ProSpeak: Nonprofit Fundraisers Can Learn a Thing or Two From Business Intelligence

October 2008 By Dan Germain and Shadan Malik

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At the tactical level, or campaign-management view, users narrow in on the overall view to monitor different program segments and determine how each is performing in its entirety. For example, the capital campaign’s e-mail marketing segment might include five separate mailing periods, with each period consisting of an e-mail flight each week for one month. Business intelligence would allow a nonprofit to look at each of these pieces and determine how each was performing in terms of open rates and donations collected, etc. With this information, the program manager would be able to make accurate and timely assessments as to the progress and performance of the campaign, without the time needed to pull reports manually. It can all be pulled automatically from an online dashboard.

At the operational level, or a detail view, more specific details about the campaign are provided. How many e-mails were sent? When were the e-mails sent? At what time were they distributed? All of these questions can be answered with the operational view. A nonprofit can then see, for example, that the successful campaign was kicked off Tuesday morning and the less productive campaign was kicked off Friday afternoon. With a real-time view to this level of detail, a nonprofit can spot a problem as it’s happening and have time to make adjustments while it still can have an impact on the overall donation goal. The visual intelligence offered by dashboard technology enables the agility needed to make smart decisions quickly. Because the system automatically analyzes the data, there are no extra cycles spent assessing the situation. Learning that Tuesday is a better day than Friday to send e-mails allows the team to shift its strategy to ensure more success in reaching donors the following week.

Strengthen and motivate staff
Good business-intelligence practices reach beyond reporting and can help staff stay educated and tuned in to the organization as a whole, making them an effective motivational tool. As the saying goes, “knowledge is power,” and understanding what is happening empowers stakeholders to identify what must be done to remain successful. In the case of a capital campaign, it is critical that the target amount is met. If fundraisers are given the insight that a direct-mail initiative is not working but a phone-a-thon is bringing in the donations, within a moment’s time, actions can be taken to support more activities around phone-a-thons.

Empower the board of directors
With dashboards, compiling and analyzing a month’s worth of information can be done very quickly. And boards can be empowered to create their own dashboards to pinpoint the specific details they need. For example, a director might want to view how many people attended the annual gala and compare it to the amount of money raised at the event. Working with a library of charting options the data can be presented in various forms, enabling the director to easily see the ROI of the event.

Applying business-intelligence technology to a nonprofit is a smart upgrade to make. Now within reach for the sector, organizations can monitor themselves, their staffs and campaigns, and run more nimble fundraising programs, all with much less time, and resource commitment.

Dan Germain is vice president of customer support with Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit software provider Advanced Solutions International. Shadan Malik is president and CEO of Troy, Mich.-based business-intelligence technology provider, iDashboards.

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