A nonprofit organization leaves you with lots of data to collect, manage, and analyze, from donor contributions to program impact. The right tools for effective nonprofit analytics can improve your organization’s decision-making, operational efficiency, internal communication, and real-world impact.
What Is Nonprofit Data Analytics?
Data analytics is the ongoing process of recording and managing all of an organization’s data to track patterns, trends, and other key insights. For nonprofits, the three stages of analytics include:
- Collecting data: Establish a system, such as nonprofit software, to automatically record information from all data sources.
- Managing data: Set a secure method for storing, accessing, and auditing data.
- Analyzing data: Use predictive modeling and other processes and tools to generate insights and identify data patterns.
Types of Nonprofit Analytics
The process of analyzing nonprofit data differs based on the types of information your nonprofit is working with. Categorizing your organization’s data analytics helps you distinguish and compare key data points for maximum insights and impact measurement. Separating the different types of nonprofit analytics also allows you to set realistic data collection goals and effectively track updates from all potential sources.
The primary types of nonprofit data include:
- Descriptive analytics: These analytics focus on your nonprofit’s historical data to report past performances and trends — essentially, “what happened.” Use them to identify your most and least successful campaigns and practices.
- Diagnostic analytics: These analytics track trends and outcomes to identify the root causes behind changes and anomalies, establishing why “what happened” happened. Common diagnostic analytics processes include correlation and data drilling.
- Predictive analytics: This analytics process uses machine learning and other platform or website statistical tools to forecast future trends. These analytics can improve decision-making by helping you estimate your potential return on investment (ROI).
- Prescriptive analytics: With these data insights, you can devise the best strategies for fundraising campaigns, supporter engagement, and program growth. For instance, prescriptive analytics can indicate the best times to contact donors or the ideal ways to phrase your message.
Why Nonprofits Need Data Analysis
There are several significant benefits to nonprofit data management and analytics.
Measuring Program Effectiveness
Tracking key performance indicators (KPI), such as donor engagement and donation amounts, helps you assess the most and least effective parts of your program. Beyond support decision-making, these insights can prove to donors and grant agencies that their contributions are actively and positively impacting the intended communities.
Understanding and Improving Donor Engagement
Donor analytics can improve your engagement and communication strategies based on donors’ giving history, contribution amount, and other key information. For instance, donor segmentation divides donors into groups based on their donation history, demographic data, and engagement history for better campaign targeting.
Optimizing Marketing and Outreach Efforts
Similarly, historical marketing and outreach data can guide your most effective campaign strategies. In addition to recommending tailored outreach tactics, these nonprofit analytics give you pointers for affordably managing your marketing resources to minimize costs and maximize impacts.
Enhancing Operational Efficiency
Analyzing program data can identify the processes that cost your organization the most time and money in order to streamline service delivery. Predictive analytics also help you forecast and prepare for future trends, such as potential low-funding periods, to keep your services available year-round.
How to Get Started With Nonprofit Analytics
While case management software and other tools can simplify your nonprofit analytics, effective data management takes more than a single button click. Follow these steps to effectively collect and analyze your nonprofit organization’s data:
- Set your goals: First, consider your campaign- or program-specific goals, such as a particular funding amount or specific types of case outcomes. For effective nonprofit data management and analytics, your goals should follow the SMART framework by being specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
- Choose the right tools and software: Nonprofit software for client management, such as Casebook, can streamline your data management processes by keeping all of your program data in one place. These tools automatically track all key data points in real-time over time for accurate, up-to-date data collection.
- Prioritize the metrics that matter the most: Refer back to your initial campaign or program goals to identify your most significant KPIs for impact measurement. Customize your dashboard and other tools to primarily focus on these data points so you can easily track your program growth and performance over time.
- Develop a process for collecting, managing, and analyzing data: Your collection process should track data throughout its entire lifecycle for accurate real-time insights. Standardize your data collection and management across all of your nonprofit’s operations to avoid data siloes and missed data points.
- Get external support: Tailored support like Casebook’s can customize your nonprofit analytics around your unique goals, clients, donors, and other significant variables. A reliable solution provider can also provide easy training and onboarding programs to help case managers quickly adapt to their new, streamlined workflows.
What Metrics Should Nonprofits Track?
Simply measuring revenue or engagement will limit your understanding of your nonprofit’s financial health or real-world impacts. You must track several key metrics at once to consider all variables impacting your organization’s funding and performance.
This is especially important for nonprofit organizations, as your impacts and successes won’t always be financially measurable. Instead, you may need to focus on client engagement and adopt proxy metrics to track your real-world impacts and compare them with your monetary numbers.
Different types of data points can help you track particular aspects of your organization’s health, including your fundraising, marketing, and service delivery.
Program Impact and Service Delivery
Tracking the performance of your programs and services allows you to refine your service delivery and report your impact data to stakeholders. A diverse set of impact metrics lets you assess how effectively you meaningfully improved individuals’ lives during and after service delivery.
Program impact and service delivery KPIs include:
- Cost per outcome: This metric estimates the average cost of all client results, such as the cost of providing housing or allocating resources to an individual or family. This KPI is calculated by dividing the total program costs by the number of outcomes.
- Program completion rates: This KPI reports the percentage of clients who successfully complete your programs or services, such as substance use clients who stick to their treatment plan through the end. These rates reflect how effectively you keep clients engaged and how likely you are to help future clients achieve their desired outcomes.
- Service utilization: This metric gauges how effectively your services are actually used relative to your service capacity and mission goals. For nonprofits in particular, service utilization typically focuses on how much of your target community has access to and engages with your services.
- Client progress indicators: These KPIs track clients’ progress along their cases and treatment plans to gauge individual clients’ performances and measure overall program impact. Client progress indicators consider many key client metrics, such as attendance, health conditions, and economic variables.
- Client outcomes and improvements: Document and track all progress and achievements along clients’ care plans, including improvements in stability, skills, employment, health, and safety, rather than relying solely on completion metrics. Notate the depth and quality of these changes, such as how meaningfully these services impacted individuals, to establish that your services genuinely improved people’s lives.
- Social return on investment (SROI): This framework measures the social, environmental, and economic value created by your program relative to the resources invested. Using proxies, SROIs let you assign value to metrics that aren’t typically financially measurable, such as improved health, larger social circles, or reduced homelessness rates.
- Durability of outcomes: This metric tracks how long clients’ progress and outcomes last over time, such as how long a housing solution supported a family or an individual maintained a steady income. Outcome durability can be measured with follow-up outcomes, sustained improvements, and reduced needs for repeat services.
Operational Efficiency and Caseload Metrics
Operational and caseload metrics measure how well your programs are running and where you may need to adjust or improve your workflow. Considering all operational efficiency metrics helps you gauge your most and least effective processes. By identifying gaps and areas for improvement, you can maintain high-quality services and program delivery.
Regularly track the following caseload and operational efficiency metrics:
- Employee retention and engagement: Tracking employee satisfaction and engagement indicators helps you gauge your staff sustainability and respond to factors negatively impacting employees’ experiences. Key employee metrics include your staff retention rate, voluntary turnover rate, absenteeism rate, performance metrics, and survey results.
- Capacity utilization: Your caseload capacity threshold estimates how many cases your organization (and individual case managers) can reasonably take on at one time based on your unique workflow and average case complexity. Once you identify your threshold, regularly track your actual caseload to assess how frequently you are below, at, or above your capacity.
- Case management workflows: Define and track your organization’s case management workflows and how they may differ across case types. With these metrics, you can identify your most productive and resource-effective workflows and processes, as well as those draining your budget and work hours.
- Average resolution and response times: Time metrics help you gauge how long it takes your organization to connect with clients, complete intake, deliver services, and resolve their cases. This highlights your fastest and slowest workflows, steps, and case managers.
Supporter Engagement and Communication Metrics
The following KPIs focus on your supporters, such as volunteers, donors, and other stakeholders, to improve your communication and engagement strategies:
- Volunteer retention: This metric measures the percentage of volunteers who remain involved with your organization rather than volunteering only once. This gauges your nonprofit’s ability to keep volunteers engaged and active.
- Event participation: This metric tracks engagement for individuals at events and during campaigns. For example, it could track how many attendees at a fundraising event actually donated to your cause or how many people were influenced by your marketing campaign’s content.
- Returning supporters: Similar to your donor retention rate, this tracks supporter engagement and attendance. This differentiates your standard number of supporters from the number of supporters who will likely help out again, making it easier for you to plan for your future support needs.
- Multi-channel engagement: These KPIs track your engagement metrics across multiple platforms, including email, social media, phone calls, and your website. These insights can highlight your most effective communication and engagement strategies, such as the types of posts that generate the most leads.
How Case Management Systems Transform Analytics Into Action
Integrated case management systems such as Casebook centralize your case management workflows into a comprehensive, user-friendly dashboard. This can transform multiple parts of your nonprofit data analytics and management processes for streamlined operations and better donor communication.
Key benefits of using nonprofit analytics include:
- Simplified data collection: Automated systems record and update your data points in real-time for accurate, actionable insights. Fully integrated systems sync with other aspects of your workflows, such as digital forms and internal communication, to avoid information siloes and make sure all data is accounted for.
- Producing real-time dashboards: Up-to-date user dashboards share everything you and case managers need to know, highlighting program growth, impact data, fundraising efficiency, and more.
- Connected service data: Case management software serves as a central hub for your client’s entire case plan, making it easy to share key information with other care providers. This makes it easy to stay updated on clients’ progress between check-ins, too.
- Improved reporting quality: Accurate, comprehensive data can make your reports more compelling by citing clear, tangible impact data rather than simply going on your word. This can raise trust with clients, donors, and grant agencies, helping you diversify funding and raise your program impact.
The Future of Nonprofit Analytics: Smarter, Faster, More Connected
Artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted insights, predictive analytics, streamlined evaluations, and integrations continue to change how we approach nonprofit analytics. With the best technology constantly evolving, it’s crucial for you to choose a nonprofit analytics software that keeps up with the industry and meets your organization’s unique needs.
Casebook’s case management solutions stand out for the user-friendly documentation, tracking, and reporting. Learn more about Casebook to get started.