There are lots of numbers you can use to measure the performance of your United Way such as how much money you raise, how much you invest in programs, how many people were helped by the programs you fund, how many people volunteer, etc.

No matter what numbers you use, I would strongly recommend you add two more numbers to your list – the percentage of donors you lost this year, which is often referred to as donor churn, and the percentage of donors that increased their contribution this year. Since every United Way needs donors to survive, these two numbers are a great measure of the survival strength of your United Way.

Donors You Lose Each Year – Donor Churn

Donor churn is a relatively simple calculation. Compare this year’s list of donors with last year’s list of donors and see how many gave last year and did not give this year. For example, if you had 1,000 donors last year, and only 700 of last year’s donors gave this year, then your donor churn would be 30% (300 lost donors is 30% of 1,000 donors). If your United Way uses systems like Andar/360, generating these types of reports is simple.

Based on our research with local United Way donors, United Ways lose between 4 and 5 percent of their donors every year due to retirement. This means that before campaign even started this year, your United Way had to replace those 4 to 5 percent of your donors.

There are plenty of other reasons a United Way can lose donors such as moving out of the area, changing employment to a company that does not have a campaign, the company no longer holds a campaign or switches to an open campaign, or even death. When you combine retirement with all of these other reasons, you are looking at losing a sizable percentage of your donors every year.

In an ideal world, you would not want to lose any donors but since that is not possible, the next best alternative is to minimize donor churn. We believe that donor churn must be UNDER 15% for a United Way to be successful and sustainable long-term. Based on our research, we think that all of the reasons for losing donors listed above will typically result in donor churn of about 15% annually.

Yikes! Our Donor Churn is More Than 15%

I am sure you are asking “But what if our donor churn is more than 15%?” When donor churn is above 15%, our research has found that many of these former donors did not give because they did not know or understand the impact of their contribution. This means you can retain these donors if you clearly communicate the impact of their contribution. Quite often, these donors will say that the only time they heard from their United Way was when they were asking for money – they never heard about the impact of their contribution.

Donors That Increase Their Contribution

This is also a simple calculation as all you need to do is compare how much each donor gave this year with how much each donor gave last year. For example, if you had 1,000 donors give both last year and this year, and 300 of them gave more this year, then your percentage of donors who increased their gift would be 30% (300 donors increasing their gift is 30% of 1,000 donors). Note that we are counting the number of donors who increased their contribution, not the amount of the increase.

We believe that the percentage of donors who increase their contributions should be AT LEAST 15% for a United Way to be successful and sustainable long-term. There are workplaces that will adjust an employee’s United Way contribution so that when the employee receives a pay increase the United Way contribution will increase accordingly. However, the vast majority of United Way donors will need to actively decide and act to increase their United Way contribution.

Yikes! Less Than 15% of Our Donors Increased Their Contribution

Just as with donor churn, if less than 15% of donors increased their contribution, our research has found that many of these donors did not increase their contribution because they did not know or understand the impact of their contribution. Asking and thanking donors alone is not enough to encourage an increased contribution, you must clearly communicate the impact of their contribution in order to receive an increased contribution.

How to Communicate Your Impact: What to Say and How to Say It

We know that communicating impact effectively is not easy. That is why we are offering our How to Communicate Your Impact: What to Say and How to Say It webinar on December 8th. During this webinar we will show you exactly what you need to say and precisely how to say it to effectively communicate your impact. We will cover everything from the formulas you need to craft your impact messages to the methods you will use to get your messages out to your donors. This webinar is jam packed with “What to say” and “How to say it” so that your United Way can effectively communicate your impact. You will grow your contributions and reduce your donor churn with the formulas, information, and examples you get from this webinar.

Join us on December 8th at 2 p.m. ET for this 90-minute webinar. We are restricting attendance at this webinar to 20 United Ways to allow sufficient opportunities for you to ask questions – be sure to reserve your space now! For more information about How to Communicate Your Impact: What to Say and How to Say It click here.

Effectively Communicating Impact is an Imperative for All United Ways

Many United Ways invest a lot of marketing dollars into their campaign materials which are absolutely necessary to get contributions. But don’t stop there – you also need to invest a lot of marketing dollars into communicating your impact. When you make an investment in effectively communicating your impact, it is an investment that pays for itself for years to come as you will be reducing donor churn and growing your donor’s contributions.