2011 NTEN Champions Fundraising Campaign by the Numbers

Submitted by Holly on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 4:31pm
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Flickr photo: andercismoFlickr photo: andercismoThe funny thing about being the Nonprofit Technology Network is that it can be really hard to practice what we preach.

You may recall that the NTEN community recently helped us raise over $15,000 to host more local events throughout 2012. We learned so much while running that campaign, but we also made lots of mis-steps along the way. One of the things we wished for as we navigated the campaign: benchmarks. Besides average gift amount, what might we expect?

We value both transparency and sharing here at NTEN, so we decided we would share all our campaign results with you. We'll share some more of the "how-to" type advice in the coming days, but for now, here are some of NTEN's benchmarks.

By way of background, there were several elements of the campaign:

  • We recruited 20 champions to fundraise on our behalf.
  • We asked individuals to make a donation to the campaign when they renewed their memberships.
  • We sent a total of four emails to our community soliciting donations directly.

Here are the numbers:

  • Total raised: $15,916 (106% of goal)
  • Average gift: $65.23
  • Median gift: $25
  • Largest gift: $2,500
  • Number of unique donations: 244
  • Number of unique donors: 196
  • Number of fundraisers (including NTEN): 21
  • Average raised per fundraiser (including NTEN): $757.90
  • Number of donors who made more than one gift: 15
  • Number of first time donors: 169

Note that we're missing a pretty big metric at this point: the campaign net total! We're still working on figuring out the expenses. Although we used online tools that didn't have a lot of hard costs, we're busy mulling over how much staff time went into the campaign and how to account for that. If we come to a conclusion we feel good about, we'll share that too.

But do you know what the most important metric is? The joy and gratitude we felt throughout this campaign. We got songs, poems, and so many stories about the role NTEN plays in helping the community meet their missions. That's what it's all about.

Many thanks again to our champions and all you amazing donors. We've already begun the work of starting up new 501TechClubs and planning local events in 2012. We hope to see you there!

But first, maybe you can help out: Are there any other numbers we should be looking at?