Benchmarking for Major Gifts (Part 2 of a series)
by Tom Wilson Major Gifts Guru
Here's more information from Gary Hubbell's presentation at the recent CASE regional VIII conference.
Context is everything. While you can look at some secondary national data in your field around fundraising, the context of the size of your organization, your community, the age of your fundraising program, etc. can impact how the data turns out.
Hubbell suggested selecting 3 to 5 peer institutions who you can benchmark with over time. Also select one or two aspirational organizations who you would like to be similar to in 5 to 10 years.
Use the data from these organizations to conduct indepth benchmarking with your own program. Know who to emulate and why.
A good example for me was when I was at my university. We were focused in science and technology and one time when I was in southern California I got to visit with my counterpart at CalTech. While I learned a few things through this information benchmarking visit, I came to realize that their program which was highly focused on planned estate giving from their long term alumni wasn’t going to fit our 20-year old institution at all. If I were to benchmark our major gifts program after CalTech, I would have failed.
Don’t forget to gather qualitative research in addition to the quantitative. Gary noted that some organizations select their peer institutions for benchmarking and take the entire president’s cabinet to their peer institution’s campus for a day of one-on-one and team meetings to learn personally what is going on. It's not just data that's important.
Hubbell recommended a book that he likes: Jason Saul – Benchmarking for Nonprofits. Saul recommends that you start small and be focused and use the discipline of benchmarking over time.
Other comments from the session:
- Use benchmarking insights to develop strategies, process improvements, and to determine performance (How are we doing?).
- The key is: who are your peers now? And, who do you aspire to be in the future?
- Two cautions – not enough information can be a problem as can too much information. Determine what 5 to 7 measures you want to benchmark over time (2 to 3 years).
- It’s critical to figure out what the leader wants to track by benchmarking as it may be different than the information the manager needs to run his or her team.
Permanent Link: Benchmarking for Major Gifts (Part 2 of a series)
http://majorgiftsguru.com/2009/02/benchmarking-for-major-gifts-part-2-of.html
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