Which Key Performance Indicators Really Drive Major Gifts and Performance (and Why I Hate Most Frontline Fundraiser Metrics)?
Metrics can be well intentioned but some do more harm than good:
Studies by Gallup found that “only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.”
Bentz, Whaley and Flessner’s 2014 study on “Optimizing Fundraiser Performance” found that 60% of gift officers find their goals to be “inappropriate” and 42% of fundraisers view metrics as “detrimental at worst or ineffective at best in reflecting important behaviors.”
Your top goals as a manager of fundraisers are to drive deeper donor commitment to your organization, bring in impactful dollars to support your community and programs, and grow and retain talented fundraisers.
So how do you set up metrics with your team that actually measure and produce those results?
In major gifts fundraising we are focused on relationships, building trust and delivering value so our metrics (and resulting focus) need to align with those goals. If you build high-value relationships and ask for gifts at the right time that result in meaningful impact for both the donor and the community the organization serves, the money will come in. The problem is that so many traditional metrics used to measure fundraiser performance are solely based on activity, not on building relationships. Furthermore, these metrics often focus solely on securing the next gift, failing to account for the crucial stewardship efforts that drive long-term donor investment.
* One technicality to note up front: As you read on you will see that I use the terms “metric” and “key performance indicator” somewhat interchangeably but there is a marked difference between the two. A metric is a measurable value used to track and assess a process or activity, while a KPI (key performance indicator) is a specific metric tied directly to a strategic objective or goal. Metrics are the data points themselves, and KPIs are the most important metrics that tell you if you're achieving your overall fundraising goals.
So which key performance indicators (KPIs) would I recommend?:
Total dollars raised
Total dollars solicited
Percentage of a gift officer’s portfolio with a documented strategy
Donor retention rate
Donation retention rate
Number of meaningful connections (*optional: based on your team and leadership culture)
Now let’s unpack each of these KPIs and how to approach those goals…
1. Total dollars raised
How should this be defined:
Include all outright, pledged or planned gift commitments.
This total should include all gifts made by those in their portfolio regardless of whether they personally solicited that particular gift or not because you never know how their ongoing engagement may have motivated a donor to make an annual gift when they received the year-end mailer.
Why use this KPI:
At the end of the day, our institution and the community it supports is dependent on the dollars brought in the door each year to run and thrive.
It's a tangible outcome that demonstrates the effectiveness of their strategies, cultivation efforts, and solicitation skills.
How to approach performance on this metric with individual gift officers:
Goals should be set based around the giving history and potential of their portfolio, not arbitrary figures needed to be raised by the organization. Each portfolio is different and will yield different results.
There is some randomness and luck in how much a gift officer raises each year. Some years they might have a big gift fall under their dollar total count due to amazing cultivation from a previous gift officer or a donor in their portfolio sharing they have declared a sizeable planned gift intention. As a result, a fundraiser might unexpectedly surpass their dollar total goal early on in the fiscal year. Other years a fundraiser might have made a high number of significant major gift solicitations but the donors have not yet signed their gift agreement, for any number of reasons. The best fundraisers maximize the conditions for giving through strategizing, planning, driving personalized engagement and stewardship, making well aligned solicitations and following up but no one has control over when another person makes a donation and at what dollar amount they make a commitment. Consequently, when managing performance on this metrics I recommend you take this key performance indicator with a grain of salt for any individual gift officer.
It should be expected that there will be potentially wild swings year to year depending on what is in the pipeline, outstanding solicitations still yet to close, what they actual solicit in a given year, and where donors in a gift officer’s portfolio are in their moves management cycle.
Goals should not necessarily be set at a certain level solely based on the number of years the fundraiser has been there. Yes, the longer a fundraiser has built relationships and strategic engagement with potential donors the higher dollars it should yield but there might be big swings in either direction year-to-year based on when they are planning to solicit the largest gifts.
Each gift officer has their own motivators that will drive their performance. Those like me prefer to have a realistic and achievable goal here (potentially even under promise and over deliver) because having too high a bar is a negative stressor that is demotivating. Others I have managed are absolutely driven and like to have very high goals because it pushes them to achieve them. As a leader you might have your own opinion on this topic. I definitely like to approach setting dollar total goals in a collaborative way that will maximize performance and motivate each teammate instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.
Reviewing this metric in real time each month throughout the year with the gift officer can help you both talk through if the gift officer is on track to meet their goal, what solicitations are yet to happen or close that might impact that total and adjust strategy and expectations of what will get booked along the way. If a gift officer is not on track to meet this goal it is critical to understand and discuss why proactively, not just at performance review time or the end of the fiscal year.
How to think about this metric on the team or organizational level:
As part of annual planning, ask your fundraisers to forecast what leadership annual gifts or major gifts they think they will solicit that fiscal year. Have them review their portfolio and strategically plan out solicitation strategies for those who may be ready for an ask in the next twelve months. The key is to have fundraisers assign a “likeliness” value to each opportunity. If it’s a long shot the prospect might actually say “yes” to the gift at the amount asked then you should account for a 25% likeliness score. If this gift is (hopefully and practically) a done deal it just needs to be formally asked for and booked then it can receive a 75% or 99% likeliness score.
Not every planned solicitation will come to fruition in the way they planned it (or at all) and there will be unplanned wins along the way. Utilize the combined total of all fundraisers’ dollar total goals to help set the dollar total goal for the fiscal year for your institution (while also accounting for other factors such as average dollars brought in through other annual gifts year to year made by unmanaged prospects).
2. Total dollars solicited
How should this be defined:
The total dollar amount of opportunities that have been solicited by that fundraiser (or as part of an active solicitation team) that fiscal year.
Why use this KPI:
This metric directly reflects the level of proactive engagement by the fundraiser. It shows the total value of the proposals and requests for funding that have been formally presented to prospective donors. A higher total dollar amount solicited generally indicates a more active and ambitious fundraising effort and/or a more mature/committed portfolio of donors.
Fundraising leader Thomas Dauber illuminates that:
“THE most important metric for driving your work forward is the gift solicitation number. High numbers in this area tend to correlate most directly to fundraising success. Why is that? In most cases, you have a 50% chance of successfully closing any major gift you solicit, provided that the ask is made to a qualified major gift prospect who has sufficient affinity for the cause your organization is addressing. With these gifts typically being much larger than anything you would solicit through crowdfunding, direct mail, or any other approach, a single gift could easily be 10% of your annual fundraising revenue. It should be obvious then that the more of these you solicit, the more you will move the needle on fundraising.”
How to approach performance on this metric with individual gift officers:
I very much agree with and appreciate Greg Warner of Market Smart’s approach to this metric:
“The farther along a prospect is in considering making a major gift, the easier it will be to secure a gift when you ask them. This goes completely against that CRM firm’s assertion that ‘asks made’ are what matter most. Asking at the right time matters much more. If you can measure how far along a prospect is, you will know when to ask with a far higher probability of success. More asks won’t generate more dollars. But more asks conducted at the right time will. The most successful fundraisers know that asks should only occur once trust has been established, and the donor can visualize the value they will gain in exchange for their hard-earned money.”
Each solicitation needs to be aligned with an individual prospect’s overall strategy and solicitation plan. Tracking whether these asks happen as planned is important for measuring a gift officer’s pipeline.
During your 1:1 meetings with gift officers, talk through together what solicitations they have planned and if those are on track as well as what gifts have already been solicited and the efforts/strategies they are utilizing to close the gift.
How to think about this metric on the team or organizational level:
Knowing how much total has been solicited but not yet closed is critical to understanding your financial pipeline for this and next fiscal year.
If a gift has been solicited a while ago and forward progress/momentum on closing this gift has slowed, brainstorm ideas with the individual and/or as a team to put a strategy in place or modify the approach with the prospect. Sometimes if a gift has stalled for a long time and you’ve lost hope that a donor will actually make that commitment despite a fundraisers’ best and ongoing efforts, it may be time to close out the solicitation on the books in your CRM and move on. You can always reopen it later if the prospect re-engages in the conversation and expresses interest in giving. Otherwise, having a high dollar amount solicited on the books that is unlikely to close can negatively affect your financial forecasts for the fiscal year and your likelihood of accurate projections of the money your team will bring in this fiscal year (or next).
Tracking the total dollar amount solicited, alongside the number of solicitations, can help identify trends and patterns. For example, a high number of solicitations with a low total dollar amount might suggest a need to focus on cultivating larger prospects. Conversely, a high total dollar amount solicited with a low number of solicitations might indicate a focus on a smaller pool of very high-capacity donors.
3. Percentage of a gift officer's portfolio with a documented strategy
How should this be defined:
Percentage of a gift officer’s portfolio with a documented strategy in place for prospects in the cultivation, solicitation and stewardship stages. Do not include prospective donors in their portfolio who are still at the discovery or qualification stage.
This measurement shows if donors are holding steady and staying committed year-over-year by investing philanthropically through your institution, if gift officers are doing a phenomenal job and are able to increase their portfolio’s giving or if there is a decline in the dollars raised.
This metric puts an important spotlight on your most loyal and generous donors to your organization.
Why use this KPI:
When fundraisers are developing and keeping their eye on an engagement strategy for prospects in their portfolio they are more likely to actively work the plan and accelerate donor engagement and commitment.
It also serves as a record in the CRM to understand the best devised roadmap for a prospect. If a fundraiser wins the lottery tomorrow and leaves the team, documenting the strategy and next steps allows the next prospect manager to pick up where they left off much more easily and it is a much more smooth transition for the donor. We don’t want any prospective donors to get lost in the shuffle and lose momentum.
How to approach performance on this metric with individual gift officers:
This strategy should be written out on a prospect’s record in your CRM and regularly updated as movement has been made toward their next stage. It should include the overarching engagement and gift opportunity goal we are working toward (one or three sentences) and the next three steps the fundraiser will drive to create meaningful movement toward that goal.
Each strategy should be individualized based on what we have learned about the donor’s passions, interests, motivators and communication preferences.
It is very likely that the strategy and next steps will pivot and evolve over time as we learn more about the donor and more deeply engage with them over time.
How to think about this metric on the team or organizational level:
Conduct quarterly or monthly prospect strategy/pipeline meetings where as a team you come together to discuss progress, challenges and ideas to help drive movement in the strategies and next steps for key prospects. Use this as a great opportunity to foster healthy transparency and communication amongst the team and a chance to all grow and learn as fundraisers together.
This vigilance towards keeping strategy and next steps current in the CRM can be labor intensive so think through resources your team could utilize to help elevate administrative burden on them. If you have an admin or operational support in your office they may be able to help input the updates in the system.
Full disclosure: I have not personally implemented the following two KPIs with a team before. I have struggled as a leader for years to figure out how to measure the impact of stewardship efforts. After doing research recently on potential stewardship metrics for gift officers, I strongly believe in the smart recommendations of fundraising leaders Amy Eisenstein, Jim Langley and Thomas Dauber with both donor retention rate and donation retention rate metrics below.
4. Donor retention rate
How should this be defined:
The percentage of a gift officer’s assigned portfolio who gave last fiscal year and has given again this fiscal year.
Why use this KPI:
This measurement can highlight that a fundraiser is truly engaging with and stewarding their portfolio in ways that resonate with their donors.
How to approach performance on this metric with individual gift officers:
From the wise words of Amy Eisenstein, one of the country's leading fundraising experts, “The national retention rate average for all donors (not only major donors) is in the low 40% range. That’s awful! A healthy major gift donor retention rate should be 80% or better.”
If this number is lower than you’d like, work with the fundraiser to develop stewardship and engagement strategies for their portfolio and make sure they are actually driving meaningful engagement with each and every qualified donor in their portfolio.
How to think about this metric on the team or organizational level:
A healthy major gift fundraising program should be focused on not only building the pipeline of new major gift donors but keeping the ones they already have. In this competitive climate where every dollar and donor counts. It also costs far less to retain a current major donor than to recruit a new one.
If your organization is undergoing a crisis of trust – meaning a public scandal or a misalignment between a decision made by leadership and the values of your institution or your donor base has happened – this might lower the overall retention rate. If this is the case, focus on building trust back with your donor base and measure the impact of your efforts through this donor retention number year over year.
5. Donation retention rate
How should this be defined:
The percentage change (either negative, net zero or positive) of the total dollar amount a gift officer’s portfolio of donors gave to the organization last fiscal year versus this fiscal year.
Why use this KPI:
This measurement shows if donors are holding steady and staying committed year-over-year by investing philanthropically through your organization, if gift officers are doing a phenomenal job and are able to increase their portfolio’s giving or if there is a decline in the dollars raised.
This metric puts an important spotlight on your most loyal and generous donors to your institution.
How to approach performance on this metric with individual gift officers:
If this number is in the negative or at net zero for your team it might be an issue of your fundraisers not feeling empowered in taking risks in their major gift solicitations. We, of course, always want to reinforce that we should not rush a major gift solicitation simply for a mad dash of driving numbers if the timing or opportunity isn’t the right fit for the donor. However, some gift officers might need more confidence and training to push them to take the leap and make the ask when the donor is ready. Sometimes fear gets in the way, especially for newer fundraisers, and the institution could be missing out on major gifts that the donor might have joyfully made if solicited.
How to think about this metric on the team or organizational level:
It is natural for a myriad of reasons for donors to give less some years than others. In some cases they made a campaign, major or principal gift commitment the previous year and then gave less this year while we moved them to a stewardship stage.
If you deep dive into this metric and account for the outliers explained in the bullet above but you still see an overall decline in donation retention rate it could be due to insufficient stewardship or lack of cultivation with major donors in a gift officer’s portfolio.
Retaining a high percentage of the previous year's major gift revenue is crucial for predictable revenue and long-term financial planning for the organization. Losing a few major donors or seeing significant decreases in their giving can have a substantial impact on the overall fundraising goals.
6. Number of meaningful connections*
How should this be defined:
A “meaningful connection” occurs when a gift officer helps a donor move closer to their passion and your organization. The goal is to learn about and then act on the potential donor’s interests.
This includes face-to-face visits and meaningful/significant conversations at events or over the Zoom, phone, text or email - anything that drives a gift strategy forward or when you learn some significant information about that prospect.
Managers traditionally defined this metric as only face-to-face visits but that narrowed snapshot only captures a fraction of the good work that gift officers are doing to drive engagement and giving with their donors. I have closed major gifts solely over email or texts with donors who live out of state and face-to-face visits aren't viable or the donor told me flat out they don’t want to meet (this is especially true post-pandemic). Our job is to meet the donor where they are at and the best engagement strategy isn’t one-size-fits-all and can look radically different based on the culture, generation and preferences of your prospects. Face-to-face visits can be a gold standard to deepen commitment from a donor but is not the only way to have a meaningful connection.
The widely-stated case for this KPI:
The bedrock of major gift fundraising is building and maintaining strong relationships with donors to secure their initial support and ensure their continued and increased investment. For most major donors, that requires regular communication and engagement so the frequency and resonance of meaningful touches drives relationships and giving.
Strong, meaningful connections are often a leading indicator of future major gifts. A donor who feels understood, valued, and deeply connected to the institution is far more likely to make a significant contribution down the line and become a loyal, long-term supporter.
When the number and quality of meaningful connections is high, the team will drive giving and the donor pipeline. They are laying the roadmap for success now and in the future.
* Why I put an asterisk and note on this last KPI as “optional: based on your team and leadership culture”:
Here are some reasons why you may not want to implement this KPI for your fundraisers:
The potential problem with this KPI is that it measures activity, not outcomes. While it has the good intention of driving engagement with a portfolio, and often serves that purpose, it can be extremely subjective for different individuals amongst a team.
Here are some real life examples I have seen from teammates I have managed to illustrate this point:
One teammate spends the time and energy sending out personalized notes along with lapel pins with the university seal on them donors in their portfolio with whom they have a relationship established. They have received a lot of positive engagement from this touchpoint over the years. The gift officer logs the hundred plus cards and pins they mailed into the CRM each as a interaction and strongly believes that each should be documented and is a meaningful connection since they personalized the message. As a result, the month after their mailed the pins their “meaningful connections” metric performance jumps by 100+ and shows up on team KPI progress reports as a big bump in their numbers. Some of their other teammates privately complained that this stewardship effort should not count as a “meaningful connection” unless the gift officer received a personal note back or re-engagement with a donor that was the direct result of that mailing.
Another gift officer on their same major gifts team chooses to spend the same amount of time each December making a handful of videos, highly curated for each of their top donors, featuring a recorded message from their student scholarship recipient talking about the impact each respective donors’ investment has had on their and their family’s lives. That gift officer does not see a big jump in their “meaningful connection” count.
You can argue that the first gift officer’s engagement opportunity was a nice touch with a wide array of portfolio saturation and can a be worthwhile investment in their time, resources and focus. However, the time and energy that the second gift officer spent putting together and delivering highly impactful stewardship to their top scholarship donors will most likely yield a much stronger commitment and increased investment from those who received it.
Placing the focus on volume of activity instead of the richness that it adds to a donor’s experience can fuel some unintended negative consequences. Teammates can feel an administrative burden logging into each and every interaction they have with a prospect in an effort to inflate their “meaningful connections” metric. In that vein they feel like this is “busy work” to appease the boss and lose some trust or respect in their leader. Worst case scenario it contributes toward feeling of burnout (which is a common problem for fundraisers) and they leave the job. I have seen all versions of this play out on teams I have been on and managed and it unintentionally create some difficult situations.
The bottom line is this metric measures quantity of efforts, not quality or results. As managers want to drive outcomes.
A alternative suggestion to consider: Instead of setting a KPI to put a spotlight on the volume of portfolio activity either run or put together a report in your CRM that pulls all the contact reports/interactions/meaningful connections that all of your fundraisers are logging into the system and review the entries weekly. That way you can read through the report about the types of engagement they are driving and how they are (or are not) capturing engagement in the system. This method would help you assess the quality of meaningful connections, not simply just the raw number of them, which is actually what you want to drive in your team.
Here are some reasons why you may want to implement this KPI for your fundraisers:
For many traditional leaders and teammates this metric might be hard to let go because they have used it in organization after organization for so many years. This KPI has been a cornerstone of the fundraising industry for so long some leadership may expect it and not including it on the list may not be possible. You may choose to simply take the win if you are able to move away from just measuring traditional face-to-face visits and instead shift to a more inclusive “meaningful connection” measure.
For brand new fundraisers on your team who are in the first months of their job they are eager to show their efforts when they have not had the time to produce results on the other metrics so far. They may be focusing on outreaching to less traditionally engaged prospective donors and not been getting much traction building relationships or driving gifts yet. You may want to institute this KPI in this case to highlight their good work and motivate them early on.
In either of these cases, for the reasons I outlined above, it is critical that you measure all types and modes of engagement, not just face-to-face visits, which is an outdated form of measurement for this metric.
Note: If you are considering implementing this KPI to help with a performance management issue with one or more team members:
In some cases, you need some extra muscle via a tangible measurement for a performance management issue. A gift officer you supervise is just not taking the time at all to enter in a significant number of meaningful interactions in your CRM. When you look at one of their assigned prospect’s records you don’t see any record of the great engagement you know they are driving. If they left your organization any trail of the steps taken to move this donor’s commitment and investment in your institution would be lost and the next fundraiser is not set up for success. In another example, you suspect a gift officer is not actually taking the steps needed to drive engagement with those in their portfolio for some reason. I have been a manager in both of those scenarios and it can be tough.
If a fundraiser’s performance towards this goal is low, finding out why as soon as possible is critical for your operation. Discuss with them and learn if there is something hindering them from connecting with prospects? Are there other resources or coaching that they may need to be successful?
Sometimes it is us as leaders that actually have a big impact on whether fundraisers on your team are set up for success to drive meaningful engagements. If your team is underperforming on this KPI it could be that they are being over-burdened by too many other administrative tasks or institutional priorities that are taking time and attention away from their portfolio work. It could also be that the fundraisers have not yet found an organization system that works well for them to drive activity or to get their work documented in their CRM to be able to track. Keeping the eye on the ball and staying on top of opportunities to drive engagement with prospects should be your and their #1 job if you want to drive major gift fundraising.
Ultimately, the metrics we choose to prioritize shape not only our daily work but also the long-term trajectory of our fundraising success and the depth of our donor relationships.
Shifting to these more insightful KPIs will not only provide a clearer picture of what truly drives major gifts but also empower your fundraising team by valuing the essential work of relationship building and strategic engagement. By implementing these metrics, you'll gain a more accurate understanding of your team's impact and create a framework that truly drives significant and sustainable philanthropic growth.
If you have any questions or need further guidance, connect with me.
I’m here to support you!
You got this!
Jen Stirling
Principal Consultant, Brighter Philanthropy —
Fundraising consulting for higher ed and K-12
As your partner, I’ll bring my considerable expertise, high-energy efficiency, optimistic realism, relational approach, and fresh perspective to guide your team and help your institution reach its goals, enabling more students to thrive. I offer support for campaign services, development organization assessments, staff coaching and board development.
