Bottom Donor Sustained Giving Analysis

Bottom Donor Sustained Giving

How to use the Bottom Donors to Sustained Givers (Multiple Gifts/Years) Cohort Analysis analysis

This analysis tracks donors who began their relationship with your organization at lower gift levels and monitors their journey toward sustained engagement, focusing on those who have given multiple gifts over multiple years. By analyzing all donors who made an initial bottom-tier gift (using a threshold derived from your organization's Monetary segmentation analysis), you can uncover which segments of these donors have become consistent supporters, upgraded their giving, or lapsed. The analysis uses gift data linked with constituent records, filtering out deceased donors to ensure you're evaluating only active supporter histories. It calculates critical indicators like total gifts, number of fiscal years with giving, lifetime giving, tenure, and recent giving activity, each helping you understand the depth of donor commitment and recency.

You'll see donors grouped by their fiscal year of acquisition, with metrics such as how many converted to sustained multi-year giving, how many have upgraded to mid-level giving, and the rates for each cohort over time. These calculations allow you to identify patterns in donor retention and upgrade, pinpointing which acquisition years or strategies have yielded the best long-term results. Metrics like average gifts, lifetime giving, and tenure for sustained donors are especially valuable for forecasting donor value and refining your stewardship approach.

You should leverage this analysis to identify which donor cohorts are most promising for further cultivation and which require re-engagement strategies. 

Fundraising directors and development officers should review this analysis regularly, particularly after key campaigns and at the end of the fiscal year, to refine retention and upgrade strategies. Donor engagement teams can use the findings to prioritize outreach to those at risk of lapsing or those who are ripe for an upgrade ask. It's recommended to review this analysis periodically as part of your Constituent Intelligence routines, ensuring your strategies remain responsive to trends.

You can measure success by tracking increases in conversion rates of bottom donors to sustained givers, upgrades to higher giving levels, and improvements in donor tenure and lifetime value. Monitoring these metrics over multiple periods will help you assess the impact of your stewardship and engagement strategies, ensuring you re maximizing donor potential and deepening relationships over time.