November 28, 2025 • 30 mins
As Giving Tuesday and the year-end fundraising season arrive, now is the time for nonprofits to double down on the metrics that truly drive growth. In this refreshed episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast, Meghan sits down with Carly Berna of Virtuous to unpack the most essential data points every fundraiser needs to understand before year-end appeals hit full speed. From donor retention and average gift size to recurring giving, acquisition costs, portfolio balance, and the brand-new “days to second gift” metric, Carly breaks down how these insights can shape smarter asks, stronger donor journeys, and more predictable revenue during the most generous season of the year. If you’re preparing for Giving Tuesday or mapping out your year-end strategy, this conversation will help you focus on the numbers that matter most.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
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(00:26):
Welcome back to the NonprofitHub Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer.
Joined today by Carly Berna,who's the fundraiser in
residence at Virtuous.
Has a long fundraisingbackground to herself, so I'm
excited to dig in specificallyon this episode as part of our
Nonprofit 101 series, kind ofgetting back to the basics.
I'm excited to dig in with Carlytoday on Virtuous' benchmark
(00:48):
report because I thinkespecially when we start out in
fundraising, there's so manythings to track and watch and
look at.
Trying to keep them all straightand decide what should be the
priority can really be a littlebit overwhelming, especially as
you're just starting out.
So I think this is a great topicfor this series.
So Carly, welcome in.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
(01:09):
Yeah, I'm excited.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour background.
I know as a fundraiser, you'vegot a lot of experience.
So share a little bit about howyou came to Virtuous and kind of
your background a little bit aswe dig in today.
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
Sure.
So I was in the fundraisingspace for over 10 years.
I was the chief marketing anddevelopment officer at a$30
million nonprofit in Phoenix.
Three years into that journey, Ihad to switch CRMs because I
just felt like we weren'tgetting the fundraising power we
really needed from our CRM.
So I went through the process ofchoosing Virtuous amongst other
(01:41):
CRMs.
And then I was a seven-yearVirtuous customer before I
joined Virtuous last year.
And, you know, like you said,like I love to be able to use my
fundraising knowledge toactually apply it to the product
and speak to our customers in away that really makes sense to
them because I've literally beensitting in their seats.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
That's great.
So I I saw the VirtuousBenchmark report last year.
Got to see a little bit of thethis year version at the
responsive summit last week.
So tell me what the biggestdifference is for maybe for
someone who read last year's andis now looking at this one.
What maybe changed?
What's new?
(02:20):
What are you most excited aboutin this new one?
Before we dig into the actualresults.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
Yeah, I'll also just add, like, last year was
Virtuous's first benchmarkreport.
And when I came to Virtuous, Itold Gabe, like, hey, I've been
reading all the other CRM'sbenchmark reports for years
because you don't have abenchmark report.
And for me as a fundraiser, likebenchmark reports were so
important because I needed to beable to tell my board, like,
this is where we stand accordingto the industry, as they would
(02:46):
say to me, Well, our donorretention should be this high.
And I would be like, Well, whydo you think that?
Like you're just kind of pullingthat number out of nowhere.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
But this year, there are acouple things changed in the
benchmark report.
We added a new metric, which isdays to second gift.
Uh, last year we looked at firstto second gift conversion rate,
which we looked at this yearalso.
But I feel like looking at daysto second gift, you can really
(03:08):
measure that and tell, hey, howcan I improve that?
What do I need to do with a newdonor welcome series?
Like getting someone to a secondgift is like a huge milestone
and gets them to continue tostay with the organization.
We also added in customer casestudies of those who have like
improved their average gift ortheir donor retention or
whatever, just kind of seeinglike what they actually did to
(03:30):
make those improvements.
Um, and then two otherresources.
One is kind of like an engaginghealth check tool where you can
put in a couple metrics yourselfand then see where you fall.
And then the last one is a boarddeck resource that we made.
We actually made like aPowerPoint presentation that any
nonprofit could take and showtheir board and be like, this is
(03:52):
where we're at compared to theindustry.
I used to always take benchmarkreports and like put them in my
board presentations and be like,here's where we're at, here's
you know where the industry is.
So we just kind of did that foryou.
So if you wanted to show yourboard, like, hey, here's the
areas that we're doing great at,here's the areas to improve, and
here's what we need to do, alongwith like recommendations or
resource asks, just to make thatconversation super simple.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
I love that.
So keeping in mind this as partof Nonprofit 101, right?
Back to the basics.
So for somebody who is maybe newto their fundraising career,
what are your recommendationsout of the report of maybe the
top three metrics?
If you're just starting out,what are those top three that we
really want to focus on and howdo we track them?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, I would say probably the first one is donor
retention, which is like I'mkind of surprised I'm saying
that myself because as afundraiser, I paid attention to
a lot of metrics.
Yeah.
Um, and donor retention alwayswasn't at the top because that
isn't always the number that I'mbeing pushed by other people in
the organization.
They're not they don't reallyknow what donor retention is, so
(04:59):
they're not paying attention toit.
But really, it's the number ofdonors that are staying on the
file this year that were givinglast year.
So how many are you retaining?
Obviously, this is superimportant because if you're not
retaining them, like you'rehaving to fill your funnel with
new donors all the time, andit's really expensive to do
that.
And it's always easier to engagea donor that's on the file, like
(05:20):
right now.
You know, they've already boughtin, and now you just need to
figure out how to get them to bemore engaged with your mission.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
I agree with that.
And I am actually really excitedthat we're that the industry as
a whole is focused on retentionmore because I think you're
right, for the longest time itwas it was not a metric we
talked about, but it is socritical to the overall health
of your fundraising program.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Yeah.
The second I would say isaverage gift, and really because
it's a number that you can umchange without changing your
donor volume.
So a lot of times, you know,we're like, oh, we need new
donors, we need new donors.
Actually, if you just improveyour average gift or the average
giving of your current donors,like we just looked at donor
(06:04):
retention.
How many are staying on thefile?
Now, of the ones staying on thefile, how much are they giving
year over year?
And can you just upgrade them?
Can you just improve that?
And that will increase yourrevenue without trying to again
fill the funnel with more andmore new donors.
Nice.
And then last, and Dave Rayleighwill thank me for this, but
(06:25):
recurring giving.
Yeah.
I just, I mean, we've beentalking about it for what feels
like a decade now, but it I justfeel like it really is like such
a sustainable, predictablerevenue source, and nonprofits
that don't have like a brandedmonthly program are really
missing out on uh really easyrevenue and just getting donors
(06:45):
to really engage in a way wherethey want to continue giving.
SPEAKER_00 (06:50):
I yes, shout out Dave.
He's been on the podcast twicenow talking about this.
Yeah.
So, yes, wholeheartedly go backand check out those episodes as
well.
But uh going back, I justthought about this.
Going back to the average giftmetric, one of the things that I
thought was so smart coming outof Responsive Summit, somebody
had shared about how thatimpacts then your ask.
unknown (07:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
So talk a little bit about that.
Once you actually know thatnumber, how does that impact
maybe your online giving forms,your direct mail asks, what does
that influence look like?
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Yeah, in the report, we actually measured average
gift, median gift, and onlineaverage for a variety of
reasons.
Median gift is kind of like thatnumber that your donors give.
It's really the gift right inthe middle.
So what do they give, you know,on all the time, I guess.
Um, but that number, I feellike, is the perfect number to
anchor your asks around.
(07:44):
So let's say your median gift is$50.
Don't start your donation format$20.
If most of your donors aregiving$50, like start it at$50.
And that can be a really greatupgrade strategy.
And then, like I said, we alsolooked at online average gift
because we wanted to see thedifference between just like
offline average and onlineaverage, as well as like which
(08:06):
was growing, which wasn't.
Online average gift would say alot about what you just
mentioned of like how are yourdonation forms working?
What are the asks?
Are you doing upgrade asks?
Like if they go off the form,like are you saying, hey, how
about a you know a$20 ask orwhatever?
I just think it says a lot tolike your online storytelling,
your donation amounts, your askarrays.
(08:26):
So you can look at it indifferent ways, but be looking
at some version of like whatyour donors are giving every
year so that you can figure outhow to adjust that year over
year.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
So good.
And then do you do you guys havea recommendation around online
versus direct mail?
Do you uh do you generally seepeople do the same asks on those
appeals?
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
Yeah, so what's great about online, um, well,
and I mean you can do this withwith direct mail too.
I would just would say thatpeople aren't doing this online
as much as if you have a like anonline giving page that is
connected to your CRM and youcan actually change every single
ask array according to the thatdonor history, that's really how
you can affect that onlineaverage gift.
(09:11):
So yeah, someone comes on yourpage, their average gift is
$1,000, don't ask them for a$10gift.
Adjust the ask arrayaccordingly, or vice versa,
their average gift is$10, don'task them for a$1,000 gift.
So if you are actuallyconnecting that data and making
it super personalized, that canbe great for online average
gift.
I feel like in direct mail,we've kind of been doing that
(09:31):
for decades.
Like we change the ask arraybased on, you know, their last
gift or whatever calculationyou're using, and then use a
multiplier and you get that.
But online, I feel like noteveryone has the technology to
like connect their CRM and theirdonation forms together.
So we need to actually learnfrom our direct mail, which I
wouldn't often say, but issomething we've been doing in
(09:52):
direct mail that we should bedoing online also.
SPEAKER_00 (09:54):
That's great.
So for somebody who, again, isjust starting out first
fundraising job, there are someof these metrics I feel like are
words that they might not evenbe familiar with.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:07):
Right.
So let's just like baseline, geton the same page.
What are some of those terms inthere that you see of like, you
know, I wish someone would haveexplained this to me when I was
first starting out so that Iwould have started stronger.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
Yeah.
One thing I will say about thisbenchmark report is we explain
like the calculation for everyreport.
We explain why it matters, weexplain how to improve it.
So we obviously like can't getinto all that in 30 minutes.
But for those that download it,like it's it's really supposed
to be a helpful tool to afundraiser that's like, I don't
know where to start or what tolook at.
(10:42):
Um, but I would say like eventhe words retention and
acquisition, I really didn'tknow what they meant.
Um, acquisition is acquiring newdonors.
So that's a metric we look at inhere too.
But if you think about you havea hundred donors, they're not
going to continue to give yearover year.
Like some are going to stopgiving.
So you need to acquire, add newdonors to that bucket of a
(11:03):
hundred donors.
At the same time, retention iskeeping those donors that you
already have.
So it's really a balance betweenhow much you're retaining and
how much you're acquiring.
I don't think I really quiteunderstood that when I started.
I was just like, we need to getmore donors, more, more donors,
like all the time.
Yeah.
Um, but not like, oh, I couldalso pay attention to retaining
(11:24):
my current donors and what doesit look like to do that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah.
And I think part of that is kindof the pressure that comes with
the job, right?
Yeah.
You're going to be driven to getmore donors.
Yes.
Whether that's from your boss,the board, etc.
So that is a little bit of abalancing act on some of those
uh pressures.
But I think it's interesting tothink about if somebody who's
(11:48):
coming in, and I I would loveyour feedback as someone who's
been in the field, if someone iscoming in brand new, maybe to an
organization that hasn't beentracking anything or who doesn't
have any sort of system in placefor that and is on that just
like old school, we gotta getmore, we gotta get more.
Where would you suggest theystart in terms of like
(12:10):
introducing change or how do wego about getting away from the
this is how we so we've alwaysdone it if you're brand new to
an organization that way?
SPEAKER_01 (12:19):
Yeah, you know, I was at an organization that was
50 plus years old and they hadnever tracked cost to acquire.
And that was that that feelslike the basics.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was honestly reallyunlocking for us and what that
means, cost to acquire, is ifyou look at, like, let's just
look at digital.
(12:39):
Say you spent$20,000 and youacquired$10,000, which would be
an amazing number, but I'm justusing round numbers here.
Like saying how much it costs toacquire a new donor on each
channel should really speakvolumes into what you're doing.
If you're just focusing ongetting new donors, but you have
no idea how much it costs to geteach one, like you're not really
(13:00):
making smart fundraisingdecisions.
I'm super passionate about costto acquire an LTV.
I think it's like the biggestunlock to all of fundraising.
If you know what it costs to geta new donor and you know how
much that donor is going to giveover your lifetime, it's just, I
mean, it's simple business, butlike I think sometimes we're so
focused on, like you said, likewhat's our active donor count?
(13:21):
And like numbers that are morelike vanity metrics.
Like really understanding yourcost per donor and how much that
donor is going to give overtheir lifetime by channel, I
think is like that could be thesmartest thing for a beginning
fundraiser because you can know,oh, I should not be spending on
this channel, even though we geta huge quantity of donors, the
quality is very low.
(13:42):
So let's switch over to digitalor whatever other channel that
is working for us.
If that's the if I could havelike one metric to operate all
my fundraising off of and knownothing else, it would be that
cost to acquire donors andlifetime value of those donors.
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(14:26):
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(14:55):
But I it echoes of what you justsaid, and that is that nonprofit
is nothing but a tax status.
You still have to run it like abusiness.
And that means each individualindividual department has to run
like a business.
And if you are not able to makethose smart decisions that are
data informed, then you're notrunning like a business.
SPEAKER_02 (15:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:15):
Right.
And I that is the hill I willdie on.
It is just a tax status.
We've got to we've got to changethat thinking.
Yeah.
And embrace smart decisionmaking.
Yeah, totally agree with that.
Yeah.
So were there within some of theother metrics that you guys have
looked at, one of the thingsthat I think can be problematic
(15:37):
in nonprofits in general, andit's probably true in for-profit
companies, is how much this datais siloed.
Within the metrics that weshould be tracking, are there
ways to make sure that we'reincluding everybody in those
decisions?
Do you know what I mean?
Like if there are I feel likesometimes marketing has their
own things that they're lookingat, and fundraising has donor
(16:00):
development has things they'relooking at.
And even sometimes withindevelopment teams, you've got
metrics that just major giftsare looking at versus annual
fund folks back and forth.
Do you have some thoughts on howwe can start to break down those
silos within the data to makesure that everybody has a big
the whole picture?
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
One of the things that we oftensay is like these seven metrics
we're looking at are really allpieces of a puzzle.
Like you can't look at donorretention without looking at
donor acquisition and withoutlooking at donor expansion and
all of that.
One of the metrics we have inhere that would probably be good
to define, because it's also aword I probably wouldn't have
known when I startedfundraising, is portfolio
balance.
(16:40):
Okay.
And what we're looking at thereis like the balance of your
entire donor file.
How much are general donorsversus mid-level donors versus
major donors?
And this I feel like is superkey to breaking down silos
because all we look at is well,how much is the major donor team
doing?
Like it just in their silodoesn't really say anything
(17:02):
about the whole organization.
You're really looking for like aliterally a balanced portfolio.
So again, thinking back to likea finance thought, you know, you
want to diversify your revenuestreams.
You don't want like 90% majordonors or 90% general donors.
So you're really looking for abalance between those three.
I love this metric because Idon't often see it on benchmark
(17:23):
reports.
So I I think it gives so muchinsight into like, oh, maybe we
shouldn't be paying so muchattention to major donors.
Maybe we should be thinkingabout how to upgrade general
into mid-level donors or midinto major.
And that's not saying like themajor donor team is bad or doing
something wrong, but it'ssaying, like, let's think about
the health of the revenue of thewhole organization and where we
(17:45):
should be focusing.
So I think some of those metricsshould bring conversations like
that between marketingfundraising and development,
where sometimes it's likefighting over dollars to say,
okay, we we all want a greatermission here.
Like that's really what we'retrying to do is grow an
organization.
And what does that look likebased on like what we're seeing
with the way our donors arebalanced?
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
That's so good.
So uh that brings up anotherquestion, though, especially I
think as as folks are maybestarting out.
One, I do think it's interestingto say, like that department
will be called so many things.
Just in the course of yoursentence, we've called it
marketing and development, whichare the same.
Stewardship, there's so manyways that we use this word.
(18:26):
So yes, interchangeable, whichit just cracks me up.
But uh I think the theinteresting piece of that uh
when we talk about major gift,uh mid-level donor, uh, general
online donors, we tend to thinkabout that in the in the sense
of a funnel, right?
And we've talked a couple timesin here about the upgrade idea.
(18:49):
If you were just starting out,what are some basics of of ways
that people can upgrade from oneto another, help to move those
folks down the pipeline?
What are some suggestions thatyou would have in that regard?
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Yeah, also I'll just add like philanthropy is the new
hot word to call thisdepartment.
SPEAKER_00 (19:06):
That's true.
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Um we're talking about the new, the exact same
department.
SPEAKER_00 (19:12):
Yes.
Um what's the other?
If you're in higher ed, it'sadvancement.
Yes, advancement services, yeah,for sure.
Yes.
So many things for just oneword.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
I mean, I think it's important to think about taking
someone from general to mid andthen mid to major.
So, you know, some of the thingswe already talked about, like
even just having something onyour donation form that's are
you willing to upgrade whatever,$50 extra dollars to pay for
this well that we're doing inAfrica or whatever, like just
see just seeing if someone wouldrespond to that.
(19:43):
The thing that we did was thatwe set like notifications within
our CRM that would tell us ifsomeone had just like given an
extra gift or a higher amount.
So, like I personally got anotification every time someone
gave a thousand dollar gift, andI would go look at that record
and I would be like, Okay,should this remain a general
(20:04):
donor or should should I movethis to a mid-level rep?
Because sometimes those peoplelike I often say like mid-levels
get lost.
Like those mid-level donors,they're like Gen X, you know, we
care about millennials, we careabout baby boomers, and we look
right over.
SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
Everyone, everyone wants to ignore us, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (20:20):
Yeah.
Um but sometimes, like, ifsomeone gives a thousand dollar
gift, we're like, eh, you know,a thousand dollars, whatever.
But like that could be someonesaying, like, hey, I'm a little
bit more interested.
So just I would literally glanceat the record, maybe decide how
I felt about like maybe theyshould look at their their
wealth score and then assignthem or not.
(20:41):
But like just taking that extratime to be like, okay, is this
someone who's ready for thatnext level and should they be
cultivated a little differently?
And same thing from mid-level tomajor donors.
Like, what are the just thinkabout like the keys that they're
trying to tell you by theactions that they're taking?
Like maybe they give a$5,000gift and they've never given a
$5,000 gift before.
(21:02):
Um, like, is it time to upgradethem?
Like, what is it you're doing inyour upgrade strategy besides
just like tactics, you know,sending them a major donor
appeal and seeing if they'llgive differently, or like I
said, online upgrades, butpaying attention to the
behavior.
Like they're literally tellingyou a story by their behavior.
And if we just ignore that or wedon't have time to look at it or
(21:24):
whatever, we're we're missingout on those upgrade
opportunities.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
I am curious, because I think this is maybe
somewhere where people could getstuck, especially if they're
just starting out.
It would be lovely if we couldsit here and say across the
board, mid-level is X dollars toX dollars, major gift is
anything above X dollars,general is below X dollars.
And that is just the formulathat we use industry-wide
(21:50):
welcome in, right?
Yes, but that's so specificorganization to organization.
Yes.
Let's talk about how we how weeven figure out what that should
look like in our organizations.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's we can't have abalanced portfolio unless we
know what those designationslook like.
That's a great point.
SPEAKER_01 (22:08):
I mean, I worked somewhere where I think we
talked about changing thedefinitions like every few
years.
Yeah.
Like, is a major donor a 10kgiver or is it cumulative?
Is it a single gift?
Um so the way we defined it inthe report, and then I'll talk
about like general nonprofits,is general donors were under a
thousand dollar giving mid-levelannually.
(22:29):
Yes.
Mid-level was a thousand to ninenine nine nine, and then major
was ten plus.
But I would say for yourorganization, you should almost
like look at a bell curve ofwhat type of gifts your donors
are giving.
Because say your organizationhas massive major donors, and
like your major donors should be25k plus because you're a really
(22:52):
major donor-focusedorganization, or you're not,
you're like a much smallergeneral donor organization, and
like someone giving 5K is amajor donor.
Like it really depends what yourdonor file looks like.
Because if you just say, Oh,well, no one gives 25k, so we
have no major donors, well, thenyou're ignoring what are your
major donors.
Yeah.
So I would look at like almostlike I said, like a bell curve
(23:14):
of like where do you where whatare the high ends, what are the
low ends, and determine whatyour general mid and major donor
levels are.
And they can change over timebecause maybe your goal is like,
hey, let's get more people into10K plus, and then you have to
redefine, okay, now our majordonors are 10k plus.
SPEAKER_00 (23:30):
Nice.
So within that, and again, theway that we talk about things,
so you have general donors.
I heard somebody say one timethat the general human
population does not walk aroundwith, you know, when we all go
to these conferences and you getyour name tag and then you have
like the ribbons below it.
SPEAKER_02 (23:47):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
The general human population does not walk around
with little ribbons that saythings like mid-level donor,
laps donor, online giver, annualfund donor, event attendee,
right?
We don't walk around with theselittle ribbons that we as an
industry tend to like slappeople into.
Um and so I think maybe that'sthe other, at least for me, the
(24:07):
other takeaway is like all ofthose things are internal.
Yes.
I'm I attended it, and I'msaying that because I attended a
mid-level event one time for anorganization that I support.
And it had like the thefundraising staff, the
development staff had veryclearly been told, like, these
are the people that you'retrying to elevate to that next
(24:30):
level.
Yeah.
Um, and you could see them atone point.
I overheard one of them talkingto a friend of mine about
becoming a major donor.
And like, these are not theseare not outside terms.
No, right?
So I want to just kind ofclarify that everything we've
talked about today is yourinternal conversation with you,
with your team within yourorganization.
(24:50):
This is not how we approachpeople.
SPEAKER_01 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean, you don't put dear major donor on
your letter.
And I actually like not to geton a rapture, but like I hate
the title major gift officer.
We often say like MGOs, majorgift officers.
Like, if I'm a donor, I don'treally want to be talking to the
major gift officer.
Like that doesn't really meananything to me.
At all.
(25:13):
That's why you see more titlesthat are like, I don't even
know, like nonprofitrepresentative or like whatever,
just something that isn't likemajor gift officer.
But yeah, totally all internaltitles.
Like I wouldn't even tell amajor donor they were a major
donor, which is why sometimesyou see nonprofits have like
major donor programs likechampions and president circle
(25:33):
and things like that.
So you you say to them, like,hey, we value you, you have
exclusive access, whatever, butwe're not calling you like a
major donor.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Yeah.
I just, yeah, that as we weretalking about, I'm like, I
especially if we're talkingabout people that are new to the
fundraising space, I just reallywant to put that shell around
it.
These are internal only kind ofterms.
Yes, for sure.
So I'm curious, we're almost outof time, but I'm curious.
Think back to when you were juststarting out, your first
(26:03):
fundraising gig.
What is it that you really wishsomeone would have told you up
front?
What is that piece, or what haveyou learned over the course that
you're like, man, if I wouldhave just had that knowledge 15,
20 years ago, what does thatlook like?
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Yeah, you know, I feel like you already said it,
which is that a nonprofit isjust a tax status.
Because I was really just liketrying to figure out, like,
okay, I'm a fundraiser, I'msupposed to raise money.
Okay, like let's just doeverything I can to raise money.
But really, like there was a tonof data at my disposal that I
had no idea what to do with.
(26:37):
Um, and I wasn't thinking aboutit from like a business
perspective of, you know, let melook at our revenue and which
areas we should look at.
Like, I was just like, I'm I'mhere to raise money and like put
out social media posts and justlike do whatever.
But I wasn't thinking about itlike you were saying, like, hey,
my department is a business unitthat I own.
And like, what can Ispecifically do to grow this
(26:59):
business unit?
Like, you really have to putlike your business data hat on
and be like, what does this looklike?
I think that would have helpedme.
And honestly, like I'm I'm gladyou're doing this podcast
because I didn't at the time Idid not feel like I there was a
place where I could go and belike, here's nonprofit 101 for
data metrics.
Like I just was trying to learn,honestly, from mainly
(27:19):
fundraising agencies, becausethey were the ones putting out
like the most material.
Tell me about these metrics andwhat I can do with them.
Like, I just tried to lean in inall the ways I could from that
perspective because I didn'tfeel like there was great
resources for that.
SPEAKER_00 (27:31):
Yeah.
No, I I am excited.
I mean, and obviously that's whynonprofit hub exists in the
first place, is so that we havethese resources, but I'm really
excited about these this seriesspecifically for folks who are
in that exact same spot.
Uh so to that end, how do wefind Virtuous's benchmarking
report?
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
If you have if you have show notes, I can put a
link in.
Fantastic.
Yes, we will link it there.
Drop it in there.
But like if you go on theVirtuous website, we have under
resources all the benchmarkreports.
We also in June, I don't knowwhen this episode is dropping,
but in June, we have verticalbenchmark reports too.
So, like if you're in faith,healthcare, human services, or
education, we have differentversions for each just because
(28:13):
some of them are reallyspecific.
Sure.
Recurring giving is more commonin faith than it is in
healthcare, where someone givesbecause an event happened in
their life and now they nevergive again.
Like donor retention is sodifferent in healthcare than it
is in education when like you'rean alumni and you never give
again or whatever.
(28:34):
So like looking at it byvertical is really important
too, just so you can make sureyou're benchmarking against the
most niche version of your data.
But I can I'll I'll send you thelinks and you can put them in
there.
SPEAKER_00 (28:44):
Fantastic.
We'll definitely link that inthe in the show notes and on our
social media pages as well.
Um, this will drop in July.
So by the time you folks arehearing about it, those niche
lines will be out for sure.
Cool.
That's great.
Awesome.
Carly, the closing question thatI've been asking everybody on
this season is if you could giveone piece of advice to nonprofit
(29:05):
leaders, what would that be?
This has obviously been likekind of a crazy year for
nonprofits in general, butespecially for those leaders.
If you could give them one pieceof advice or encouragement, what
would that look like?
SPEAKER_01 (29:18):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think sometimes we can getreally wrapped up in the
numbers.
Like, how do we improve this?
How do we improve that?
You know, all of those things.
But like the encouragement Iwould give is like what you're
doing, not many people get todo, which is work at an
organization that has an amazingmission that you obviously care
about if you're working there.
(29:39):
Like, don't lose sight of that.
Yeah, maybe your recurringgiving numbers down or your
revenue is down or whatever, butlike you're doing great work and
like the world needs you to dothat great work.
So don't lose sight of that.
And you said nonprofit leaders,but tell your staff the same
thing.
Yeah, like there's a balancebetween the pressure of let's do
(29:59):
better.
To let's keep doing this thingthat we're doing that is
affecting, you know, ourcommunity or our state or our
country or whatever.
Because without nonprofits,there's no one else out there
solving problems.
Like that's what nonprofits aredoing is solving problems.
So focus on that.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
So good.
Love that word.
Carly, thank you.
Appreciate you coming in andsharing the benchmark report
with us today.
I think that's going to be agreat resource, especially for
our nonprofit 101 friends thatare just starting out.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (30:28):
Yeah.
Again, my guest has been CarlyBerna, who's the fundraiser in
residence at Virtuous.
This has been another episode ofthe Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Spear, andwe'll see you next time.
Pledgett is designed for nonprofit fundraising
professionals who needcomprehensive event management
without the learning curve.
Our intuitive platform handlesgalas, golf tournaments,
peer-to-peer fundraising, andauctions with built-in
automation and progressdashboards.
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Visit Pledgit.org slashnonprofit hub to learn more.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the NonprofitHub Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer.
Joined today by Carly Berna,who's the fundraiser in
residence at Virtuous.
Has a long fundraisingbackground to herself, so I'm
excited to dig in specificallyon this episode as part of our
Nonprofit 101 series, kind ofgetting back to the basics.
I'm excited to dig in with Carlytoday on Virtuous' benchmark
(00:48):
report because I thinkespecially when we start out in
fundraising, there's so manythings to track and watch and
look at.
Trying to keep them all straightand decide what should be the
priority can really be a littlebit overwhelming, especially as
you're just starting out.
So I think this is a great topicfor this series.
So Carly, welcome in.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
(01:09):
Yeah, I'm excited.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour background.
I know as a fundraiser, you'vegot a lot of experience.
So share a little bit about howyou came to Virtuous and kind of
your background a little bit aswe dig in today.
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
Sure.
So I was in the fundraisingspace for over 10 years.
I was the chief marketing anddevelopment officer at a$30
million nonprofit in Phoenix.
Three years into that journey, Ihad to switch CRMs because I
just felt like we weren'tgetting the fundraising power we
really needed from our CRM.
So I went through the process ofchoosing Virtuous amongst other
(01:41):
CRMs.
And then I was a seven-yearVirtuous customer before I
joined Virtuous last year.
And, you know, like you said,like I love to be able to use my
fundraising knowledge toactually apply it to the product
and speak to our customers in away that really makes sense to
them because I've literally beensitting in their seats.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
That's great.
So I I saw the VirtuousBenchmark report last year.
Got to see a little bit of thethis year version at the
responsive summit last week.
So tell me what the biggestdifference is for maybe for
someone who read last year's andis now looking at this one.
What maybe changed?
What's new?
(02:20):
What are you most excited aboutin this new one?
Before we dig into the actualresults.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
Yeah, I'll also just add, like, last year was
Virtuous's first benchmarkreport.
And when I came to Virtuous, Itold Gabe, like, hey, I've been
reading all the other CRM'sbenchmark reports for years
because you don't have abenchmark report.
And for me as a fundraiser, likebenchmark reports were so
important because I needed to beable to tell my board, like,
this is where we stand accordingto the industry, as they would
(02:46):
say to me, Well, our donorretention should be this high.
And I would be like, Well, whydo you think that?
Like you're just kind of pullingthat number out of nowhere.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
But this year, there are acouple things changed in the
benchmark report.
We added a new metric, which isdays to second gift.
Uh, last year we looked at firstto second gift conversion rate,
which we looked at this yearalso.
But I feel like looking at daysto second gift, you can really
(03:08):
measure that and tell, hey, howcan I improve that?
What do I need to do with a newdonor welcome series?
Like getting someone to a secondgift is like a huge milestone
and gets them to continue tostay with the organization.
We also added in customer casestudies of those who have like
improved their average gift ortheir donor retention or
whatever, just kind of seeinglike what they actually did to
(03:30):
make those improvements.
Um, and then two otherresources.
One is kind of like an engaginghealth check tool where you can
put in a couple metrics yourselfand then see where you fall.
And then the last one is a boarddeck resource that we made.
We actually made like aPowerPoint presentation that any
nonprofit could take and showtheir board and be like, this is
(03:52):
where we're at compared to theindustry.
I used to always take benchmarkreports and like put them in my
board presentations and be like,here's where we're at, here's
you know where the industry is.
So we just kind of did that foryou.
So if you wanted to show yourboard, like, hey, here's the
areas that we're doing great at,here's the areas to improve, and
here's what we need to do, alongwith like recommendations or
resource asks, just to make thatconversation super simple.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
I love that.
So keeping in mind this as partof Nonprofit 101, right?
Back to the basics.
So for somebody who is maybe newto their fundraising career,
what are your recommendationsout of the report of maybe the
top three metrics?
If you're just starting out,what are those top three that we
really want to focus on and howdo we track them?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, I would say probably the first one is donor
retention, which is like I'mkind of surprised I'm saying
that myself because as afundraiser, I paid attention to
a lot of metrics.
Yeah.
Um, and donor retention alwayswasn't at the top because that
isn't always the number that I'mbeing pushed by other people in
the organization.
They're not they don't reallyknow what donor retention is, so
(04:59):
they're not paying attention toit.
But really, it's the number ofdonors that are staying on the
file this year that were givinglast year.
So how many are you retaining?
Obviously, this is superimportant because if you're not
retaining them, like you'rehaving to fill your funnel with
new donors all the time, andit's really expensive to do
that.
And it's always easier to engagea donor that's on the file, like
(05:20):
right now.
You know, they've already boughtin, and now you just need to
figure out how to get them to bemore engaged with your mission.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
I agree with that.
And I am actually really excitedthat we're that the industry as
a whole is focused on retentionmore because I think you're
right, for the longest time itwas it was not a metric we
talked about, but it is socritical to the overall health
of your fundraising program.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Yeah.
The second I would say isaverage gift, and really because
it's a number that you can umchange without changing your
donor volume.
So a lot of times, you know,we're like, oh, we need new
donors, we need new donors.
Actually, if you just improveyour average gift or the average
giving of your current donors,like we just looked at donor
(06:04):
retention.
How many are staying on thefile?
Now, of the ones staying on thefile, how much are they giving
year over year?
And can you just upgrade them?
Can you just improve that?
And that will increase yourrevenue without trying to again
fill the funnel with more andmore new donors.
Nice.
And then last, and Dave Rayleighwill thank me for this, but
(06:25):
recurring giving.
Yeah.
I just, I mean, we've beentalking about it for what feels
like a decade now, but it I justfeel like it really is like such
a sustainable, predictablerevenue source, and nonprofits
that don't have like a brandedmonthly program are really
missing out on uh really easyrevenue and just getting donors
(06:45):
to really engage in a way wherethey want to continue giving.
SPEAKER_00 (06:50):
I yes, shout out Dave.
He's been on the podcast twicenow talking about this.
Yeah.
So, yes, wholeheartedly go backand check out those episodes as
well.
But uh going back, I justthought about this.
Going back to the average giftmetric, one of the things that I
thought was so smart coming outof Responsive Summit, somebody
had shared about how thatimpacts then your ask.
unknown (07:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
So talk a little bit about that.
Once you actually know thatnumber, how does that impact
maybe your online giving forms,your direct mail asks, what does
that influence look like?
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Yeah, in the report, we actually measured average
gift, median gift, and onlineaverage for a variety of
reasons.
Median gift is kind of like thatnumber that your donors give.
It's really the gift right inthe middle.
So what do they give, you know,on all the time, I guess.
Um, but that number, I feellike, is the perfect number to
anchor your asks around.
(07:44):
So let's say your median gift is$50.
Don't start your donation format$20.
If most of your donors aregiving$50, like start it at$50.
And that can be a really greatupgrade strategy.
And then, like I said, we alsolooked at online average gift
because we wanted to see thedifference between just like
offline average and onlineaverage, as well as like which
(08:06):
was growing, which wasn't.
Online average gift would say alot about what you just
mentioned of like how are yourdonation forms working?
What are the asks?
Are you doing upgrade asks?
Like if they go off the form,like are you saying, hey, how
about a you know a$20 ask orwhatever?
I just think it says a lot tolike your online storytelling,
your donation amounts, your askarrays.
(08:26):
So you can look at it indifferent ways, but be looking
at some version of like whatyour donors are giving every
year so that you can figure outhow to adjust that year over
year.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
So good.
And then do you do you guys havea recommendation around online
versus direct mail?
Do you uh do you generally seepeople do the same asks on those
appeals?
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
Yeah, so what's great about online, um, well,
and I mean you can do this withwith direct mail too.
I would just would say thatpeople aren't doing this online
as much as if you have a like anonline giving page that is
connected to your CRM and youcan actually change every single
ask array according to the thatdonor history, that's really how
you can affect that onlineaverage gift.
(09:11):
So yeah, someone comes on yourpage, their average gift is
$1,000, don't ask them for a$10gift.
Adjust the ask arrayaccordingly, or vice versa,
their average gift is$10, don'task them for a$1,000 gift.
So if you are actuallyconnecting that data and making
it super personalized, that canbe great for online average
gift.
I feel like in direct mail,we've kind of been doing that
(09:31):
for decades.
Like we change the ask arraybased on, you know, their last
gift or whatever calculationyou're using, and then use a
multiplier and you get that.
But online, I feel like noteveryone has the technology to
like connect their CRM and theirdonation forms together.
So we need to actually learnfrom our direct mail, which I
wouldn't often say, but issomething we've been doing in
(09:52):
direct mail that we should bedoing online also.
SPEAKER_00 (09:54):
That's great.
So for somebody who, again, isjust starting out first
fundraising job, there are someof these metrics I feel like are
words that they might not evenbe familiar with.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:07):
Right.
So let's just like baseline, geton the same page.
What are some of those terms inthere that you see of like, you
know, I wish someone would haveexplained this to me when I was
first starting out so that Iwould have started stronger.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
Yeah.
One thing I will say about thisbenchmark report is we explain
like the calculation for everyreport.
We explain why it matters, weexplain how to improve it.
So we obviously like can't getinto all that in 30 minutes.
But for those that download it,like it's it's really supposed
to be a helpful tool to afundraiser that's like, I don't
know where to start or what tolook at.
(10:42):
Um, but I would say like eventhe words retention and
acquisition, I really didn'tknow what they meant.
Um, acquisition is acquiring newdonors.
So that's a metric we look at inhere too.
But if you think about you havea hundred donors, they're not
going to continue to give yearover year.
Like some are going to stopgiving.
So you need to acquire, add newdonors to that bucket of a
(11:03):
hundred donors.
At the same time, retention iskeeping those donors that you
already have.
So it's really a balance betweenhow much you're retaining and
how much you're acquiring.
I don't think I really quiteunderstood that when I started.
I was just like, we need to getmore donors, more, more donors,
like all the time.
Yeah.
Um, but not like, oh, I couldalso pay attention to retaining
(11:24):
my current donors and what doesit look like to do that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah.
And I think part of that is kindof the pressure that comes with
the job, right?
Yeah.
You're going to be driven to getmore donors.
Yes.
Whether that's from your boss,the board, etc.
So that is a little bit of abalancing act on some of those
uh pressures.
But I think it's interesting tothink about if somebody who's
(11:48):
coming in, and I I would loveyour feedback as someone who's
been in the field, if someone iscoming in brand new, maybe to an
organization that hasn't beentracking anything or who doesn't
have any sort of system in placefor that and is on that just
like old school, we gotta getmore, we gotta get more.
Where would you suggest theystart in terms of like
(12:10):
introducing change or how do wego about getting away from the
this is how we so we've alwaysdone it if you're brand new to
an organization that way?
SPEAKER_01 (12:19):
Yeah, you know, I was at an organization that was
50 plus years old and they hadnever tracked cost to acquire.
And that was that that feelslike the basics.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was honestly reallyunlocking for us and what that
means, cost to acquire, is ifyou look at, like, let's just
look at digital.
(12:39):
Say you spent$20,000 and youacquired$10,000, which would be
an amazing number, but I'm justusing round numbers here.
Like saying how much it costs toacquire a new donor on each
channel should really speakvolumes into what you're doing.
If you're just focusing ongetting new donors, but you have
no idea how much it costs to geteach one, like you're not really
(13:00):
making smart fundraisingdecisions.
I'm super passionate about costto acquire an LTV.
I think it's like the biggestunlock to all of fundraising.
If you know what it costs to geta new donor and you know how
much that donor is going to giveover your lifetime, it's just, I
mean, it's simple business, butlike I think sometimes we're so
focused on, like you said, likewhat's our active donor count?
(13:21):
And like numbers that are morelike vanity metrics.
Like really understanding yourcost per donor and how much that
donor is going to give overtheir lifetime by channel, I
think is like that could be thesmartest thing for a beginning
fundraiser because you can know,oh, I should not be spending on
this channel, even though we geta huge quantity of donors, the
quality is very low.
(13:42):
So let's switch over to digitalor whatever other channel that
is working for us.
If that's the if I could havelike one metric to operate all
my fundraising off of and knownothing else, it would be that
cost to acquire donors andlifetime value of those donors.
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(14:26):
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(14:55):
But I it echoes of what you justsaid, and that is that nonprofit
is nothing but a tax status.
You still have to run it like abusiness.
And that means each individualindividual department has to run
like a business.
And if you are not able to makethose smart decisions that are
data informed, then you're notrunning like a business.
SPEAKER_02 (15:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:15):
Right.
And I that is the hill I willdie on.
It is just a tax status.
We've got to we've got to changethat thinking.
Yeah.
And embrace smart decisionmaking.
Yeah, totally agree with that.
Yeah.
So were there within some of theother metrics that you guys have
looked at, one of the thingsthat I think can be problematic
(15:37):
in nonprofits in general, andit's probably true in for-profit
companies, is how much this datais siloed.
Within the metrics that weshould be tracking, are there
ways to make sure that we'reincluding everybody in those
decisions?
Do you know what I mean?
Like if there are I feel likesometimes marketing has their
own things that they're lookingat, and fundraising has donor
(16:00):
development has things they'relooking at.
And even sometimes withindevelopment teams, you've got
metrics that just major giftsare looking at versus annual
fund folks back and forth.
Do you have some thoughts on howwe can start to break down those
silos within the data to makesure that everybody has a big
the whole picture?
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
One of the things that we oftensay is like these seven metrics
we're looking at are really allpieces of a puzzle.
Like you can't look at donorretention without looking at
donor acquisition and withoutlooking at donor expansion and
all of that.
One of the metrics we have inhere that would probably be good
to define, because it's also aword I probably wouldn't have
known when I startedfundraising, is portfolio
balance.
(16:40):
Okay.
And what we're looking at thereis like the balance of your
entire donor file.
How much are general donorsversus mid-level donors versus
major donors?
And this I feel like is superkey to breaking down silos
because all we look at is well,how much is the major donor team
doing?
Like it just in their silodoesn't really say anything
(17:02):
about the whole organization.
You're really looking for like aliterally a balanced portfolio.
So again, thinking back to likea finance thought, you know, you
want to diversify your revenuestreams.
You don't want like 90% majordonors or 90% general donors.
So you're really looking for abalance between those three.
I love this metric because Idon't often see it on benchmark
(17:23):
reports.
So I I think it gives so muchinsight into like, oh, maybe we
shouldn't be paying so muchattention to major donors.
Maybe we should be thinkingabout how to upgrade general
into mid-level donors or midinto major.
And that's not saying like themajor donor team is bad or doing
something wrong, but it'ssaying, like, let's think about
the health of the revenue of thewhole organization and where we
(17:45):
should be focusing.
So I think some of those metricsshould bring conversations like
that between marketingfundraising and development,
where sometimes it's likefighting over dollars to say,
okay, we we all want a greatermission here.
Like that's really what we'retrying to do is grow an
organization.
And what does that look likebased on like what we're seeing
with the way our donors arebalanced?
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
That's so good.
So uh that brings up anotherquestion, though, especially I
think as as folks are maybestarting out.
One, I do think it's interestingto say, like that department
will be called so many things.
Just in the course of yoursentence, we've called it
marketing and development, whichare the same.
Stewardship, there's so manyways that we use this word.
(18:26):
So yes, interchangeable, whichit just cracks me up.
But uh I think the theinteresting piece of that uh
when we talk about major gift,uh mid-level donor, uh, general
online donors, we tend to thinkabout that in the in the sense
of a funnel, right?
And we've talked a couple timesin here about the upgrade idea.
(18:49):
If you were just starting out,what are some basics of of ways
that people can upgrade from oneto another, help to move those
folks down the pipeline?
What are some suggestions thatyou would have in that regard?
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Yeah, also I'll just add like philanthropy is the new
hot word to call thisdepartment.
SPEAKER_00 (19:06):
That's true.
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Um we're talking about the new, the exact same
department.
SPEAKER_00 (19:12):
Yes.
Um what's the other?
If you're in higher ed, it'sadvancement.
Yes, advancement services, yeah,for sure.
Yes.
So many things for just oneword.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
I mean, I think it's important to think about taking
someone from general to mid andthen mid to major.
So, you know, some of the thingswe already talked about, like
even just having something onyour donation form that's are
you willing to upgrade whatever,$50 extra dollars to pay for
this well that we're doing inAfrica or whatever, like just
see just seeing if someone wouldrespond to that.
(19:43):
The thing that we did was thatwe set like notifications within
our CRM that would tell us ifsomeone had just like given an
extra gift or a higher amount.
So, like I personally got anotification every time someone
gave a thousand dollar gift, andI would go look at that record
and I would be like, Okay,should this remain a general
(20:04):
donor or should should I movethis to a mid-level rep?
Because sometimes those peoplelike I often say like mid-levels
get lost.
Like those mid-level donors,they're like Gen X, you know, we
care about millennials, we careabout baby boomers, and we look
right over.
SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
Everyone, everyone wants to ignore us, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (20:20):
Yeah.
Um but sometimes, like, ifsomeone gives a thousand dollar
gift, we're like, eh, you know,a thousand dollars, whatever.
But like that could be someonesaying, like, hey, I'm a little
bit more interested.
So just I would literally glanceat the record, maybe decide how
I felt about like maybe theyshould look at their their
wealth score and then assignthem or not.
(20:41):
But like just taking that extratime to be like, okay, is this
someone who's ready for thatnext level and should they be
cultivated a little differently?
And same thing from mid-level tomajor donors.
Like, what are the just thinkabout like the keys that they're
trying to tell you by theactions that they're taking?
Like maybe they give a$5,000gift and they've never given a
$5,000 gift before.
(21:02):
Um, like, is it time to upgradethem?
Like, what is it you're doing inyour upgrade strategy besides
just like tactics, you know,sending them a major donor
appeal and seeing if they'llgive differently, or like I
said, online upgrades, butpaying attention to the
behavior.
Like they're literally tellingyou a story by their behavior.
And if we just ignore that or wedon't have time to look at it or
(21:24):
whatever, we're we're missingout on those upgrade
opportunities.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
I am curious, because I think this is maybe
somewhere where people could getstuck, especially if they're
just starting out.
It would be lovely if we couldsit here and say across the
board, mid-level is X dollars toX dollars, major gift is
anything above X dollars,general is below X dollars.
And that is just the formulathat we use industry-wide
(21:50):
welcome in, right?
Yes, but that's so specificorganization to organization.
Yes.
Let's talk about how we how weeven figure out what that should
look like in our organizations.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's we can't have abalanced portfolio unless we
know what those designationslook like.
That's a great point.
SPEAKER_01 (22:08):
I mean, I worked somewhere where I think we
talked about changing thedefinitions like every few
years.
Yeah.
Like, is a major donor a 10kgiver or is it cumulative?
Is it a single gift?
Um so the way we defined it inthe report, and then I'll talk
about like general nonprofits,is general donors were under a
thousand dollar giving mid-levelannually.
(22:29):
Yes.
Mid-level was a thousand to ninenine nine nine, and then major
was ten plus.
But I would say for yourorganization, you should almost
like look at a bell curve ofwhat type of gifts your donors
are giving.
Because say your organizationhas massive major donors, and
like your major donors should be25k plus because you're a really
(22:52):
major donor-focusedorganization, or you're not,
you're like a much smallergeneral donor organization, and
like someone giving 5K is amajor donor.
Like it really depends what yourdonor file looks like.
Because if you just say, Oh,well, no one gives 25k, so we
have no major donors, well, thenyou're ignoring what are your
major donors.
Yeah.
So I would look at like almostlike I said, like a bell curve
(23:14):
of like where do you where whatare the high ends, what are the
low ends, and determine whatyour general mid and major donor
levels are.
And they can change over timebecause maybe your goal is like,
hey, let's get more people into10K plus, and then you have to
redefine, okay, now our majordonors are 10k plus.
SPEAKER_00 (23:30):
Nice.
So within that, and again, theway that we talk about things,
so you have general donors.
I heard somebody say one timethat the general human
population does not walk aroundwith, you know, when we all go
to these conferences and you getyour name tag and then you have
like the ribbons below it.
SPEAKER_02 (23:47):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
The general human population does not walk around
with little ribbons that saythings like mid-level donor,
laps donor, online giver, annualfund donor, event attendee,
right?
We don't walk around with theselittle ribbons that we as an
industry tend to like slappeople into.
Um and so I think maybe that'sthe other, at least for me, the
(24:07):
other takeaway is like all ofthose things are internal.
Yes.
I'm I attended it, and I'msaying that because I attended a
mid-level event one time for anorganization that I support.
And it had like the thefundraising staff, the
development staff had veryclearly been told, like, these
are the people that you'retrying to elevate to that next
(24:30):
level.
Yeah.
Um, and you could see them atone point.
I overheard one of them talkingto a friend of mine about
becoming a major donor.
And like, these are not theseare not outside terms.
No, right?
So I want to just kind ofclarify that everything we've
talked about today is yourinternal conversation with you,
with your team within yourorganization.
(24:50):
This is not how we approachpeople.
SPEAKER_01 (24:52):
Yeah, I mean, you don't put dear major donor on
your letter.
And I actually like not to geton a rapture, but like I hate
the title major gift officer.
We often say like MGOs, majorgift officers.
Like, if I'm a donor, I don'treally want to be talking to the
major gift officer.
Like that doesn't really meananything to me.
At all.
(25:13):
That's why you see more titlesthat are like, I don't even
know, like nonprofitrepresentative or like whatever,
just something that isn't likemajor gift officer.
But yeah, totally all internaltitles.
Like I wouldn't even tell amajor donor they were a major
donor, which is why sometimesyou see nonprofits have like
major donor programs likechampions and president circle
(25:33):
and things like that.
So you you say to them, like,hey, we value you, you have
exclusive access, whatever, butwe're not calling you like a
major donor.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Yeah.
I just, yeah, that as we weretalking about, I'm like, I
especially if we're talkingabout people that are new to the
fundraising space, I just reallywant to put that shell around
it.
These are internal only kind ofterms.
Yes, for sure.
So I'm curious, we're almost outof time, but I'm curious.
Think back to when you were juststarting out, your first
(26:03):
fundraising gig.
What is it that you really wishsomeone would have told you up
front?
What is that piece, or what haveyou learned over the course that
you're like, man, if I wouldhave just had that knowledge 15,
20 years ago, what does thatlook like?
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Yeah, you know, I feel like you already said it,
which is that a nonprofit isjust a tax status.
Because I was really just liketrying to figure out, like,
okay, I'm a fundraiser, I'msupposed to raise money.
Okay, like let's just doeverything I can to raise money.
But really, like there was a tonof data at my disposal that I
had no idea what to do with.
(26:37):
Um, and I wasn't thinking aboutit from like a business
perspective of, you know, let melook at our revenue and which
areas we should look at.
Like, I was just like, I'm I'mhere to raise money and like put
out social media posts and justlike do whatever.
But I wasn't thinking about itlike you were saying, like, hey,
my department is a business unitthat I own.
And like, what can Ispecifically do to grow this
(26:59):
business unit?
Like, you really have to putlike your business data hat on
and be like, what does this looklike?
I think that would have helpedme.
And honestly, like I'm I'm gladyou're doing this podcast
because I didn't at the time Idid not feel like I there was a
place where I could go and belike, here's nonprofit 101 for
data metrics.
Like I just was trying to learn,honestly, from mainly
(27:19):
fundraising agencies, becausethey were the ones putting out
like the most material.
Tell me about these metrics andwhat I can do with them.
Like, I just tried to lean in inall the ways I could from that
perspective because I didn'tfeel like there was great
resources for that.
SPEAKER_00 (27:31):
Yeah.
No, I I am excited.
I mean, and obviously that's whynonprofit hub exists in the
first place, is so that we havethese resources, but I'm really
excited about these this seriesspecifically for folks who are
in that exact same spot.
Uh so to that end, how do wefind Virtuous's benchmarking
report?
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
If you have if you have show notes, I can put a
link in.
Fantastic.
Yes, we will link it there.
Drop it in there.
But like if you go on theVirtuous website, we have under
resources all the benchmarkreports.
We also in June, I don't knowwhen this episode is dropping,
but in June, we have verticalbenchmark reports too.
So, like if you're in faith,healthcare, human services, or
education, we have differentversions for each just because
(28:13):
some of them are reallyspecific.
Sure.
Recurring giving is more commonin faith than it is in
healthcare, where someone givesbecause an event happened in
their life and now they nevergive again.
Like donor retention is sodifferent in healthcare than it
is in education when like you'rean alumni and you never give
again or whatever.
(28:34):
So like looking at it byvertical is really important
too, just so you can make sureyou're benchmarking against the
most niche version of your data.
But I can I'll I'll send you thelinks and you can put them in
there.
SPEAKER_00 (28:44):
Fantastic.
We'll definitely link that inthe in the show notes and on our
social media pages as well.
Um, this will drop in July.
So by the time you folks arehearing about it, those niche
lines will be out for sure.
Cool.
That's great.
Awesome.
Carly, the closing question thatI've been asking everybody on
this season is if you could giveone piece of advice to nonprofit
(29:05):
leaders, what would that be?
This has obviously been likekind of a crazy year for
nonprofits in general, butespecially for those leaders.
If you could give them one pieceof advice or encouragement, what
would that look like?
SPEAKER_01 (29:18):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think sometimes we can getreally wrapped up in the
numbers.
Like, how do we improve this?
How do we improve that?
You know, all of those things.
But like the encouragement Iwould give is like what you're
doing, not many people get todo, which is work at an
organization that has an amazingmission that you obviously care
about if you're working there.
(29:39):
Like, don't lose sight of that.
Yeah, maybe your recurringgiving numbers down or your
revenue is down or whatever, butlike you're doing great work and
like the world needs you to dothat great work.
So don't lose sight of that.
And you said nonprofit leaders,but tell your staff the same
thing.
Yeah, like there's a balancebetween the pressure of let's do
(29:59):
better.
To let's keep doing this thingthat we're doing that is
affecting, you know, ourcommunity or our state or our
country or whatever.
Because without nonprofits,there's no one else out there
solving problems.
Like that's what nonprofits aredoing is solving problems.
So focus on that.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
So good.
Love that word.
Carly, thank you.
Appreciate you coming in andsharing the benchmark report
with us today.
I think that's going to be agreat resource, especially for
our nonprofit 101 friends thatare just starting out.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (30:28):
Yeah.
Again, my guest has been CarlyBerna, who's the fundraiser in
residence at Virtuous.
This has been another episode ofthe Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Spear, andwe'll see you next time.
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