I’ve really enjoyed working in the sector over the years; there are great people and causes, but one thing that I’ve always struggled with is a lack of data understanding.
While typing this, I recall a train conversation I had with the head of Individual Giving and another fundraiser early in my role at VSO where I was waxing lyrical about data and its usage and how animated I got and was told to calm down and you’ll go far, but I also remember thinking to myself that I need to bridge the gap between the database and the fundraising team. As Database Manager, I assumed this was my responsibility.
15 years later, I’m still trying to bring fundraisers closer to their data. Over the years, I’ve learned that fundraisers prefer colours to a wall of numbers – I’ve tried both – they prefer simplicity to having to write queries and are mostly comfortable in excel. Some of the new fundraisers, on the other hand, and the ones I believe will excel (see what I did there?) in the coming years, are those who are curious about their supporters and want to get closer to their data.
Enter ADRFM
ADRFM is a report suite that covers the key reports and metrics that fundraisers have requested from me over the years. ADRFM (Actually Data’s Really Fantastic Metrics) was born.
Delivering training sessions is something I’ve always enjoyed. When a user understands what you’re trying to show them, such as queries in Raiser’s Edge. There’s no better feeling than making someone self-sufficient. I’ve worked with organisations that requested reports from CRM systems, as well as organisations that had no reporting in place or had no idea how well they were performing other than what was in the management accounts.
The level of detail in your CRM system should allow you to answer questions like: Who are my best supporters, where do they live, what products do they buy, when do they buy them, and what will they buy next. None of it of these will come from your management accounts.
Working with a number of organisations where monthly reports were required, as well as doing mailing selections for clients. I’ve spent a lot of time considering what these organisations, large and small, have in common. Simple things like RFV (Recency, Frequency, Value) to single givers and multi givers seemed to be at the forefront of a fundraiser’s mind.
Then there were the average gift amounts and the number of communications received by a supporter. We have over 20 metrics that we can calculate on your data that you can use to select supporters or review what they’ve done, some of which may be things you’d like to test in the future in a mailing or supporter journey.
I hope that having a suite of reports that cover all aspects of fundraising and are easy to use and explore your data brings fundraisers closer to their supporters and helps them understand what they do and when they do it. It’s colourful, so it should be more engaging than a crystal report, and it provides a starting point for organisations that haven’t reviewed their reporting requirements. One of the clients used it in this manner; they needed reporting but weren’t sure what they wanted, so they started with ADRFM and discovered that it meets the majority of their needs.
ADRFM is a subscription-based, system-independent product. So it doesn’t matter if you’re using thankQ, Raiser’s Edge, D365, Salesforce, or any of the other CRM systems on the market; our system will work with it. Customers use data from multiple systems together rather than going through a full data warehouse solution.
As with most projects I’ve worked on, I believe that reporting is a journey. If you’re just getting started, we have a reporting suite that will get you and your organisation started. This is ADRFM in a nutshell; it includes reporting and KPIs.
If you are a larger organisation that is already embracing data and looking to take the next step with your reporting, we have the Pro version, which includes reporting, KPI’s, metrics, and our very own segmentation tool. This enables fundraisers (or anyone else?) to create their own segments for analysis.
We’ve also created bespoke reports based on our data model and data from Google Analytics and Email Marketing Platforms like Dot Digital.
So, if you want to learn more about ADRFM or discuss your specific reporting needs and how it might help your organisation, get in touch and we can have a virtual coffee and talk about it in more detail, though you may need to tell me to “calm down” ;). Please Contact Us
