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You've heard it on this podcast. You've heard it at conferences, in books, and from consultants and other fundraisers: You should be using your data to make better decisions about your fundraising. 

And you've likely tracked the data like retention rates, average gift, and lifetime value. But now you're looking at some numbers asking, “What do they mean and what are the next steps?”

Well, we've got some answers for you on today's podcast. 

Our guest this week is both a mathematician and a fundraiser. Kirk Schmidt is the outgoing director of operations for STARS, a helicopter EMS nonprofit in Canada, where he oversees the fundraising and revenue team. 

Kirk is going to go over some of the key metrics you're likely already measuring and then go further into how you can use those metrics in a more meaningful way. This is a very valuable episode if you're just getting started with data or if you've been measuring some of these numbers for a while. 

Today we’ll cover:

[4:12] - Getting in the right mindset    

[7:42] - Understanding retention rates    

[9:34] - 3 Important retention rates    

[12:20] - Understanding second gift conversion rate    

[21:06] - Understanding reactivation rate and who is considered as lapsed    

[28:50] - Understanding donor lifetime value    

[35:54] - Avoiding lifetime value pitfalls    

[40:35] - Understanding average gift numbers    

[44:02] - Kirk's encouragement for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers    

Get connected:

Kirk would love to connect with you. You can find him on Linkedin where he’s always sharing new things he’s learning about understanding data and nonprofit organizations.

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