Are you using your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to its full potential?

The better a charity uses its CRM solution, the more efficient it will be when fundraising and meeting its goals and targets. One of the best ways to get more out of your CRM platform is by maximizing your use of reports.

Level up your donor management by creating these 5 must-have reports in your CRM solution today.

1) Fundraising Reports Your CRM system can tell you a lot about your fundraising.

First, it can give you an idea of where most of your revenue comes from by showing you how much money was generated through each method. For example, are donors giving more online or through other channels? This report will tell you.

Next, review your reports to see which donors are contributing large amounts (or contributing on a regular basis). If you see a donor who has given thousands of dollars in one year, find out more about them. Have they participated in an event or fundraiser? Use this information to better thank your donors and improve their experience with your organization.

2) Campaign Reports

Do you know which campaigns are meeting their targets and which ones aren't? A CRM platform can help charity leaders evaluate the performance of each campaign they organize. You can see how much money is raised, if any progress has been made toward your monthly giving program, and which strategies need to be changed so your campaign will be more successful.

Using your reports, see how many people donated time and money during each campaign. You can check which donors gave the most money or who participated in your events most often. By making real-time decisions about how to keep a campaign on track, you can increase its chances of success and reach your fundraising goals.

3) Board and Staff Reports

Your CRM solution can also tell you a lot about your staff, board members, and volunteers – all of which are essential to the success of any charity.

Do you need more board members? How many hours do volunteers tend to volunteer? How much money is your staff spending on fundraising or events? All of this information is available in your CRM system.

This type of information can be found in a contact report. These reports usually show things like contact information, activity, communication preferences, contributions, and relationships.

4) Opportunity Reports

Strategic charities are constantly looking for donors who have capacity to increase their gifts, and your CRM system can help you find exactly the kinds of donors you want. Look at what your donors have given in the past. Do you notice any trends? Has it always been the same gift? Have gifts been on the decline?

While you can’t know a person’s intentions for certain, these insights help you make some estimates about their giving capacity. You can also see if there is a specific cause that they care about or an organization that they have ties with.

When these donors are pulled together in a list, these are known as opportunity reports. These list all active opportunities you have set in your CRM platform including gifts in kind, donations, grants, and more.

5) Top Prospect Report

Who are your best prospects? Who has given to your organization before? Who would most likely give in the future based on what they have done in the past?

This is a Prospect report, and it provides insight into which donors you should target first. The top prospect report lists all of your prospects based on their activity and relationship with your organization.

Ideally, these reports will help you better understand which types of donors you need and what they are looking for. Use them to generate leads, reach out to new contacts, and strengthen relationships with your most valuable donors.

Make Data-Driven Decisions

Reports are great, but graphs and charts mean nothing if you don't take actionable steps from them. Whether you're looking to learn more about your audience, donors, or prospects, there's data that can help you make better fundraising decisions.

To learn more about those actions and how charities can take their donor management to the next level, read our White Paper.

Philip Manzano is a Senior Client Marketing Manager at CanadaHelps, a leader in providing powerful fundraising and donation technology to charities and donors since 2000. Philip has been working closely with charities and small nonprofit teams to adopt nonprofit technology for the last nine years. www.canadahelps.org

Cover photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash