The importance of supporter and charity analytics

4 min read

With the rise in UK cost of living, budgets watched closely and every decision needing to be backed up by solid justification, analytics is one of the most important tools in your arsenal.

This is especially true of the charity industry. When raising money and awareness are the biggest priority, budgets are often watched even more scrupulously, and high return on investment (ROI) and level of efficiency is critical. There’s little room for error.

Having a solid understanding of data analytics can be key to success as it allows you to engage with donors while spending less.

Below, we’re going to explore why charities need to focus on analytics and how you can streamline your charity analysis processes. Helping you to get quality, actionable insights and make data-led decisions that help secure the future of your organisation.

What is charity analytics?

Charity analytics is the use of data analysis and statistical methods to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of charitable organisations and their activities. By leveraging data, charities can make informed decisions, optimise their operations, and better achieve their missions.

What is supporter analytics and why is it so important?

Supporter analytics transforms raw donor and giver data into actionable insights, enabling organisations to be more strategic, efficient and impactful. By harnessing the power of supporter data, charities can enhance their fundraising efforts, improve programme outcomes and ultimately, better serve their causes.

Your organisation likely tracks supporter behaviour using analytics to some degree, but it’s vital that you really dive deep into your data. The more data you have, the better you can use it to improve your marketing, fundraising and operational strategies.

Here are eight reasons why you should focus on supporter analytics.

1. Measurement

Your non-profit will have key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives it strives to meet over a short- and long-term period. Analytics will give you a clear picture of whether you’ve achieved those targets and how.

Not only this, but if you haven’t met all your objectives, your data should give you in-depth reasoning as to why, which can help increase accountability. This gives you the opportunity to make changes to your strategies so you can make improvements going forward.

2. Reporting

Thorough reporting provides your supporters, stakeholders, volunteers and board members with a complete picture of the performance of your organisation. This provides transparency and accountability and gives everyone a full understanding of how the organisation has done over a certain period and where things will likely go moving forward.

Reports can include detailed visualisations which can be made accessible to everyone, or teams, and can tell a story about different areas of the organisation. Types of reports that could be produced include:

• Financial reports
• Operational reports 
• Impact reports
• Donor and fundraising reports
• Compliance and regulatory reports 
• Marketing reports

3. Ensuring compliance

A key part of proper supporter analytics is ensuring that it abides by data protection and privacy regulations, such as GDPR. A big part of keeping donor trust is making sure their data is handled in accordance with legal and ethical standards. Chances are, as a non-profit, you’ll gather a large amount of customer-related data, such as names, addresses and even banking details.

This information must always be kept confidential, which requires stringent security and encryption processes.

4. Donor segmentation and targeting 

Charity analytics can help you learn more about specific types of supporters who donate to your charity. Segmentation enables charities to customise their outreach, ensuring that donors receive messages that resonate with their interests and past giving patterns, thus improving engagement and retention. 

There’s a wide variety of ways you can segment supporters, including:

• Demographics (age, education, location)
• Donation behaviour (frequency, recency, value)
• Interests and motivation
• Level of engagement
• Communication preferences

This allows you to tailor how, when, why and where you communicate with specific segments based on what they prefer. This ensures a greater level of:

• Personalisation
• Engagement
• Efficiency
• Retention
• Growth

5. Remarketing to existing supporters

A big part of continuing the growth and success of your non-profit is not necessarily relying on new donors, but ensuring the loyalty of existing supporters. Analysing your data allows you to effectively remarket to existing supporters and forge long-lasting relationships that see them repeatedly donate.

You can also segment your supporters to specifically target those who are:

• One-time donors
• Lapsed donors
• Regular donors
• High-value donors
• Volunteers
• Event attendees

This provides you with additional avenues for marketing and communication to engage and re-engage supporters through personalisation.

6. Increasing supporter lifetime value

Analytics techniques can help you to track and calculate supporter lifetime value (LTV). You can then use this insight to segment your supporters, and tailor their messaging appropriately to encourage repeat contributions, and deepen their relationship with the charity.

7. Promoting relevant causes

Using analytics ensures you’re in the best position possible to promote causes related to your organisation. This is because your data gives you a complete understanding of your supporters so you can optimise your strategies and maximise their impact.

8. Risk mitigation

Regularly analysing data can help you spot when trends don’t go in your favour and act as an early warning system for potential issues that may be on the horizon. This allows you to make decisions to improve the performance of your fundraising efforts to get back on track. It can also prevent similar issues from repeating and means you’re far more flexible and quicker to adapt.

Learn more about how Apteco software supports charities

Are you ready to get more out of your non-profits analytics? Discover more about how Apteco supports charities and boost your fundraising efforts today.