Case study – planned giving prospecting

Perusing the Prospect-DMM recently, I spotted an entry from Michael Pawlus of Grand Valley State University.  He generously shared his presentation slides from the APRA International conference in New Orleans.

 

He steps you through a scenario of how to build a segmentation score for planned giving donors if you don’t have the resources or time to invest in extensive modeling.  His method encourages us to first look to our own intuition and check to see if our assumptions are true. What a great approach!

While it’s impossible to receive the full impact of Michael’s presentation just by reading his slides, his underlying messages are clear and easy to understand.  Click on the slide image to open the deck.

Case study – Harvey Mudd College’s prospect scoring formula

Posted recently to the Prspct-L and LinkedIn, Harvey Mudd College has shared their formula for assigning scores to constituents that help with filtering and selection when attempting to narrow down a pool of candidates.

Click the image above to read the full article.

Blooming Tuesday

This year I planted an old childhood favorite so I could make one of those pretty cotton boll wreaths for my winter front door.  This is an ornamental variety of cotton.  The flowers, just like the agricultural type, resemble hibiscus.

 

After they bloom, the fruit develops.  And hopefully (!) in another month we’ll be enjoying fresh fluffy white cotton.

 

 

have a great week 🙂

Online fundraising scorecard

Breathing a sigh of relief after launching your online fundraising page might be a little premature.  There’s always room for improvement, and thankfully there’s a new report from Durham+Company and NextAfter outlining the components of an online fundraising platform that contributes to more income.

Here’s the infographic summary, but to get the full report click the link above.

Bookmark this – Portal to Texas History

After my computer got a browser upgrade recently, I found myself sifting through old bookmarks, where I located this gem tucked away.  It’s perfect for old newspaper articles and researching facts about multi-generational Texas families.  Exactly the sort of tool any prospect researchy sort would love.

 

 

 

This website is maintained by the University of North Texas.  Click on the title to add this url to your personal research library!

APRA GH’s summer workshop almost here

 

If you’ve been meaning to register, don’t delay.  Registration couldn’t be easier (just click on the image above).  The morning with the one and only Josh Birkholz promises to be incredible!

Hope to see you there 🙂

How to calculate date intervals in Excel

This incredibly useful function isn’t exactly mentioned in the Excel formula list.  It’s one of those “off-the-menu” items you have to know about.

 

DATEDIF computes the interval between two dates in Excel.  You could use it to compute any of the following

• donor’s overall giving horizon (Date of Last Gift minus Date of First Gift)
• number of months since a donor’s last gift
• number of years between degree date (graduation) and first gift date

 

So … you’ve got the general idea, right?  This formula is crazy fabulous!

 

Here is the syntax (from Pearson Software Consulting):

 

Just click on the image to read the full information available from Pearson about this formula and start using it next time you’re trying to filter, or prioritize or inform or just plain report out some basic information for a group of constituents.

Persuasion modeling – the next big thing

The next frontier of predictive modeling is not about predicting a possible outcome for each constituent (such as identifying constituents who are most likely to lapse, renew, make a planned gift, etc.).  The next frontier of predictive modeling is known as persuasion modeling.

 

The objective is to predict the type of contact method your organization should apply to each constituent in the data base to maximize that constituent’s chance of a successful outcome (such as renewing, or not lapsing).   I just happened to find a link to the keynote address video from the 2013 Predictive Analytics World conference where the speaker, Eric Siegel, described the method.  It is a truly informative presentation and completely easy to understand.

 

Here’s an article from HP’s Chris Surdak on why persuasion modeling is the next big thing.  He writes it from a for-profit point of view, but the same principles apply to our sector too.  We not only want to know which communication channel will likely have the greatest positive effect on each constituent, but we also want to know whether we should be using that communication channel at all!  Reaching out could possibly have an unintended negative effect, so we only want to employ more expensive levels of communication treatment (like call centers) to those constituents likely to be persuaded to give again.

 

Definitely take a look at the video, it is illuminating and will make you feel like you’ve got the inside scoop on analytics best practices.

Countdown to Summer Workshop 2015

We absolutely can’t wait and hope to see you there!

August desktop calendar

Sorry this is posting a bit late, but the artwork is beautiful.  Enjoy this free download from hands and hustle!