In these difficult economic times, it is critical for fundraising organizations to focus their limited time and resources on those activities that have the greatest demonstrated impact on giving. To address this need we worked with one of the top fundraising organizations, the Federations of North America to determine which activities and perceptions had the greatest statistical impact on donor giving. We surveyed close to 7,000 donors who were contributing in the range of $1,000-$10,000 per year in more than two dozen of the largest chapters and found some eye-opening information. For example:

• Increasing donor giving: The question with the largest impact on donor giving was the alignment between donor values and the mission of the organization. Effectively educating the donors on values was also linked to giving.
• Return on investment: We looked at client sponsored events, confirming an association between attendance and increased giving. We found that a donor attending one more event increased their giving, on average, by $30. This, along with other giving drivers, suggested to our clients a tangible metric for evaluating events.
• Efficiency: 23% of donors did not know if the organization was efficient in spending on overhead and administration. Moreover, these donors who did not have an opinion made smaller gift increases, while those donors with a negative opinion on organizational efficiency did not differ statistically from those who had a high opinion. Since lack of knowledge appears to have a more deleterious effect on giving than does having a negative opinion, our client is exploring ways of being more transparent about internal spending.

These types of findings help our clients to focus their limited energies from the many distractions in the current economy to the activities that empirically affect donor giving and in which they are underperforming. In today’s economy, this type of analysis is broadly applicable to all non-profit organizations, from fundraising networks to schools to community organizations. The ability to allocate resources to activities that drive increases in giving is critical to success is these challenging times.