Every nonprofit organization should know its target donors. If you have not already identified the constituents who are most likely to give, doing so can be helpful for guiding future fundraising efforts. The mission and purpose of most not-for-profits are not one-size-fits-all. Developing personas for each target donor demographic can be useful for engagement, information, outreach and fundraising.
Analyzing All of Your Constituents
Whether you have some idea of your target demographic or are unsure which constituents should be the focal point for communication and giving appeals, it is important to analyze your constituency on a regular basis. Most nonprofit CRMs have built-in analytics tools, but integration software is helpful for Raiser’s Edge NXT integrations for external processing.
In addition to CRM and any third-party analytics tools an organization uses, Omatic integration software also provides helpful resources. Tools such as ScoreOmatic for affinity and engagement scoring, SegmentOmatic for segmentation and QueryOmatic for advanced query management can supplement a CRM and any other resources for constituent analysis.
Separate By Previous Donor Activity
The SegmentOmatic and ScoreOmatic utilities in the Omatic Cloud can be useful for narrowing down your constituent base to your most likely donors. Integration software is particularly useful for organizations that use CRM software such as the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, which requires the use of an external application for fundraising.
In addition to past donation data, some of the best database tips for charities pertain to engagement data. Constituents who are in your target donor demographic may be those who go out of their way to engage with an organization. Looking at the similarities between these supporters in terms of age, basic income and education levels can be helpful for defining a target demographic.
Develop Target Donor Personas
Analyzing constituents based on past engagement and giving can identify target donors. If an organization does not have access to the necessary data for reasons related to the CRM software or data management practices that are in place, stakeholders may want to pursue a Classy Salesforce integration or integrate any other software. In general, the more data that is available for queries and segmentation, the more insight stakeholders stand to gain from demographic analyses.
Based on the results of these queries, you can start to develop one or more personas that reflect the types of donors on which you want to focus your appeals. These personas can guide experimentation with alternate contact methods or approaches to personalizing messaging and fundraising. It is important to continue to refine the target demographic of an organization over time to account for shifts in a supporter base or the growing availability of data following a successful integration.
Over time, the target demographics of an organization may change or develop. It is important for nonprofit staff and stakeholders to regularly take stock of constituents on the basis of metrics such as age, social media usage, frequency of giving and donation amounts. Segmenting records based on these and other factors can help you zero in on target donors to derive or refine target donor demographics.
