Nonprofits have many important goals that a crowdfunding campaign can address—from providing disaster relief aid to launching a new program to serve more community members. Regardless of what your organization is trying to accomplish, you need to find a way to measure your campaign performance to steer your efforts toward success.
By setting and tracking crowdfunding key performance indicators (KPIs), you can keep a close watch on your fundraising progress, donors’ experiences on your campaign page, the effectiveness of your marketing activities, and more. Over time, you’ll be able to reinforce your strengths and identify ways to boost your crowdfunding results in the future.
In this guide, we’ll walk through all the basics you need to know about crowdfunding KPIs, including eight that you should consider monitoring to improve your campaigns.
The Importance of Crowdfunding KPIs
When launching any fundraising initiative, your nonprofit needs a data-driven strategy. How will you communicate your goal to donors? Which channels should you focus your marketing on? Your organization’s data can provide these answers.
By setting KPIs for your crowdfunding campaign, you can learn:
- Whether your campaign is on track to meeting its goal.
- How donors are responding to your campaign messages.
- Common characteristics of people who donate to your campaign.
- Which online platforms generate the most engagement.
- Whether your deadline is too long or short.
Throughout and following your campaign, you can use this information to enhance your marketing approach, allocate your resources more efficiently, and refine your donor engagement methods. All of this adds up to raising more for your nonprofit through crowdfunding.
8 Top Crowdfunding KPIs to Track
While there are many KPIs you can monitor for your campaign, concentrating on a select number ensures that you glean meaningful insights that you can actually act on. Start with these essential crowdfunding KPIs:
- Amount of funds raised. Simply note the amount you’ve raised so far and compare it with your goal. This is an easy way to keep an eye on your fundraising progress and determine whether you can expect to generate the funds you need before the deadline.
- Number of donors. Successful crowdfunding relies on securing small to mid-sized gifts from a large group of people. Pay attention to the number of unique donors contributing to your campaign to decide whether you need to expand your reach. Additionally, consider shared demographic characteristics such as location to better understand your donors and how best to solicit donations from them.
- Average gift amount. Your nonprofit can calculate its average gift amount by dividing the total amount of funds you’ve raised by the number of gifts you’ve received. Using this KPI, you can add strategic suggested giving amounts to your campaign page to inspire people to give more. For example, if your average gift amount is $15, you might suggest $20 donations on your campaign page.
- Conversion rate. To calculate your conversion rate, divide your number of donors by the total number of visitors to your crowdfunding page. Then, multiply that number by 100. This KPI reveals whether your campaign messaging and storytelling are resonating with those who come across it.
- Page traffic source. Are the majority of your donors coming from a specific social media platform, such as Facebook or Instagram? Or are they discovering your campaign through your email outreach? By evaluating your page traffic sources, you can figure out which channels are best to devote your efforts toward.
- Social media engagement. Social media can significantly increase the visibility of your crowdfunding page by allowing users to share your posts with others in their network. Track the number of comments, likes, and shares that your content receives. Then, adjust your messaging to promote further engagement with your posts and campaign page.
- Email click-through rate (CTR). To measure the effectiveness of your email messaging, take the number of people who clicked on the link to your crowdfunding page and divide it by the number of people who opened your email. A low CTR might indicate that you need to make your call to action (CTA) more eye-catching and compelling.
- Time it takes to reach the goal. This KPI refers to the amount of time it takes to reach your crowdfunding goal. For example, you might hit your goal well before your pre-determined deadline or find that you need to extend the cutoff point to secure more gifts. For your next campaign, you can use this information to set more realistic deadlines and expectations.
NPOInfo’s nonprofit data collection guide recommends storing all of these key details in your constituent relationship management (CRM) database. This way, your team can easily access relevant data points whenever you need to reference them for your next crowdfunding campaign.
How to Leverage Crowdfunding KPIs to Improve Results
Once you’re equipped with strategic crowdfunding KPIs to monitor for your campaigns, follow these best practices to make the most of the data you collect:
- Practice good data hygiene. As you store more information in your nonprofit database, ensure that it stays valuable by standardizing data input practices. For example, you might establish that team members should enter “Street” in addresses as “St.” Furthermore, you should conduct a database audit at least annually to delete duplicate entries and update outdated details.
- Choose an effective crowdfunding platform. According to Fundly’s guide to crowdfunding websites, some websites apply a “Keep it All” (KiA) approach to fundraising while others have an “All or Nothing” (AoN) approach. With a KiA fundraiser, you can receive the funds you earn regardless of whether you meet your goal. Many nonprofits prefer this approach since it ensures that you can always reap the rewards of your efforts. With an AoN fundraiser, you can only receive collected donations if you hit the goal.
- Follow up with your donors. Crowdfunding is a powerful way to unite many people around your nonprofit’s cause or project. When you accomplish your goal, be sure to follow up and share the concrete impact that donors’ gifts have made in your mission. This increases the likelihood that these donors will want to support your next fundraising endeavor.
Set aside time to review your KPIs regularly. If you’re running a shorter crowdfunding campaign, you might meet with your team once a week to discuss how you’re performing. Longer campaigns might call for bi-weekly or monthly KPI review meetings. Based on your KPIs, brainstorm additional ways you can level up your crowdfunding strategy both for your current campaign and the ones yet to come.
Crowdfunding KPIs provide your nonprofit team with the information you need to guide your campaign toward its goal and build a roadmap for future fundraising success. Following each campaign, remember to have a donor recognition plan in place to build and strengthen the connections you’ve made. In doing so, you’ll be able to continue improving your results and expanding the community of support around your mission.
About the Author
Missy Singh
Missy Singh is the Director of Operations, Client Services & Sales at Fundly. She has been working there since 2011 when she started as a Customer Experience and Implementation Manager. As an integrated platform for social impact, Fundly serves as an industry leader in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising. In 2015 Fundly combined with NonProfitEasy to offer enterprise-level technology that addresses nonprofit needs with features such as a CRM, volunteer management, membership management, and event registration.
