Does anyone out there have experience with pulling information to analyze the donor base in terms of what the average donor looks like, gift frequencies, etc.  We are working on a new direct marketing program and want to make sure we're concentrating our resources in the right areas.  These are the topics we're trying to explore:

• Average Donor (avg. gift size, avg. frequency, demographics such as graduation year, age, gender, etc.)
• Longitudinal Analysis by Class (avg. number of donors in a class, avg. gift frequency)
• Average Multi-Year Donor (demographics such as graduation year, age, gender, etc. and frequency/amount of gifts)

Any help would be much, much appreciated.

 Many thanks!

Amanda Hoskins

University of New Orleans

Amanda,

There's a technical white paper which discusses creating a custom data model to rate your donors.  You can find it here, http://www.blackbaud.com/files/resources/downloads/WhitePaper_EnhancingFundraising.pdf.

Here are other good reads that I've come across recently. 

http://www.blackbaud.com/files/resources/downloads/WhitePaper_TargetAnalytics_StatisticalModeling.pdf

http://www.blackbaud.com/files/resources/downloads/WhitePaper_AnnualFund.pdf

http://supportingadvancement.com/reporting/gis_and_data_mining/wylie_simple_score.htm

HTH

Hope you enjoyed Mardi Gras if that's your thing...I did! ;)

jwant