Benevity Monetization Through Data
Benevity provides software that allows companies to create social good programs which empower their employees to engage with the causes that matter to them, through online giving and volunteering.
Currently, Benevity makes money by taking a percentage of the donation amount that employees of their corporate clients make to charities as a support fee. But is there another revenue stream that they can look into?
This new revenue stream could come from the charities itself.
Benevity is sitting on a treasure trove of data that charities could really benefit from. Every month, Benevity provides charities with a report based on donations it received for that month with information such as:
- Client company the donation was made through and whether they matched the donation amount
- Whether the donation was made towards a specific campaign
- Donor information and transaction method (paypal, credit card, payroll)
- Conversion time (time it took the donor to make the donation)
- Donation amount and frequency (e.g. one-time or recurring)
- Fee breakdown and gross/net totals
It is possible for Benevity to also sell data insights.
According to a non-profit trends report from Salesforce, 53% of non-profit organizations surveyed, find it difficult to analyze their data and struggle when it comes to tracking and quantifying impact/performance. Furthermore, only 45% of them use data analytics, and 30% are planning to use analytical tools within two years. It is clear there is a market for this.
However, money is usually limited with charities and non-profits. Most do not have the extra cash to pay for such services. In that case, Benevity can offer different packages to target different client’s needs. This could range from basic to deeper data insights/analytical services.
An example of packages that charities and non-profits could purchase include analytics and insights that help them with:
Donor Outreach and Retention
Benevity has information on donors that they have chosen to make available. With this data, Benevity can help charities visualize trends such as demographics, and giving behaviour that can allow them to figure out the best prospects to target their communication/marketing to, thereby possibly increasing engagement.
Benevity can also segment donors into different categories which would provide added value. This segmentation could be by:
- Whether they volunteer
- Location
- Cohort start (period they started using Benevity)
Program Improvement
Benevity has data on which campaigns solicited the highest amount of donations, to which charities can use those insights to help shape the types of fundraising/awareness programs they focus on, and which ones to abandon/optimize if the programs weren’t doing well. This would increase cost efficiency as it would allow the streamlining of operations and save them money.
Resource Allocating
Data from Benevity on a charities’ past performance can be used to create machine learning models that can predict future giving behaviours of existing and potential donors which could help charities allocate resources and forecast revenue expectations which, in turn, would drive business planning.
Data Analysis can also Benefit Benevity
Benevity has over two million charities in its cloud database and at least three hundred big corporate clients. Many of these charities and clients have extensive customization on how they utilize Benevity’s services. This causes problems because it becomes hard to scale since so many of the accounts are different. For example, if the software needed to be changed, Benevity may have to change the accounts individually since there is no conformity. Client expectations are also an issue because the more customization there is, the higher the expectations will become.
Customization is good because it caters to the charity/client’s needs and helps build relationships, but a healthy middle is needed in order to facilitate growth. This is where data analytics come in. By analyzing data from different accounts, insights can be discovered on which ‘packages’ work the best, and would allow Benevity to push those out to charities and clients moving forward.
Conclusion
Benevity is the leading provider of software for social giving. With the amount of data it possesses, Benevity is in a unique position to further benefit charities through providing data insights/analytical services and there is a huge need for this.
Benevity has the potential to become a one stop source for all the needs of a charity, from fundraising, to growth, and decision-making while also supporting itself in new monetization methods.
#ForGoodnessSake!
