Pirate metrics for nonprofits

Content sponsored by Vokol by Pathos Ethos, the creators of our 2017 #NonprofitSTRONG Summit app.

At Vokol, we think the world would be a better place if for-profits acted a bit more like nonprofits and if nonprofits acted a bit more like for-profits. We learned so much from the YNPN Triangle NC #NonprofitSTRONG Summit that we want to share with you a practice that we use in prospecting efforts that can be applied to your fundraising + programming efforts.

What do pirates say? Exactly: AARRR. This stands for Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Retention and Referral. The name of the game is moving your “customers” (the people offering you funds and time - so donors, volunteers, members in nonprofit speak). effectively through these different stages.

1. Make your own name for each of these buckets including what you call individuals/organizations in each of these steps.
2. Place all of your “customers” in one of these buckets. Some customers don’t fit? Then your buckets are not sufficiently defined. We do this on a big wall with painters tape and sticky notes!
3. How long does each stage take? How many leads turn into missionaries? You can play around with quantitative data now that you have all your customers listed.
4. Make this process YOURS! We have added buckets and various paths through our process to most accurately plot our customer journey. This also helps us identify new customer segments that may all exit the flow at a similar point but still have needs we can provide for them if we tweak our offerings slightly.

You can now track how long it takes to grow a lead into a missionary and how many people “fall-off” from one stage to the other or how many get stuck between the phases. Your “customer” insights in each stage are almost in your fingertips. You only have to sit down and organize the data you already have. You will benefit from deep diving yourself into each of these stages of the the process for your nonprofit. There are slight nuances for each organization (nonprofit and for-profit alike).

This practice will benefit your programming and development measures in two major ways. First, identifying and qualifying the boundaries of each phase will guide your storytelling and programmatic offerings. Where is the bottleneck? Spend your communications and programmatic efforts focused on moving the bottleneck to the next section. At Vokol, we are able to send relevant content to folks in a specific bucket segmenting our our various buckets. For example, a festival organizer who has never had an app and is unsure about the cost gets a different message than someone who has had a competitor’s app before and are considering switching to Vokol. Bottom line, we can provide targeted messaging that speaks to their segmented concerns because the buckets are clearly identified and defined.

Secondly, you will be able to more accurately forecast donor engagement including how much they are willing to give and what cycle the giving occurs (weekly, monthly, annually). Vokol is owned by a boutique digital and engagement strategy consultancy in Durham, Pathos Ethos. When we grew Vokol, we used this practice to forecast our customer pipeline and revenue. We love sharing these types of exercises with nonprofits and social impact organizations. As a thank you for welcoming us at the #NonprofitSTRONG Summit, we want to extend a free two hour nonprofit engagement strategy session to everyone who attended the YNPN Triangle NC conference. Contact Jacob at Vokol ([email protected]) if interested.