Run With Your Data!
I’m a distance runner, and during my running career I’ve crunched a lot of numbers to determine how I can run faster and longer. And at NPower Seattle, I manage our web and database team, and help customers figure out what sorts of technology solutions they can implement that will help them better meet their mission.
Both of those areas of my life collide around looking at data - how much, when, how fast, how often, how much work, what’s the return on investment, how can I do better - those apply to both running and to donor management.
My running watch quit recently, and I had to send it back - so for the last two weeks I’ve been running without access to the real time data to which I’ve grown accustomed. So lately, instead of glancing at my watch, measuring my heart rate, checking how fast I ran that last mile - I’ve been thinking of what data is really important.
Before I tell you about what running data is important to me - you should take a few minutes to think about a few key questions regarding your donor management:
- What is the core set of data that you need easy access every day to measure your success?
- Have you made sure that the data you want to collect is the right data?
- Are you distracted from your everyday work by the data that lives on the fringes? The extra phone number field that you don’t really use, the summer mailing address widget, the “this donor is connected to that donor is connected to that funder is connected to my best friend Lou” feature? (Don’t get me wrong - that might be the data that you need to have a successful donor management practice - but you should make sure those features all add commensurate value!)
So - here’s what I re-discovered about the tools I need to help me run better:
- I need to know the total duration of my run
- I need to know how fast I completed each mile
- I need to know how hard I worked
And that’s it. I don’t need (but can be distracted by) multiple countdown timers, the altitude and temperature, the fraction of a second measurement in between heart beats, my pace in meters, miles per hour and so on. But if I pay the most attention to the duration, the speed of each mile, and the effort required - I’ll run better.
And those other things add some value around the edges, to be sure. And they’re fun. And frankly - on some days it’s easier to obsess about why my GPS unit didn’t measure the distance properly. But those things don’t help me achieve my running goals - measuring the time, the speed and my effort level do.
So - what’s happening in your donor management practice these days? Are you distracted by what your tools aren’t doing and is that preventing you from reaching out to your donors? Are you measuring the right things? And do you know how to use those measurements to further your mission?
If not, take a look at your tools, sure. But make sure you know what you want from those tools first!
Here’s a longer comparison - both from personal experience!
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Running |
Donor Management |
When I first started running - I didn’t have a watch. I’d take my alarm clock out to the track, wait until the minute clicked from one number to the next, would set down the alarm clock and tear around the track for a mile. I’d pick up the alarm clock, count the blinks until the minute number changed again - and then do the math to see how fast I’d covered that mile.You can see that this was a pretty challenging system:
Problems:
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Imagine running a nonprofit and a donor campaign without a great database. You’d keep lists in Excel and Word, and in Outlook. You wouldn’t be able to easily know where someone worked, why they gave - or why they didn’t. You probably wouldn’t be able to run comparative reports, either, add would likely express a lack of confidence in that key data.You can see how this would be a pretty challenging system:
Problems:
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So - I purchased a stopwatch. It wasn’t very expensive, and while it had a few bells and whistles, it did three things exceptionally well:
My running improved dramatically. I could tell when I started too fast (or too slowly). I could see if I was running an even effort throughout the run. I could tell what an uphill or a downhill would do to my per mile pace. And I could review that information later, and even compare one run to the other. Outcome:
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So - you implement a donor management / constituent management system. It’s affordable, and doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it does a few things exceptionally well:
You can imagine that your capacity to forecast and secure donations will go up - and you’ll be able to budget more effectively, too. For instance, if you don’t have enough of those individual giving opportunities in the “pending” stage - you’ll know immediately that your giving total is at risk. Outcome:
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| The stopwatch was so good, I figured that a heart rate monitor would be better - and it was. My first heart rate monitor was pretty basic - it really only did one thing well. It measured my heart rate. It didn’t save it to a file, give me an average, beep, or anything. It just displayed by current effort level. My running improved dramatically - turns out I was running too hard and too often.My next heart rate monitor was better - it beeped, it stored, it compared. And I enjoyed it more because of all of those things - but my running only improved a little.My next gadget was a GPS device that purportedly would tell me exactly how far I’d traveled. This was also fun, although my running probably suffered as I was now wearing a watch to track my heart rate, a strap around my chest, and a GPS device on my arm - plus a second watch to display the distance.My final gadget (and the one that is back in the shop) has a footpad to keep track of distance - so I’m back down to one watch. And it helps - I can run anywhere and have a reasonable amount of certainty regarding the distance. But the key features are still the important ones - how far, how fast, at what pace, and at what effort.
Lesson:
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Your basic donor management / CRM was so good, you decide to upgrade. You add in a tool that lets you send enewsletters to your stakeholders, and tracks their response. This is great - you still have all of your data in one place, but you have a very effective outreach tool.And then you incorporate some website forms that allow website visitors to let you know that they want to find out more about your agency. This is also good - but without a communications and outreach plan - the return on your investment is small.So you add a tool to collect donations online. This helps too - but without a plan to drive site traffic - your results aren’t great.
Your database is flexible, though - so you add business rules and automate to do lists and more. And you end up with a complicated database. Lesson:
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Patrick Shaw’s Weblog / Measuring the right stuff wrote:
[...] the Vancouver Marathon - I ran with my brother Frank. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my running watch was in the shop - and it didn’t arrive in time for me to take it to the race - so I ran the [...]
Posted on 05-May-08 at 7:37 am | Permalink