
Does the phrase “key performance indicator (KPI)” make your stomach turn? Do you get anxious thinking about running reports or building dashboards? Does your heart rate go up when you think about tracking your performance over time?
It’s okay! Tracking these things can be nerve-wracking, especially if you’ve never done it before. But tracking the right metrics is a huge deal. It’s vital for understanding and improving your nonprofit organization’s impact. It lets you spot trends, set data-backed goals, and make smarter decisions.
Here’s an introduction to KPIs for nonprofits, including why they matter, key types of nonprofit KPIs, and how to use them effectively.

Why Should I Care About KPIs for Nonprofits?
Tracking nonprofit KPIs gives you insights that can improve your day-to-day fundraising, donor retention, event planning, and more. It makes it possible for you to:
- Identify negative trends early so you can address them before they become big issues. Do you want your organization to be more proactive and less reactive? Tracking the right KPIs will be key.
- Set realistic, data-backed goals for your campaigns and activities. If you’ve ever blindly set a goal for fundraising, membership acquisition, or other activity, you know how frustrating it can be.
- Plan more effective campaigns by evaluating what has worked well in the past and, maybe more importantly, what hasn’t worked well in the past. Your KPIs can tell you what appeals are most compelling to your audience, which channels to use to make those appeals, and even how people may get involved.
Types of Nonprofit KPIs
There are virtually endless metrics you could track at your organization, and the KPIs you choose to measure will depend entirely on your goals and the questions you want to answer about your community and how they support your work.
That said, most nonprofit KPIs will fall into one of three categories: general engagement, supporter engagement, and revenue. Here’s a rundown of each KPI type.
1. General Engagement KPIs for Nonprofits
If you want to acquire new donors, attract new members, retain your existing supporters, and generally become more visible in your community, you’ll need to focus on engaging the people around you. That’s where general engagement KPIs come into play.
What Nonprofit KPIs to Track
Measure anything that will help you understand how you’re engaging the people in your community. You might want to track:
- Email metrics like open rates, bounce rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes
- Website metrics like web traffic, bounce rate, and how much time people spend on your site
- Social media metrics like growth rate, impressions, interactions, and clicks
- Newsletter sign-ups and engagement
- Community event attendance
Where to Find This Data
Most of this information will be available in the different channels you’re using to engage the community around you. Social media insights, for example, will be in your Meta Insights or social media management platforms. You may need to look at Google Analytics or your CMS for website KPIs, while you’d want to look at your email service provider or event management tools for more insights.
How to Use These KPIs
You can use this kind of information in tons of ways! It’s especially helpful as you identify where your audience spends their time, which channels are most effective for reaching different groups or inspiring different kinds of engagement, and what type of content your audience finds engaging. Over time, this data will help you refine your communication strategies, share more powerful stories, and even write more effective appeals.
2. Supporter Engagement KPIs for Nonprofits
As you engage your community, you’ll inevitably inspire some of those people to become supporters. That support can take many forms—people may make donations, purchase memberships, volunteer, or get involved in dozens of other ways. But, regardless of how they support you, you’ll want to measure your success.
What Nonprofit KPIs to Track
Measure anything you think will help you understand, engage, and retain your community. That could include things like:
- Form conversion rates for donations, memberships, event registrations, volunteer sign-ups, etc.
- Retention rates for donors, members, volunteers, and other supporters
- Percentages of supporters participating in multiple activities like volunteering or event attendance
Where to Find This Data
The number of places you’ll need to go to find this data will depend on the number of tools you’re using to manage your supporters. Your nonprofit CRM will contain a lot of this information, especially if you’re using it to manage your fundraising, events, or other activities. Otherwise, you’ll want to look at your online fundraising tools, event management platforms, or even tools like Google Analytics.
How to Use These KPIs
This data gives you a window into how your community prefers to support your mission. There’s so much you can uncover here! You can track different metrics to understand which of your campaigns are successful, which appeals prompt different forms of support, which of your forms could be more effective after some optimization, and even which pools of supporters may be most likely to support you in different ways. Get creative!
3. Revenue KPIs for Nonprofits
While focusing exclusively on revenue KPIs is something to avoid, you do need to keep an eye on your progress. In addition to understanding how well you’re moving toward your goals in the here and now, tracking some key metrics here will help you make better decisions about the future.
What Nonprofit KPIs to Track
Choose KPIs that answer questions you have about your community. Do you want insights that will make it easier for you to set ambitious (but achievable) goals? Do you want to know how much revenue you can rely on each month? Start there, then expand your scope as you start asking more questions.
You may want to track:
- Average transaction amounts for donations or memberships
- Average monthly revenue over time
- Average individual donation or membership purchase over time
- Percentage of recurring donors
- Success of your most popular campaigns or programs
- Top-performing channels
Where to Find This Data
Revenue-related metrics are typically accessible in your online fundraising or membership management tools. If you’re using Neon CRM, all of this will be possible from your dashboard or reporting tools. If you’re using multiple platforms, you may need to compile reports or use an aggregator tool that lets you get everything in one place.
How to Use These Nonprofit KPIs
Use these insights to understand your supporters’ behavior, identify reliable revenue streams, and set realistic goals in the future. Make sure your board has insight here, too, especially if they’re involved in your goal-setting!
Go Beyond Transactions and Look for Stories in Your Data
KPIs are more than numbers—they tell a story! Your data reflects how well you connect with your supporters, how they like to get involved with your work, and even what excites and inspires them. Even the most transactional data can paint a picture of the people who are passionate about your mission and how you can turn that passion into action.
Start Small, but Think Big
Feeling a little overwhelmed? That’s okay—there are a lot of options! Remember, you don’t need to measure every KPI all at once.
Start by identifying a handful of metrics that align with your organization’s goals.
Do you want to focus on member acquisition this year? Start tracking the number of new members you sign up every month. Are you planning your annual event? Use historical registration numbers to inform your registration goal for this year.
Over time, you can expand your focus based on what you learn.
Did you learn that April is a great month for new memberships, but July isn’t? You might want to launch a big campaign in April and plan something new and exciting in July to shore up those numbers. Did you realize that registration for your event has been declining over the last couple of years? You can start having conversations about how you can update your event or your promotional activities.
Get creative!

Start Tracking Your Own Nonprofit KPIs
Are you ready to start tracking your own KPIs? This resource will get you started! Download this worksheet for an introduction to important KPIs for nonprofits, a breakdown for how to calculate them, and insight into where to find your data.
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