Philanthropy Analytics: Forecasting, Investment, and the Board Dashboard
Multi-year forecasting, return on development investment, the dashboard an executive and a board can read, and the questions a leader should and should not ask the data to prove.
Through the K-12 Schools lens
Few schools build the full twelve-measure dashboard, but the underlying discipline still protects a head of school from presenting a hoped-for naming gift as if it were forecastable the way the tuition-adjacent annual fund is. The analytics-policy worksheet's question about what the institution will not model is sharpest here, since a school already holds family financial data for tuition assistance that should never bleed into a giving-capacity model.
Continuing education
1.25 points
Leadership and Management · Current and Prospective Donor Research
Learning objectives
- Distinguish what development data can establish (retention, pipeline flow, cost and return by strategy) from what it cannot (why a person gave, what a person will do), and set the institution's analytic ambitions accordingly.
- Build a multi-year revenue forecast from the pipeline's pools and rates, with scenarios, and compute return on development investment by strategy over the horizon each strategy needs.
- Design an executive and board dashboard of a dozen measures that report relationships as well as revenue.
- Set the institution's rules for donor analytics: what will be modeled, what will not, and how predictions are used without replacing judgment or pressuring people.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 20 min
Video lesson
What the data can and cannot prove
II See · Leadership and Management
- 20 min
Field guide· PDF
Multi-year forecasting and return on development investment
III Discern · Leadership and Management
- 20 min
Template· DOCX
The executive philanthropy dashboard
II See · Leadership and Management
- 16 min
Worksheet· XLSX
The questions we will not ask the data: an analytics policy worksheet
II See · Ethics, Accountability and Professionalism
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Boards, Teams & Leadership
The CDO Operating System
Leading philanthropy at the institutional level: CEO partnership, cross-functional influence, and the systems that scale past you.
Capital Campaigns
Campaign Strategy: Feasibility to Celebration
The full arc of a modern campaign: feasibility, goal-setting, phases, communications, and the ending that sets up the next one.
Fundamentals & Ethics
Culture of Philanthropy: Leading Across the Organization
When program staff, finance, and the front desk understand their role in fundraising, the work gets easier. Building that culture is executive work.