Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) have been around for years. But the pandemic accelerated growth in this type of giving over the last two years. For example, Fidelity Charitable reported making donor-recommended grants totaling $9.1 BILLION in 2020. Are you ready to assess the impact of DAF giving on your fundraising program? This surge of giving from […]

There are so many data points nonprofits can track in their data. But not all metrics are created equal. You should focus your attention on information that helps further your understanding of your file. And that helps you act on that information. Here, we share what’s available in Avalon’s Demographic Analysis. Beyond standard demographics like […]

It can be difficult to pinpoint your monthly giving program’s current active universe, as well as actionable metrics for sustainer giving. To address those questions, Avalon Analytics has created a new dashboard.

Nonprofits deserve to understand the impact of their efforts. Your organization’s mission is simply too important to be left to best guesses. But for years, the quality of reporting available to nonprofits was lacking… significantly. In 2001 Avalon took matters into our own hands and built the best platform out there from the ground up. […]

Avalon’s Vice President & Director of Analytical Services, TJ Hillinger recently shared retention insights in the March issue of DMAW‘s Marketing AdVents. Her article – “Your Second-Gift Rate is Talking – Are You Listening?” – analyzes second-gift rate as an indicator of loyalty and future retention. Read on to learn how the speed of a donor’s second gift correlates […]

Modeling and its efficacy have been under careful review recently, including by Avalon! To see what our nonprofit friends are seeing, I reached out to three industry experts to learn how they utilize predictive modeling to enhance their direct marketing programs. Here’s the roster of folks who provided input: Jeff Huberty, Senior Vice President, Target […]

At Avalon, we strive to stay on top of trends to better understand our clients’ programs and maximize fundraising opportunities. We all know that fundraising for certain nonprofits has been through the roof since the 2016 election (e.g. the ACLU). But it’s clear that the election had an impact across the board.

We recently took a deep dive into some data, and our goal was to better quantify this impact, specific to client type and their current fundraising trajectory. Our pre- and post-election analysis reveals some interesting trends I’d like to share.

We compared the window prior to the elections (July to October) with the period after (November to January) for all our clients, year over year, for the past four years. We removed clients whose data are an anomaly due to specific events unrelated to the elections.

While each organization has its own particular story to tell based on its own goals and decisions, we have outlined some commonalities across the board below.

Unsurprisingly, Avalon’s political advocacy clients saw a clear boost in the timeframes before and after the election in 2016 compared to previous years, with the post-election window being the strongest.

But interestingly, our non-political advocacy clients also saw a boost during the same period.

And, remarkably, looking at two discrete years in our non-political advocacy clients’ fundraising, even those that were not experiencing growth got a slight bump post-election.

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March 27, 2017