This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2012. The world around us is talking about Big Data and how to use it – see this Wikipedia article for the description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data. I keep talking to… Read More »Big Data? Little Data? Do I Have Data?
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2011. A lot of clients and conference attendees say this to me: “We don’t have a lot of data. How can we do donor modeling?” My answer is… Read More »What’s in a Giving Pattern?
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2011. The answer to this question is yes: You can use reporting tools and software that you already have to do some very good basic prospecting. The terms… Read More »Can I Get Started Without Statistics Software?
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2010. In his book, Business at the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates writes about the issue between reporting and knowledge management. He writes, “Information blow is the lifeblood… Read More »Analytics: Isn’t It Just Reporting?
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2010. In fund-raising, what we are seeking are charitable gifts. When we model prospects, we hope to find those with certain giving levels. So we have to wonder… Read More »Using Giving Variables for Donor Modeling
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2010. We have focused for the past 10 years or so on data mining for major gifts prospects. However, with the advent of measuring social networking, we are… Read More »When the Question Is about Participation
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2009. What It Is Recency, frequency, and monetary value is a collection of measurements used by data mining firms to assess a customer’s potential. Called RFM, this tool… Read More »An Argument Against RFM for Major Gifts Modeling, and How to Use It, Anyway
This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2010. In data mining, we frequently choose the dependent variable that is easiest to acquire from our primary databases. Most often, we start with the prospect’s lifetime giving… Read More »Understanding Lifetime Value, Single Gift, and Movement
