Running Attrition Reports from different perspectives

Sherry Aldrich

Hi All

We are looking to run reports that will give us more information on our donors. We have a list of questions I want to answer and they seem like questions that they would be questions that others are asking too. We're wondering how other RE users are getting the answers.


Here are some of our questions

What donors are we losing and when are we losing? 


Do parents give when their students are in school or after they graduate? do they continue to give? when do we lose them? 


Multi year donors, are they continuing to give or when do we lose them? 


Are there dashboards / reports we can know to alert us when we lose people?


I was looking at the reports in RE and I see the variance reports comparing 2 years. I would like to be able to see more years to identify trends and also be able to break down the groups by consitiuent code, giving levels and other perspectives.


It seems to me that others would be asking all the same information in creating their plans.


Any assistance or guidance in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!

Angela Bertrand 2

Hi Sherry!

I don't work at a school... so there are parts of this that I don't know how to answer. And, I thought I could share how we're looking for some of our donor trends right now in hopes that some of them translate. We pull 4 reports (staggered throughout the month) each month that focus in on our lapsing donors. All are somewhat canned reports in RE that we've modified the parameters and queries for.

1. SYBUNT & LYBUNT - We pull both of these for a fairly broad stroke view of donors we've lost. One thing I like to do with these is to mark the 'create a constituent query' box on the general parameters page, then pull other reports to try to figure out if there is any correlation/causation between the people on the list using other reports (maybe the tallies report would help you here?)
2. Comparison Report - We pull this to catch the people who are still giving... but who are decreasing their giving. Maybe they gave $500 last year... but this year they're on track to only give $100. We want to talk to them. Re-engage them. See if we can figure out what they need to get back to the expected giving level. Again, you can mark the 'create a constituent query' box to do futher research here.
3. Lapsing Donor Reports - This one is less canned... but the goal is to catch donors BEFORE they show up on the LYBUNT report, so I have queries that look for people who gave 9-11 months ago, but who haven't given since. I break them up into 3 groups (90 day lapsing, 60 day lapsing, 30 day lapsing...) and sent it our to our individual giving team. They (try to) give the donors personal calls to re-capture them. 

From your questions, some of these might be useful... and I think using the box to create queries from reports and pulling other reports on those groups could be helpful. You could group all of your multi year donors, then do a comparison report, or create two queries: one of of donors with students at your school, one of donors who have alumni in the family and pull a report for each and compare the two. 

Good luck! And I hope someone with actual school experience speaks up with better tips!

 

Christine Cooke 2

I have worked at a few schools, including currently.    And yes, we all ask these questions.


You can use the SYBUNT and LYBUNT reports to see who has dropped off.  If you want to see the trend of when they are dropping you can check the box on the SYBUNT/LYBUNT that opts to output a query.  You can then Export that query with as many fields as you like to show you number and level of gifts and their dates, along with other info.


You can utilize the Demographic Report >> Comparisons and Summaries to see giving by Constituency (either constit code or Gift constit code), fund and a myriad of other criteria to choose from.


Depending on the grade level of your school the giving varies.  (this is based on experience rather than pulling reports at this point).  Current Parents (currently enrolled) are the most consistent givers usually, Parents of Alums will continue to give, but there will be a drop off.  Or if you are a high school or lower school, they will drop off for awhile while until child gets through college and then you will get them back, all depends on their capacity as to when and how much, and how many other children they have at your school or other schools.  You can use the SYBUNT/LYBUNTs to figure this out also as far as drop off.


The variance reports you refer to are good, and you don't have to use just two years, you can do windows of time, like 3 years and 3 year windows or whatever.


I have always been asked to pull this type of info when working in schools:

What is the percentage of participation for different consitituent groups, utilizing the hierarchy we have established and not, so both way.

What amount of $$ did each constit group contributye

How much $$ went into each Fund.

What population (constit group gave to the main Funds i.e. Annual Fund)

What return was there for each appeal?  How many were asked vs. how many returned $$

How many and much was from grants foundation/corporate

How much was from matching gifts.

and then of course giving by $$ level

Also if a high school or college/university, they want to see alumni giving by year