Why did giving drop last quarter?
If you’ve ever answered that question in a board meeting with a theory instead of a number, this one’s for you.
Here’s what I keep finding.
Your system knows Amara gave $50 on March 4. It knows the amount, the date, and how to send her a receipt.
It doesn’t know she gave because her mother was once helped by an organization like yours.
It doesn’t know she shared the campaign with her small group, or that Daniel — who you’ve been calling a new donor — came through her.
And when she goes quiet in August, you may see the silence — but not what changed around it.
We’ve built most of the sector’s technology around recording transactions. Far less of it helps us understand the relationship around them.
That’s what makes “why did giving drop?” such a brutal question.
Not because you don’t know your donors. You probably know them better than any software does.
It’s because the evidence is scattered, and nothing gives you the whole story of what actually moved.
Roughly four out of five new donors aren’t retained into the following year.
We talk about that like it’s a donor problem.
I’m starting to think it’s also a visibility problem.
You can’t keep what you can’t see leaving.
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If you run fundraising somewhere: how do you spot a donor going quiet before the year-end report tells you?
I’m collecting answers.