This past summer, I rode in my 11th Pan-Mass Challenge, an annual 2-day ride to fight cancer for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Every year, I take a look at my individual fundraising effort (you can always donate to support the ride at http://profile.pmc.org/DH0159) to evaluate how things went.
First off, my total fundraising last year rose for the third straight year, to a new high of $13,370.40 (the PMC’s total 2018 gift to Dana Farber was $56 million, also a new high. That amount earned me a “Top 10%” fundraiser designation, which gets me a special sticker and badge (you can see it in the right-hand column here). You can see from the chart that after several steady years, donations increased the last two.
Why? The next thing I look at is how many people donated. While that number was slightly up this year, clearly it was not a huge factor, and was not even the highest number of donors I have had.
Average donation is the next place to look, and there it gets interesting; in 2017, the average amount increased by about 25%, and increased slightly more this past year. Whether it’s a better economy or for some other reason, my friends got more generous over the last couple of years (and of course, the PMC, Dana-Farber and I are grateful).
Another item I look at is how many regular donors return. The returning percentage has remained steady over 75% each year, actually ebbing slightly in 2018. Conversely, that means the percentage of new donors was slightly higher, but as we saw above, the total number of donors is not significantly changed, and the slight change in percentage is very unlikely to have affected the increase in fundraising.
A metric I have taken to examining more recently compares donation flow by month. This has shown, more recently, July and August (and after) to be the strongest months almost every year (2011 was an outlier, as my father passed away from cancer in May of that year). The obvious takeaway is that more donations come in the closer it is to the PMC (always the first full weekend in August). Behind that data is that I reinforced that pattern by focusing most of my email and social media outreach in those months, as it proved to be a better use of my time.
Now, I’m on to preparing for the 40th Pan-Mass Challenge, in August 2019. Based on the numbers above, I should easily reach a significant personal milestone: $100,000 total raised to fight cancer over 12 years. As of this writing, I have less than $5,000 to go to reach that mark. I am humbled by the generosity of so many friends to contribute that amount on my behalf over the years.
If you would like to get me started on the road to that milestone, there is no need to wait until July- you can go to http://profile.pmc.org/DH0159 and get your donation in early (and if you do, thank you!).