Understanding your insights

The Insights and Activity dashboard shows six top-line insights that measure how your fundraising is performing. This article explains what each one measures, what it tells you, and what you can do to improve it.

A few principles before diving into the specifics:

• The delta matters as much as the absolute number. A 10% conversion rate isn't inherently good or bad — the question is whether it's better or worse than your baseline. The comparison period (Previous Period or Previous Year) is where the signal lives.
• Small period-over-period changes can be noise. A short comparison window (Last 7 Days vs Previous Period) is more volatile than a long one (Last 12 Months). Treat small deltas in short windows with skepticism.
• One insight in isolation rarely tells the full story. Total Raised up but Avg Donation Size down might mean you reached more people. Conversion Rate up but Total Raised flat might mean better forms but less traffic. Look at the constellation.

Total Raised

What it measures: Total donation revenue for the period, plus the count of donations.

The headline number. Total Raised tells you what came in. The donation count next to it tells you whether the revenue came from many gifts, a few large ones, or somewhere in between — important context for whether to celebrate growth or worry about concentration.

How to interpret it: Compare to the same period last year (Previous Year) for the cleanest view. Year-over-year accounts for seasonality, which Previous Period doesn't — a January-vs-December comparison would always look bad even for a great January.

How to improve it:

• Increase donor acquisition — paid ads, organic traffic, email list growth, referrals, partnerships.
• Increase gift size — raise suggested donation amounts, ask larger gifts of major donors, test removing the lowest preset.
• Improve form conversion — covered below under Conversion Rate.
• Convert more donors to recurring — covered under One Time vs Recurring.
• Re-engage lapsed donors — donors who gave before but haven't recently often respond well to "we miss you" outreach.

Conversion Rate

What it measures: The percentage of donation page visits that resulted in a donation.

Conversion Rate is the most important indicator of how well your donation form is performing. It separates form effectiveness from traffic volume — if you double your traffic but your conversion rate stays the same, your form is doing its job. If conversion rate drops as you scale traffic, you're probably attracting less-warm audiences.

How to interpret it: Benchmarks vary widely. Warm traffic (your email list) typically converts much higher than cold traffic (paid ads, organic search). A sudden drop usually means something broke — broken form fields, a Stripe issue, a page that's slow to load. Investigate fast.

How to improve it:

• Reduce form friction. Every additional required field hurts conversion. Make name and email required; make everything else optional. See Personal information.
• Strengthen the headline. Donors decide in the first few seconds whether to give. Lead with the cause and the urgency, not your organization name.
• Use a compelling photo. A specific person or moment outperforms a generic stock photo. The donation page hero photo is high-leverage.
• Test default donation amounts. Higher defaults raise average gift size but can hurt conversion if too aggressive. Find the sweet spot for your audience.
• Speed up your form. Slow-loading donation pages convert poorly, especially on mobile. Compress images, minimize third-party scripts.
• Add trust signals. Tax-deductibility statements, security badges, and testimonials reduce hesitation, especially for first-time donors.
• Optimize for mobile. Most traffic comes from mobile. Test your form on a real phone, not just a resized browser.

Abandonment Rate

What it measures: The percentage of donation attempts that didn't complete.

Different from Conversion Rate. Conversion Rate measures the broad funnel (visit → donation). Abandonment Rate measures only the donors who got far enough to start the donation process and then quit. A high abandonment rate is a signal that something in the form itself is creating friction.

How to interpret it: Some abandonment is normal — donors get interrupted, change their minds, second-guess. But a sudden jump or a persistently high rate (above the rough baseline you've established) suggests a fixable problem.

How to improve it:

• Add fast payment methods. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal cut friction by skipping card entry entirely. Donors who would otherwise abandon at the card screen complete the gift.
• Reduce required personal info. Address, phone number, and SMS opt-ins all add steps. If you don't need them, don't require them. See Personal information.
• Enable the exit popup. Catches donors who try to leave mid-flow. Modest recovery rates compound across every campaign. See Exit popup.
• Make payment options visible upfront. Donors who only have PayPal and don't see it as an option may abandon. Show all enabled payment methods clearly.
• Investigate specific drop-off points. If you have analytics tracking installed, look at which step donors abandon at. The biggest drops point to your biggest opportunities.

Avg Donation Size

What it measures: The average donation amount for the period, plus the median.

Average and median together tell a richer story than either alone. The average is sensitive to large gifts — one $10,000 donor can move it significantly. The median tells you what the typical donor gave.

How to interpret it:

• Average up, median flat: You had some large gifts that pulled the average up. The typical donor didn't give more.
• Average up, median up: Donors across the board are giving more. The strongest signal.
• Average flat, median up: Smaller donors are giving more, but big gifts are flat or down.
• Both down: Your audience is giving less per gift. Check whether your asks have changed, whether traffic mix shifted, or whether economic conditions are at play.

How to improve it:

• Raise suggested amounts. The default preset anchors what donors give. Test higher defaults — preset values shape giving behavior more than most operators realize.
• Remove the lowest preset. If your lowest preset is $10, donors who see it often pick it. Removing it shifts the floor upward.
• Highlight monthly giving. A $25 monthly gift is $300 annually — significantly higher than the typical one-time gift. Strong monthly suggestion text raises effective gift size. See Donation frequencies.
• Ask up. For major donors, customize asks based on capacity. Don't show a $50K-capable donor a $50 default.
• Tie asks to impact. Specific impact statements ("$50 funds two days of programs") outperform generic asks. Donors who understand what their gift does give more.

Recurring Donor Churn

What it measures: The percentage of active recurring donors who canceled their plans during the period.

Recurring donors are typically the highest-value supporters a nonprofit has. They've made a sustained commitment, their lifetime value is significantly higher than one-time donors, and they cost almost nothing to retain after acquisition. Churn is the rate at which you lose them.

How to interpret it: Some churn is unavoidable — donors lose jobs, change priorities, pass away. But churn above your baseline usually indicates a retention problem. Track it monthly. A jump in churn often comes from a specific trigger: an unwelcome communication, a missed thank-you, a service disruption.

How to improve it:

• Send consistent thank-you communications. Recurring donors should hear from you regularly — monthly impact updates, quarterly newsletters, occasional surprise-and-delight messages. Underwhelm them with communication and they'll forget why they're giving.
• Show impact, not appeals. Recurring donors don't need to be convinced to give. Communications should reinforce the impact, not ask for more.
• Make payment updates easy. A donor with an expired card who can't easily update their payment method often gives up. See Donor portal setup — the portal handles this, and the link should be visible in receipts.
• Reach out before cards expire. Card expiration is a leading cause of involuntary churn. Notify donors before their card expires so they can update.
• Survey churned donors. When a donor cancels, ask why — short and respectful. The patterns reveal what to fix.
• Avoid both extremes of communication. Too much email feels like spam; too little and the donor forgets they're giving.

One Time vs Recurring

What it measures: The split between one-time and recurring donation revenue, plus a total donation count.

Recurring revenue is more predictable, has higher lifetime value, and reduces your dependence on continuous acquisition. The mix tells you how sustainable your fundraising is.

How to interpret it: A higher recurring share generally means a healthier base. Most established nonprofits aim for at least 20–30% of revenue from recurring donors, with leading organizations pushing 40%+. If you're at 5–10% recurring, you have meaningful room to grow.

How to improve it:

• Strengthen your monthly suggestion text. The handwritten-style note next to the Monthly button is the single biggest lever for converting one-time donors to monthly. See Donation frequencies.
• Default to monthly for warm audiences. For donors coming from your email list, consider making Monthly the default selection rather than One Time. Warm audiences convert to monthly at higher rates.
• Lower the perceived barrier. A $5/month gift feels much smaller than $60/year, even though it's the same money. Anchor monthly gifts as small and ongoing.
• Tell the story of monthly giving. Donors give monthly when they understand it. A short pitch — "monthly gifts let us plan, sustain programs, and respond when needs spike" — converts.

Putting it together

The six insights work together as a system:

• Total Raised is the headline outcome.
• Conversion Rate and Abandonment Rate measure your form's effectiveness.
• Avg Donation Size measures how generously each donor gives.
• Recurring Donor Churn measures retention.
• One Time vs Recurring measures sustainability.

Strong fundraising programs improve across all of these over time. Pick one or two to focus on each quarter rather than trying to move everything at once.