Helen Brown Group

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The other side of furlough

I’ve been watching the nonprofit space with increasing concern lately, hearing stories of colleagues – friends – getting laid off or placed on furlough, or under the cloud of potential furlough. Considering what’s happening, I know objectively that in some cases it’s the only logical financial decision some charities can make, but it’s still a constant heartache. I know that many colleagues will come out of this just fine – or maybe even better – in the long run, but in the moment it can be hard to summon hope. That’s why I wanted to make sure you saw this article from Apra-IL’s blog written by Joan Ogwumike and Beth Inman. It’s more than just a journey story – Beth shares great perspective and practical coping techniques, too. Thank you to Joan, Beth, and Apra-IL for granting permission for your article to be re-shared here. ~Helen

Joan: Hi Beth, can you share with our readers where you believe your heart and mind is right now?

Beth: Name an emotion and I’ve felt it over the past few months. Worried, scared, angry, optimistic, hopeful, to name just a few. Right now, I’m feeling grateful and my heart and mind are in a good place considering all the changes over the past couple of months (being furloughed, long distance move, and starting a new job). I’m grateful for my fantastic new job opportunity and for our prospect development community which has been so supportive. I have received emails, texts, and dm’s checking in, and those gestures have made a huge difference in keeping my spirits high. 

Thank you for mentioning the prospect development community, can you share why community matters (you state that their outreach made a huge difference in keeping your spirits high) can you share more on that?

Community matters because it’s important to have a connection. That connection could be familial, professional, spiritual, etc. but it’s that connection or being a part of something that contributes to our overall sense of wellbeing. Our prospect development community on Twitter, for example, is so interesting because I’ve only met a handful of them in person. That said, I know they’re there when I’m frustrated about our work and I also know they’re there when we’re going through something like COVID and it’s affecting all of us in some way. Even when the “there” is virtual, it’s still so helpful!

Where would you say your heart and mind were as you waited to find out your furlough status?

Some days I was sure I would be furloughed and other days, I had a glimmer of hope that the work I was doing was important enough to not be furloughed. We knew a week ahead of time that furloughs were coming but we had no idea how many staff would be affected or what criteria would be used to determine who would be impacted. That was a really long week. That level of worry is exhausting and it affects every aspect of your life. 

As many are going through this exact situation, what can you say matters?

2020 has been a rough year for everyone and we have all had very different experiences related to COVID-19 and its effects on our industry, our communities, and our families. I am a planner and I am a worrier so the past 5-6 months have been really tough for me. What I’ve realized is that I spend a lot of time worrying about things I don’t have any control over and asking for help is OK.  What matters to me right now is understanding that it’s alright to not have a plan and to recognize when I should ask for help – that I don’t have to do it all myself. 

I believe you just spoke to so many of us who are planners and worriers, to break away from this ingrained piece of us would be difficult, how are you doing it? Is this a process or an overnight shift?

Oh, it’s definitely a process and one that I have to consciously work on! My therapist has helped me with ways to counter my worrisome thoughts when I start to go down that “what if” rabbit hole and it takes practice to do that, but it’s worth it. One of things I learned is to counter a negative thought with a positive one. This helps me think about the different ways a situation could go and options I need to consider. For example, when I was worrying with thoughts that “my house wouldn’t sell”, I flipped it and asked, “what if the house sells,” that helped me think about what I’ll need to do when it sells.

Ever since the quarantine started many have shared advice on working from home, and ways to stay busy and productive aside from their work; what did you do to keep yourself whole, sane, and happy?

For me, once I learned I was furloughed, I made a to do list and came up with a schedule (albeit a not very structured one) for the weekdays, which was really helpful. I had been working full time for 20+ years so to learn on a Thursday that I was no longer working was a really odd and scary feeling. I kept thinking, “what am I going to do?” That’s where the to do list and schedule came in. They helped me structure my day in a way that helped me stay on track and feel like I had some control over the day. My to do list was everything from clean out the pantry to exercising to reviewing my resume and even what Netflix shows I wanted to watch. When I made the schedule, I wanted to start the day doing something that made me happy which was drinking coffee and reading. (I have read a lot over the past few months and if you need any book recommendations, let me know!)  

Do you have any advice for people experiencing the fear of being furloughed?

In talking to friends and colleagues about furloughs, I have learned that organizations have handled their furloughs differently. For example, some organizations continue to keep in touch with their furloughed employees; they are part of regular meetings and they are provided updates on their furlough status. This was not my experience, so my advice is to think about questions to ask your supervisor if you are furloughed. For example, how will the organization communicate with those who are furloughed? Will you have access to your files/emails/intranet (your org’s HR site, for example)? If you’re going to file for unemployment, it wouldn’t hurt to research what you will need to apply in your state so you have an idea of what to prepare. In some cases, it can take weeks for the benefits to kick in, so filing sooner rather than later is a good idea. 

Now is also a good time to review your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile and make sure it’s up to date. If you decide to start a job search, it’s good to have these documents in their best shape. And, if you start applying for positions, reach out to your references to confirm they’re still willing to be a reference and give them a heads up if you learn an organization is contacting your references. If you use your work email for Apra and other professional listservs, make sure you update it to your personal email to ensure you continue to get important information.

And, finally, practice self-care and utilize the Apra community! Self-care looks different for everyone but it’s so important! The Apra community is helpful and compassionate and we want to see our colleagues succeed. 

Thank you again, Joan and Beth. Dear readers, do you have any advice to share? Please share in the comments .

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Data insight made easy: using RFM scoring to find great prospects

This week’s article is from the keyboard of my colleague, Kenny Tavares, Senior Researcher and Data Insight Consultant. I asked Kenny to share his knowledge today on one of the most straightforward fundraising analytics projects we offer (which you can also do at home!) – RFM analysis. ~Helen

As fundraisers, when we think about data analysis today, we’re likely to drift into the world of complex modeling practices that predict what donors are most likely to give based on a wide variety of factors. Go to any conference and you’re bound to hear about the wonder of Big Data. But if you work in a smaller organization with fewer resources, you may have walked away feeling like none of this was for you. Let’s face it, just in terms of time spent, these projects seem inaccessible.

However, we all need to understand our donors better. The data we keep can unlock critical new insights for our organizations. Data analytics has benefits for all of us, so we all must find ways to sort through the information we have so we can make better decisions. But how to do it?  Let’s start by assessing our top donors using three important metrics: an RFM analysis.

What is RFM?

Created for the purpose of corporate direct marketing, RFM is an analytical method used to determine an organization’s best customers — or in our case, donors. It has been around for more than 40 years, but a popular method for performing RFM analysis is credited to Arthur Middleton Hughes in his 1994 book Strategic Database Marketing: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-based Marketing Program. In the book, Hughes describes the method of binning three attributes into five ranges, which I will briefly describe in a moment.  These attributes are:

  • Recency (R): In our case, how recently a donor has made a gift
  • Frequency (F): How often a donor makes a gift
  • Monetary value (M): How much a donor has given

For fundraisers, these three areas are important because of what we know about donor affinity:

  • Donors who have given recently are more engaged than lapsed donors
  • Donors who give regularly are more engaged than infrequent donors
  • Donors who make larger gifts on average are more engaged than donors who make smaller ones

Because it’s easier to retain donors than to acquire them, understanding who your best donors are is a no-brainer.  Having a better feel for your donor pool allows you the opportunity to solicit them is a more efficient, cost-effective manner.

At this time, when predictive analysis has become more and more accessible, you might be asking “Why should I perform an RFM analysis?

It’s simple

To perform an RFM analysis, all you need for each donor is a constituent ID, the number of gifts they have made, their lifetime giving and the date of their most recent gift.  Compared to more complex predictive modeling, the threshold for performing this task is much lower, making this project manageable for most organizations. However, if your giving records are inaccurate or incomplete, now would be a great time to address that issue.

Once you have your data, you’ll need to score your records based on the three categories.  For each category, divide your dataset into fifths, giving the best fifth a score of 5, with the subsequent fifths scored from 4 to 1.  For instance, if you sort the last gift date in descending order, your top fifth – the donors who have given most recently, would receive a score of 5. Repeat the process with the total number of gifts (frequency) and lifetime giving (monetary).  In the case of lifetime giving, you may prefer to divide that figure by the number of gifts and use the average gift for your scoring.  Once you’ve scored each variable, combine them to create your final score.  The easiest way to do this would be to adjoin the three numbers to create the final score (ex. 555, 444, 333, etc.).

Now that you’ve scored your records, sort them by their final score and check out the results.  Perhaps you’ll find some surprises.  It’s all good if it improves your understanding of your donor pool.

It’s strategic

RFM analysis operates on the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule. For our purpose, it would suggest that 80% of our gifts come from 20% of our donors. Knowing your 20% is critical. Keeping this group happy will obviously have long term benefits for your organization, as long as you don’t give them too much attention. But don’t stop here; there are other donors to consider.

Now, you might be asking “What about the remaining 80%?” It’s a good question, because it doesn’t make sense to cast them aside. Take the time to become familiar with the other segments and develop strategies for these groups as well.  For instance, how can you motivate new donors to give again? How can you encourage loyal donors to increase their giving?  How can you re-engage lapsed donors? Knowing these subsets allows you to better target them based on their behavior. Ultimately, you can craft your message to these groups more efficiently.

It’s predictive

As I mentioned, our three variables, and what they tell us about the donor, make RFM analysis an exercise in predicting which group of people are most likely to give again. That said, it does lack the flair of a more sophisticated predictive model, which would entail the use of many more variables. However, the usefulness of your RFM analysis is ongoing. The more you learn about your top donors, the more adept you’ll become at identifying similar prospects. You may not be as quick as an algorithm, but your institutional knowledge is extremely valuable. Take the time to consider the following about your best donors:

  • How old are they?
  • What is their marital status?
  • Where do they live?
  • Where do they work?
  • In which industry do they work?
  • What are their job titles?
  • How large was their first gift?

I could go on, but you get the point. Exploring the data on your top givers will improve your ability to recognize and efficiently target promising new donors.

Conclusion

Your ability to analyze the information you have available is a critical component to retaining donors and discovering prospects. Regardless of resources, we all need a way to recognize what the data tells us. Applying RFM analysis is a great place to start; it might even whet your appetite for other data strategies. Once you start using analytics to discover insight in your data, you’ll find answers to questions you might not even have thought to ask!

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Exciting Announcement: HBG Data Insight!

I hope you had a safe and relaxing Fourth of July weekend! Our town cancelled its annual fireworks show this year, but various neighbors randomly filled the gap in their own way (ahem) so we still got to peep some here and there. Same with you?

The celebration here at HBG continues this week: We’ve been working on something very special over the past year, and today I have some exciting news to share – cue more fireworks!

As we all retool and strategize to be successful in this new normal, the project we’ve been developing could not have been ready at a better time. We are delighted to announce a new initiative here at The Helen Brown Group specifically designed to help nonprofits identify and get the information they need on their best donors.

We’ve formed a new unit called HBG Data Insight (DI).

While the unit is new, you’ll definitely recognize the DI team as long-time HBG talent. Tara McMullen-King is the new unit’s Lead Consultant, and senior staffers Kenny Tavares and David Hargadon are the DI Consultants filtering and transforming data into insight.

Why HBG Data Insight? Why now?

Over the years we’ve been frustrated seeing nonprofit colleagues unintentionally left stranded by talented specialists who provide analytics services…but then move on. The nonprofit pays a lot of money for the work and they may get a fantastic group of new prospects, but when the analytics consultant goes away to their next job, then what?

Circumstances change quickly – especially these days – and algorithms have a very limited shelf life.

And all of the AI and machine learning and data science and screenings in the world won’t tell you which living, breathing, human being amongst the list of hundreds is genuinely interested in your cause and has a personal connection to your nonprofit. Or which ones have family wealth. Or have made multiple philanthropic gifts through a DAF. Data insight and screenings alone just can’t do that.

We decided it was time for a practical, integrated, affordable, solution.

So over the past year, we partnered with a group of our dedicated consulting clients to beta-test a unique service: data insight married with prospect development:

Data insight plus research.

Data insight plus due diligence.

Data insight plus prospect management.

We found that most wanted all four woven together: insight, research, due diligence, and prospect management to take advantage of new opportunities and ideas as they arose.

We’ve helped our clients use their own data to answer these questions (and quite a few more):

  • Who are our most likely donors right now?
  • How should we prioritize our prospect pools?
  • How can we segment our wealth screening results to find top prospects faster?
  • Do we have the right people in the right portfolios?
  • Are we allocating our frontline fundraisers in the right way?
  • Can we better predict what our fundraising goals should be next year?
  • If we can’t do events now, what is our next-best option of engagement?
  • Where are our best planned giving prospects?

Our insight services range from descriptive analysis projects and RFMV analyses, up to and including predictive modeling. For some we have integrated wealth screening information that they had; for others we helped them get the most out of a new screening. We’ve even gathered a proprietary set of additional data to help us surface more prospects.

When you work in an integrated way, insight questions like the ones above can rotate and be added to continuously as new questions arise.

Marrying ongoing data insight with the rest of prospect development and the frontline team makes sure that you’re introducing the right – vetted – prospects into the pipeline continuously.

Don’t just take our word for it, here’s information from a survey of nonprofits done by IBM.

  • 78% of nonprofit leaders with analytic capabilities reported higher effectiveness in performing their missions.
  • Nonprofits using analytics had more efficient operations and increased staff productivity.
  • However, the survey found that 48% of non-profits indicated that technology was a primary barrier to advancing analytics, and 41% indicated that talent was their primary barrier.
  • Nearly three quarters said that budget was one of top three barriers to using analytics.

Honestly, that last bullet point just floors me. It doesn’t have to be that way.

What does partnering with HBG Data Insight look like?

As I mentioned, our goal is to help clients affordably make data-informed decisions. To do that, we primarily use an integrated, dedicated, prospect development approach, which is something we’ve specialized in since 2005.

We provide expert consultants for a contracted number of hours each month for at least three months. That commitment allows us to keep our price-point lower and bring clients real value. It also allows us – together – to customize what happens during those hours to exactly what you need.

Don’t need the whole burrito of data insight plus prospect research? No problem.

If you already have internal prospect research capacity, that’s great. Our data insight team can work with you on a project basis, too, and we’d be happy to partner with your researcher (or research team) to provide results they can build on.

Check out our website to see more detailed information on the services we’re offering. If you have an insight project in mind that isn’t listed there, we’d be happy to talk it through with you.

HBG Data Insight: Practical. Integrated. Affordable.

ABOUT HBG

The Helen Brown Group was formed in 2002 with a goal to be different.

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