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The Taming of the Shrewd

Episode 6: Measuring & Benchmarking Return On Investment

Season 1, Ep. 6

Measuring your return on investment (ROI) in fundraising can help you to evaluate your performance, predict future income and budget more effectively. And if this seems really complicated, it doesn't have to be.

For Episode 6, I interviewed career fundraiser Caroline Danks, who recently published a report gathering return on investment data across the charity sector. Caroline and I discussed what exactly ROI means, and why some people resist measuring it, but why it's so important for good fundraising, budgeting and strategic planning.

Caroline explains to listeners how to:

  1. Put in place a system for measuring ROI (including how to categorise income and measure time spent in different areas)
  2. Benchmark your performance against others in the sector, and use this as a point of comparison for evaluating performance and predicting future income
  3. Use the information in Caroline's report to look for 'missed opportunities', for example legacy fundraising

You can download Caroline's report on fundraising ROI, called The Calm Before The Storm, from LarkOwl's website: https://larkowl.uk/fundraising-benchmarking-2019/

See also this blog where I shared some previous thoughts on fundraising ROI: https://www.limegreenconsulting.co.uk/blog/building-a-business-case-for-investing-in-fundraising

Enjoying our podcast? Please leave us a five-star review (other numbers of stars available at your discretion) via the Acast app or here on Google. We'd also love to hear your suggestions for future topics and guests for the podcast. We have one more episode coming up in November 2020, then we'll be taking a short break before returning with a new series in January/February 2021.


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  • Trailer

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    A three-minute preview for The Taming of the Shrewd, covering why we've launched this series and what we'll be talking about