Fundraising Metrics

This course is designed to look at the metrics that we use in fundraising and the fundamental principles behind them.

This course has three main goals:

1) Get you familiar with different types of metrics that will be useful when measuring your fundraising

2) Provide you with fundamentals behind these metrics, so you understand what it is that they are actually telling you

3) Give you opportunity to apply your learning through quick assignments using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, and quizzes along the way to make sure you understand the metrics

You are going to learn the fundamentals behind the calculations that are common in the sector, but also tackle some important calculations that you may not be as familiar with. You will be able to understand why multiple retention rates are better than a single rate, the difference between cost-to-raise-a-dollar and return-on-investment (and how to move from one to the other), and evaluating whether donors will bring in more than you spend acquiring them.

By the end of the course, the goal is for you to be able to use all of these metrics to analyse campaigns. Which campaign did better in terms of acquiring donors, retaining donors, converting to monthly, etc. Did one campaign do better with revenue or better with retention, or both?

While math will be used in the course, you don’t have to be good at math for the course. There will be some minor calculations you are asked to do, but you will be able to use Excel, Google Sheets, or other tools to do it for you.