please trust yourself even if you don't consider yourself a "fundraising expert"! What fundraising suggestions have you seen that looked good but were challenging to implement? #ExecutiveDirectors #fundraising #Boards #strategy #nonprofit