Nonprofit Trends

Inspired by our industry’s fundraising benchmark reports, Merkle RMG has published our first Nonprofit Donation Processing Benchmark Report.  This report is a quarterly in-depth review of donation processing data to give nonprofits a view into the transactional side of fundraising.

Yes, “why are nonprofits losing half of their donors?” is an important question that fundraisers need to reflect upon.   But it’s not the only question they should be asking themselves, and certainly not the most important.

What are we doing about it? is the million-dollar question, and the answer is sadly, not much.

This past week I attended the DMA Nonprofit Conference in Chicago.  It was wonderful meeting with clients, connecting with new folks, and catching up with old friends.

Many times, when I return from these industry conferences team members ask, “what was your favorite session?” or “what was your biggest takeaway?”

Yesterday, an article I wrote discussing the value of donor feedback was published on The Grow Report.  I know for months I’ve been talking about the value of donor feedback, but this article sums it up nicely.

The reason Merkle RMG is critical is because we are the eyes and ears for a nonprofit. Think about it — we are the first to engage with a donor. Whether it is processing a donation, flagging a piece of comment mail, responding to an email, or answering a phone call — we are first to react to a donor’s behavior.