Keeping a track of how nonprofits are functioning is crucial. More importantly, determining how efficiently they function is an accurate way to assess the growth and functionality of your nonprofit. One metric you want to focus on is how the nonprofit raises money. For this, we need to look at key performance indicators or KPIs. Relevant performance indicators that show you how your organization is doing can be hard to find. Additionally, it may be challenging to identify weak links in a company’s performance profile without the aid of a KPI management system.
Despite that, since a nonprofit has many working parts just like conventional businesses, there will be core KPIs that can be measured. In this article, we have selected some indicators you can look at to help assess the growth of your nonprofit.
1. Growth Rate of Donation Amount
Perhaps the easiest way to track the growth of your nonprofit is by tracking the growth of donation sizes. They are directly correlated. As an example, if you want to grow your non profit organization by 20% that year, you can encourage your donors to put in 20% more. You also want to be focusing on a core group of donors that give a big sum of money. If your current efforts net you a lot of small donors, you might want to shift your focus to getting bigger ones. Also devoting more time to major donors rather than dividing up your time for all donors might be a better idea. In the long run, it will help you get more donations.
2. Increase in Donation Size
By tracking the size of donations you can ensure that your nonprofit’s goals are being met. This is a good KPI as you can go back and see the differences. You might notice instances where donation growth would have stalled or dropped during certain times of the year. This information will help you plan ahead and ensure that more effort is being put in during those times. The growth will help you look at future cash flows and you can effectively adjust your nonprofit’s goals.
3. Growing the Number Of Donors, Year By Year
One of the easiest metrics you can track is the number of donors you add on each year. You want to accurately keep an account of the number of donors you gain or lose each year. The latter means that you will also fall behind in other KPIs. Negative donor retention means that your organization is not doing well and this is a major red flag.
4. Percentage of Pledges Fulfilled
When you are dealing with people who have pledged a certain amount, the prime concern is, how much of the ‘pledged’ value can you actually get from your donors. To keep things clear and so that you can track the funds coming in, it is important to quantify the pledges. This can be done by checking the percentage of all pledges that have been fulfilled. Having this metric on hand will prepare you to work more towards fulfilling pledges.
5. Donor Retention
Making new relationships and getting new donors is always the biggest challenge that a nonprofit can face during its lifespan. Ask anyone and you will find that getting new people to join a cause is harder than maintaining a relationship with an old donor. This is why it is important to track the donors who continue giving. Tracking the percentage of donors that continue to contribute is a very important KPI. You should try and retain old donors and it is not as hard as it seems.
6. Percentage of Recurring Gifts
This is one of the most important metrics. You want to keep a track of how many times you get gifts from the same people on a yearly basis. You will have to separate the one-time gifts from recurring gifts. You can do this by tracking the percentage of recurring gifts. Once you recognize who is giving the recurring gifts, you will be able to leverage that information. You can do so by increasing the number of donors or by increasing the size of their donations.
Final thoughts
These key performance indicators are important for any nonprofit to track its progress and see if it can fulfill its goals. By using a dedicated software solution you can track the KPIs effortlessly. There are additional tools in the software that can help you get the best out of these KPIs. No matter which angle you look at it, tracking performance is the key.
