6 Steps to Start a Benchmarking Group

The Contributor Development Partnership was created four years ago to bring together public broadcasters who wanted to tackle their local fundraising challenges with a national punch. By sharing fundraising data to establish benchmarks in areas such as traditional pledges, online giving, and membership retention, public radio and television stations across the country can learn from each other and improve their own fundraising practices.

Michal Heiplik, who directs the benchmarking project, and Chuck Longfield, a Blackbaud analyst who has worked with the group from the start, say that any like-minded group of nonprofits can create this type of collective. Here are some key steps to get you started:

1. Find peer organizations: A minimum of six are needed, but 12 or more groups are recommended.
2. Choose a dedicated database manager who will collect data and create and disseminate individualized reports. A staff member at one of the groups could volunteer time or be paid with pooled resources. Alternatively, a third-party vendor could be hired.
3. Ensure that participating organizations are willing to share their fundraising data with the database manager or vendor.
4. Identify common major areas of revenue, which can vary from industry to industry. Public broadcasters, for example, are more likely than other kinds of nonprofits to have vehicle-donation programs, so that fundraising category is included in their metrics. Keep the list short (no more than 25 items) so the reports can easily fit on a single page.
5. Define each metric clearly, so each participating organization can properly submit “apples-to-apples” data.
6. Plan in advance how the data and the results will be shared. For example, will the top-performing organizations be identified in the reports? Who will be responsible for identifying the best practices?