Removing the Barriers to Growth: How to Influence Your Organization's Leadership Through Data
1. Allison Porter, Avalon Consulting
Laura Connors, National Parks Conservation Association
Amelia Koch, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Removing the Barriers to
Growth: How to Influence Your
Organization’s Leadership
Through Data
3. #Bridge15
Laura Connors – Acting Vice President, Membership, National Parks Conservation Association
• NPCA’s mission is to protect our national parks for future generations.
• NPCA has more than 1 million members and supporters.
Amelia Koch – Director of Membership, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
• CBF is the largest independent conservation organization dedicated solely to saving the Bay.
• Serving as a watchdog, we fight for effective, science‐based solutions to the pollution degrading the Chesapeake Bay
and its rivers and streams.
• CBF has more than 200,000 members.
Allison Porter – President, Avalon Consulting Group
• Avalon is a full‐service direct marketing fundraising agency.
• Since 1997, Avalon has helped our clients raise millions of dollars to achieve their visions for a better world—while
building relationships with people who share their passion and support their important causes.
Here with you today…
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7. #3: Recognize the changing donor landscape
• Donors are changing – and so are their expectations.
• We must connect with them emotionally, and
quantify impact.
• Leverage the tried‐and‐true in direct marketing
fundraising and caution against chasing the shiny
new toy—all the while employing testing and
analytics to identify new and more effective ways to
engage donors in this new environment.
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23. #Bridge15
rolling year revenue total cost net
members
gifts average gift gifts per
member
revenue per
member
2012 $5,100,987 $0 $5,100,987 80,091 107,469 $47.46 1.34 $63.69
2013 $4,926,912 $2,135,401 $2,791,511 68,294 94,683 $52.04 1.39 $72.14
2014 $4,718,760 $2,246,923 $2,471,837 59,205 86,173 $54.76 1.46 $79.70
2015 $4,646,657 $1,143,593 $3,503,064 54,462 82,521 $56.31 1.52 $85.32
Example: Use clear
visuals to highlight
key metrics.
Instead of this:
Use this: A more visual
presentation to increase
understanding and
decrease noise:
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24. #Bridge15
Example: Use
clear visuals to
highlight key
metrics.
rolling year overall member
retention
member retention
w/reinstates
first year
retention
multi yr
retention
2012 45.30% 60.30% 21.30% 60.90%
2013 48.00% 66.40% 17.70% 63.50%
2014 55.00% 71.50% 24.40% 63.90%
2015 59.00% 75.30% 31.70% 66.00%
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