How to use RENXT to measure Major Gift Officer productivity

Angie Greulich

We want to talk a step back and see how we can measure a portfolio's productivity. Wondering if there are things in RENXT that anyone looks at to do this already? For example, we already look at each gift officer's number of weekly actions and how many solicitations/proposals they have asked. Any other ideas? Thank you!!

Faith Murray

I had some great info about this from a Major Gifts class I took from the Lilly school of philanthropy, as well as some great tips from other MGOs I know. Here are some options. Pick the best 3-5 metrics so you're not overwhelmed and go with them.

• Check for year-over-year gift increases.
• Measure ratio of proposals funded vs asked.
• Identify how long prospects stay in the Qualify or Cultivation stage (Should be about 12-18 months for a new candidate, 6-12 months for an established major donor).
• Also create a Notes type for biographical information and funding priorities and check how many new meaningful notes MGOs are able to collect in their conversations. (A qualification or cultivation call should not just be a "hi, bye", it should deepen our knowledge of the donor and vice-versa.)
• In measuring, watch out for the highly active MGO, who makes many calls and asks and brings in a lot of short-term revenue, but deters donors over the long haul with his/her aggressive ask style. It is easy for “bad” MGOs to seem great on paper and kill your nonprofit. Instead, focus on relationship-building for long-term sustainability.
• Create a Note, Action w/attachment, or Action Track for documenting each donor's engagement strategy. Evaluate how many donors have an engagement strategy and how many of those related actions have been completed.
• Evaluate how many donors have an internally verified affinity and capacity rating. Every portfolio donor should have both, and it should be updated every year.

I encourage you to read the following excellent articles:

Major Gift Metrics

Evalutating MGO performance

Crystal Bruce

Discussion moved to RENXT Community. Thanks!

Karen Diener

@Faith Murray those are some great suggestions!

It may or may not be helpful, but I had an experience where major gift officer goals were - in part - based on Pledges and outright gifts. We had an MGO that was quite good at booking pledges, but pretty terrible about getting the payments. Our cash flow was not what was expected.

Pledge fulfillment can be based on a variety of factors, but the data showed an issue, and I encouraged leadership to look in to it.

Karen