Analyze fundraising performance
Analyze performance across email, events, direct mail, social media, and other channels to identify highest-return investments and optimize resource allocation for maximum fundraising impact.
- AuthorGivingTuesday
- CategoryNonprofits
- ModelSonnet 4.5
- Features
- ShareCopy link
1
Describe the task
Claude can analyze fundraising data across all your channels to identify which investments deliver the strongest returns, enabling you to allocate resources based on evidence rather than intuition.
Tell Claude about your fundraising channels, provide your performance data, and describe what insights you need to inform how you maximize your time and resources.
I run development for a regional nonprofit with 25-30 annual fundraising events plus ongoing email, direct mail, social media, and corporate sponsorship programs. I need to analyze which channels drive the best ROI to inform next year's $500K+ budget decisions.
I'm uploading our fundraising data from the past two years, broken down by channel and quarter. The data includes revenue, costs, donor counts, and event-specific details for our major galas, community events, and smaller donor appreciation gatherings.
Here's what I need to understand:
1. Which channels deserve increased investment based on ROI?
2. Where can we reallocate inefficient spending?
3. Which event types generate the best returns?
4. What's our donor acquisition cost by channel?
5. Which high-performing channels are currently underfunded?
Deliverable: Comprehensive Excel workbook with consulting-firm quality—I'm presenting this to our board, so visual sophistication matters as much as analytical rigor.
Required sheets:
- Executive dashboard: KPIs, year-over-year comparisons, performance rankings
- Channel details: Quarterly breakdowns with formulas for all key metrics
- Strategic recommendations: Three-tier investment framework (grow/optimize/restructure)
- Event analysis: Individual event performance since events consume 40% of our budget
Design requirements: Make an extreme effort on visual quality—premium formatting, sophisticated color palette (not Excel defaults), consulting-grade typography, conditional formatting, data bars, color scales, frozen panes, and filters. Every element should look intentional and polished and include professional charts/graphs showing channel comparisons and performance trends.
2
Give Claude context
Required context
Enable Extended Thinking so Claude can reason through your data patterns, identify non-obvious insights across multiple variables, and build a sophisticated analysis workbook with proper structure and formulas.
If you track your fundraising data in platforms like Microsoft 365, Benevity, or Blackbaud, connect the relevant MCP connector to pull current performance data directly. This eliminates manual exports and ensures Claude analyzes your most up-to-date information.
For most organizations, uploading exported CSV or Excel files works perfectly—just gather your revenue, cost, donor, and event data by channel and time period.
No items found.
fundraising_data_2025.md
CSV
fundraising_data_2024.md
CSV
fundraising_data_2025.md
CSV
Optional context
Enable Extended Thinking so Claude can reason through your data patterns, identify non-obvious insights across multiple variables, and build a sophisticated analysis workbook with proper structure and formulas.
Extended Thinking
3
What Claude creates
Claude produces a comprehensive Excel workbook with multiple interconnected sheets featuring sophisticated visual design and advanced analytical features.
From Claude
The workbook includes:
Executive Dashboard: High-level performance summary with key metrics including total revenue, ROI, donor acquisition costs, and retention rates. Features year-over-year comparisons with variance calculations, channel performance rankings with visual scoring, and sophisticated conditional formatting using color scales and data bars to highlight top and bottom performers instantly.
Channel Details: Comprehensive quarterly breakdown for each fundraising channel with calculated metrics for net return, ROI, average gift size, donor acquisition costs, retention rates, engagement rates, and strategic notes. Includes working formulas that automatically update when you input new data, filterable columns for custom analysis, and color-scaled ROI visualization showing performance patterns at a glance.
Strategic Recommendations: Three-tier investment framework organizing all channels into clear action categories—Tier 1 (Maximize Investment) for high-performing channels, Tier 2 (Optimize Efficiency) for channels needing cost improvements, and Tier 3 (Restructure or Sunset) for underperforming initiatives. Each tier includes specific action items, recommended budget shifts, projected revenue impact, implementation timelines, and priority levels with color-coded visual indicators.
Event Performance: Event-specific tracking showing individual event ROI, attendee metrics, cost per attendee, revenue per attendee, and staff hour investments for all major galas, community events, and donor gatherings. Enables comparison across event types to identify which formats deliver strongest returns.
4
Follow up prompts
Continue the conversation with Claude to refine, expand, or explore further.
Deeper Event Analysis
Better understand one form of fundraising in order to make data-driven decisions.
I want to compare our gala events vs. community events vs. small donor gatherings more systematically. Create an analysis showing average ROI, cost structure breakdown, revenue potential, and donor retention by event type. Help me decide which event categories to expand and which to reduce. Make it visually compelling with charts.
Add an Executive Briefing Document
Synthesize analysis to build transparency and gain buy-in.
Create a polished 2-page Word document pulling the key findings from this analysis. Focus on the three biggest opportunities for improving ROI, the dollar impact of recommended changes, and specific action items with timeline. Use sophisticated document design—think McKinsey deliverable quality with professional typography, strategic use of color, and data visualization elements. This goes directly to our board.
Build in donor lifetime value analysis
Understand the impact of different investment model by building out value analysis.
Build a forecasting model for next fiscal year based on the ROI patterns you've identified. Show me projected revenue by channel if we implement your reallocation recommendations, with quarterly targets, variance tracking, and confidence intervals. Include scenario toggles so I can model different investment levels.
5
Tricks, tips, and troubleshooting
Design language in prompts drives visual quality
Notice how the example prompt uses phrases like "premium formatting," "sophisticated design," "consulting-grade formatting," and "make an extreme effort on visual sophistication." Claude responds to these design cues with intentional color choices, professional typography, and elevated formatting. Without this design language, outputs default to functional but generic styling. When visual quality matters for stakeholder presentations, be explicit about design expectations.
Verify key financial calculations
Claude excels at analyzing patterns and structuring analysis, but always verify critical financial calculations before presenting to leadership. Check that formulas calculate correctly, revenue totals match your source data, and ROI calculations use your preferred methodology. Build verification into your workflow for any quantitative decision-making—especially when driving six-figure budget shifts.
Create a skill for recurring analysis
Once you refine this analysis approach, turn it into a reusable skill. Include your data structure preferences, key metrics you track, visual design requirements, and the specific insights your board needs. Then trigger this analysis quarterly or semi-annually by uploading new data—Claude applies the same sophisticated analytical framework automatically without rebuilding from scratch.
Ready to try for yourself?
Gather your fundraising data by channel and let Claude transform it into strategic insights with presentation-quality design. Open your analysis, review the recommendations, and start optimizing your fundraising portfolio based on evidence rather than intuition.
