What Does Food Bank Data Tell Us About Post-COVID Fundraising?

Is COVID in the Rear-View?

It’s rare that events in life cause a large enough disturbance to create a “pre-” and “post-” effect. The COVID-19 pandemic was certainly one of those. When working with Food Banks, we often compare “pre-COVID norms” — the predictability of fundraising before 2020 — with everything that changed in this current “post-COVID” world.

In the early days of the pandemic, we asked ourselves, “How can we create the right opportunities to continue this heightened level of giving?”

Then we started asking, “How do we keep these new donors engaged and giving in the inevitable post-media blitz letdown after the coverage fades from the headlines?”

Today, with most Food Banks experiencing year-over-year donor and revenue declines since 2021, the questions change to, “How long will this decline continue and how do we stabilize and/or return to growth?”

The lessons we learn from Food Bank donor data over that time can inform virtually all human service nonprofit fundraising strategies across numerous sectors.

It’s All About the Coverage Ratio

The good news is that we have everything we need to help facilitate a predictable return to growth, and some very specific areas to focus on.

For many Food Banks, the key to understanding the challenge lies in what we call coverage ratios.

Your coverage ratio is essentially the percentage defined by year-over-year retained donors (in the numerator) compared to year-over-year lapsed donors (in the denominator). Simply put: Are you bringing in enough new/recaptured donors to cover the attrition within your active lifecycles? If you are fully replacing your attrition, your coverage ratio sits at 1:1. During the COVID surge, most organizations saw coverage ratios well above 1.

But today, Food Banks (and many nonprofits in other sectors) are not bringing in enough new/recaptured donors to cover the attrition within their active lifecycles, as the spike of pandemic donors acquired since 2021’s COVID high-water mark moves its way through the file.

In most cases, this isn’t a performance issue, with retention rates, as well as giving metrics, remaining at or above pre-COVID norms.

It simply means the shrinking volume of new/recaptured donors (normalizing in post-COVID years) is diminishing the number of donors available to move into more valuable loyal lifecycles, thereby failing to offset the “bulge” of COVID-acquired donors who are lapsing.

Bottom line: The new donor phenomenon we saw in 2020–21 made file coverage during that time a guarantee, but we are fundraising today in vastly different market conditions. Creating 1:1 coverage ratios in these subsequent years has not just been improbable, it’s been all but impossible.

4 Strategies to Achieve 1:1 Donor Coverage Ratios

Today, three years removed from those elevated donor files, a positive coverage ratio is becoming more attainable, as long as we put our focus and investment in the right places to guarantee the optimal impact:

1. Invest in viable, multichannel new donor acquisition.
2. Take advantage of the lapsed donor population in an economical way.
3. Enhance multi-year retention.
4. Focus on revenue retention.

In our latest white paper, Is Covid in the Rear-View? What Food Bank data tells us about the future of nonprofit fundraising, you’ll learn more about the data trends and patterns that provide answers and rationales for the focus areas above as well as actionable tactics to achieve positive movement in all four areas, coalescing to achieve sustainable, long-term file and revenue growth.  

Download your copy of Is Covid in the Rear-View? What Food Bank data tells us about the future of nonprofit fundraising.

Note: Many Food Banks are experiencing the data trends discussed in this white paper; however, we acknowledge that every organization’s situation is unique. We would love to help you better understand your Donor File Health and what the most impactful focus areas are for your specific goals.

To schedule an introductory call, please contact Patrick Cassetti at (412) 526-1989.