Custom Benchmark Report
Prepared for
A Day Boarding School
By Rhiannon Cutler and Tim Baines
Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP
A Day Boarding School
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Dear JohnWe are pleased to provide you with a custom benchmark report comparing your school’s key fundraising and development information with that of similar schools. The peer group with which your school is being compared is set out on page 3 of this report. Note that, under Office of Fair Trading regulations we are not able to provide you with a named list of peer schools, but we are always happy for you to provide us with a list of potential comparator schools and for the search criteria we use to fit this group as closely as possible. You should however note that schools you might normally compare with may not have
development departments and that this survey only deals with schools which have such departments. The data in this report is drawn from the National Fundraising and Development Survey published in June 2012. If you would like to obtain further copies of this survey please contact Rhiannon Cutler on 07949 566298 or [email protected]
The 2012 National Fundraising and Development Survey had 181 returns, covering around 60% by value of all giving in UK schools in the year 2010/11. Over the years we have been asked many times how best to use benchmarking data as every school is unique. This is self-evident and clearly every school
must interpret benchmarking data in the light of its own fundraising focus, the age of its development office and the resources it has available. Schools may also have very different alumni and parental profiles. However, benchmarking data can be an invaluable tool to inform strategic and investment decisions.
Thank you for the support you have given to our benchmarking work. I would also draw your attention to our two other major benchmarking surveys – on Teacher Salaries and Benefits and Financial
Benchmarking. Do contact us if you would like further information on either of these. As always we are also keen to receive feedback on our work and any ideas for improvements or additions to future surveys. If you have any such comments do feel free to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Rhiannon Cutler
Independent Schools Consultant Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP December 2012
A Day Boarding School
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Table of Contents
Your selected peer group --- 3
How we establish a suitable peer group--- 3
Your peer group --- 3
Development Organisation --- 4 Development set-up --- 4 Legal structure --- 4 Connected organisations --- 5 Self-funding --- 5 Fundraising focus --- 6 Fundraising focus in 2011 --- 6 Focus on Bursaries--- 7
Focus on Capital Campaigns --- 8
Focus on Annual Funds --- 9
Focus on Legacies --- 10
Development team size, role levels and salaries --- 11
Number of development staff --- 11
Role levels of development staff and total development staff resource available --- 12
Salaries paid to development staff--- 13
Additional information about the senior development professional --- 14
Development team activity --- 15
Lights, Camera, Action --- 15
The cost of running a development office --- 16
Total expenditure --- 16
Percentage of expenditure spent on salaries --- 17
Expenditure type --- 17
Giving --- 18
Donor connections and nature of initiatives supported --- 18
How much is given and to what? --- 19
Fundraising profits --- 21
Profits averaged across 2010 and 2011 --- 21
Profits per pupil averaged across 2010 and 2011--- 21
Return on Investment --- 22
The fundraising database --- 23
Records on the database --- 23
Database records as multiple of pupil numbers --- 24
Split of data records--- 24
Wealth checking --- 25 Name of database --- 25 Communications --- 26 Website--- 26 Use of consultants --- 26 Publications --- 27
A Day Boarding School
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Your selected peer group
How we establish a suitable peer group
Our aim is to provide you with a report of real value. To do so it is imperative that we establish with you which schools you would be most similar to (from a
development perspective) so that the comparison of the data from the peer group and your own school is as useful as possible. This same peer group can then be tracked over a number of years.
There are certain standard criteria which we usually look at in determining a school’s peer group in all our surveys. These include UK region, whether the school is independent or maintained, the type of school i.e. boarding, day/boarding or day, the number of pupils, the percentage of senior/junior pupils in the school and the sex of those pupils. These parameters can be infinitely varied in order to establish a suitable benchmarking group.
However, in a development context, otherwise similar schools may be surprisingly different. For example one school may be raising money for a capital project, another for bursaries. One may have just started its development activity whilst another may have been
working in this area for many years. To reflect this we offer the ability to commission up to three
benchmarking reports for one price. So a school might compare itself in one report with schools of similar size and type and in other reports it might compare itself with schools fundraising for the same thing or with development departments open for a similar length of time. Please speak to us about your requirements. We also have the ability to create a peer group based on any of the questions asked in the development survey questionnaire. Do contact us if you would like to discuss this further.
Clearly every school is unique in its history and culture but our experience over many years of conducting benchmarking surveys is that most schools have more in common than might first be expected. This means that, as long as comparative data is considered with the understanding that it can never give the whole picture, it can provide a true external view which is difficult for development directors, bursars, heads and governors to obtain in any other way.
Your peer group
We have established the following peer group selection criteria for you and the data in this report is based on this peer group. If you wish to discuss any aspects of this selection please let us know. As noted in the introduction we cannot benchmark against a named list of schools but if you do have schools in mind with which you would you like to compare yourselves and can provide us with a list, we are always happy to seek to match the benchmark criteria against your list as closely as possible.
Key Indicator Number or range
Number of Schools in Peer Group 26
Number of pupils in the school as a whole Greater or equal to 500
Boarding percentage Greater or equal to 20 AND Less or equal to 85
Girls percentage Not Selected
Junior/prep and pre-prep percentage Not Selected
ISC region Not London or South East
DevtOfficeOpen More than 3 Years
Other criteria 1 Not Selected
Other criteria 1 Not Selected
A Day Boarding School
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Development Organisation
An important aspect of understanding development is to understand how it is organised in any particular school. This organisation can then be compared with peer schools.
Key questions asked in the survey were; 1) When was the development office set up? 2) Is the school a charity?
3) Is development carried out via a separate fundraising foundation?
4) Does the school have a direct connection with a livery company or other sponsoring organisation which regularly gives financial support?
5) Is development activity expected to be wholly self-funded?
Graphs and pie charts covering each of these questions are shown below.
Development set-up
The chart below indicates the age of the establishment of development offices in your peer group, shown in years. Most data suggests that the longer the office has been established, the more successful it is likely to be. This is a key piece of information in interpreting the financial data shown later in this report.
Legal structure
The pie charts below compare the legal structure of the development activity of A Day Boarding School and your peer schools. The first chart indicates whether your school and peer schools are charities or not. The second chart shows whether development at A Day Boarding School and peer group schools is carried out via a separate charitable fundraising foundation or not.
3 9 7 2 3 1 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3 5 .8 5.8 8.5 8.5 11.2 11 .2 - 14 14 16.8 16 .8 - 19 .5 19 .5 - 22 .2 22 .2 - 25
Age of development office
Age of development office
A Day Boarding School = 7.0
Nu m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 9.9 Median = 9.3 Years 100% 0%
Is the school a charity?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School = Yes
54% 46%
Separate fundraising foundation?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School
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Connected organisations
Some schools are fortunate enough to have direct connections to a Livery Company or to another organisation which regularly gives financial contributions to the school and is often willing and able to give significant sums to get
fundraising projects “off the ground”. The pie chart below indicates the percentage of your peer group schools which have such a connection and the note below it gives the mean and median of sums which have been given by these organisations (only for those schools with such a connection) over the past 3 years.
For the 3 schools which had such a connection the mean sum given was £4,195,333 and the median was £450,000. The sum given for A Day Boarding School was £0.
Self-funding
The pie chart below shows the proportion of schools in the peer group whose development offices are required to be entirely self-funded.
12% 88%
Other supporting organisation?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School = No
35% 65%
Self-funding?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School
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Fundraising focus
The importance of fundraising focus
A vital element in considering the makeup and activities of a development team is to ascertain what the fundraising focus of the school has been in the last two years. If a school is fundraising for bursaries, the approach, resources needed and events held will inevitably be quite different to a school whose fundraising focus is geared towards a major capital project.
The other important area to take into consideration is the stage of a project or campaign a school
development office is currently at. A school in the feasibility stage of a major campaign would expect to be spending money but would not yet be actively seeking donations. In contrast, a school carrying out an active telephone campaign for an Annual Fund would expect to both incur costs and generate income. The charts below indicate the fundraising focuses and campaign stages which your school and your peer group schools were at in 2011.
Fundraising focus in 2011
The table below provides an overview of the fundraising focus of A Day Boarding School in 2011 by comparing it with each school in your selected peer group. Each school’s fundraising focus is shown as a bar representing 100% of the available focus. The potential areas of focus, namely bursaries, capital campaign, annual fund, legacies and other are then shown as separate colours, with the length of each colour on the bar representing the proportion of 100% of available time that activity or focus took up in 2011. The following pages then take each of the four focus areas and examine them in more detail. Your school is the first bar in the chart below.
The above graph projects the overall picture of time spent by A Day Boarding School and your peer schools on different fundraising focuses in 2011. In order to show you how the percentage of time spent by A Day Boarding School on an individual fundraising focus compares with time spent by your peer group schools, we have broken the above graph down into four separate graphs; one for bursaries, one for capital campaigns, a third for annual funds and a fourth of legacies. The red line shown on each of the following graphs shows the mean or average amount of time spent by your peer group on each fundraising focus. In order to put the following data into context, it is useful to be able to read each graph in the light of the stage of fundraising focus your peer schools are in, so under each bar chart we have provided you with a pie chart which shows this information.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Fundraising focus 2011 Bursaries Capital Annual Legacies Other
A Day Boarding School
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Focus on Bursaries
The bar graph below shows the percentage of time spent in 2011 by A Day Boarding School and peer group schools on bursaries.
The pie chart below shows the stage of bursary campaign at which A Day Boarding School and peer group schools are in 2011. 12% 0% 20% 4% 60% 4%
Bursary stage
Planning Stage Feasibility study Quiet Launch Fallow period Fully Open Wind downA Day Boarding School = Fully open
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Fundraising focus 2011 - Bursaries
Bursaries
Peer Mean
A Day Boarding School
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Focus on Capital Campaigns
The bar graph below shows the percentage of time spent in 2011 by A Day Boarding School and peer group schools on capital campaigns.
The pie chart below shows the stage of a capital campaign at which A Day Boarding School and peer group schools are in 2011. 41% 9% 9% 5% 36% 0%
Capital campaign stage
Planning Stage Feasibility study Quiet Launch Fallow period Fully Open Wind down
A Day Boarding School = Fully open
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Fundraising focus 2011 - Capital
Capital Peer Mean
A Day Boarding School
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Focus on Annual Funds
The bar graph below shows the percentage of time spent in 2011 by A Day Boarding School and peer group schools on the Annual Fund.
The pie chart below shows the stage of an Annual Fund at which A Day Boarding School and peer group schools are in 2011. 20% 0% 10% 15% 50% 5%
Annual Fund stage
Planning Stage Feasibility study Quiet Launch Fallow period Fully Open Wind down
A Day Boarding School = Planning stage
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Fundraising focus 2011 - Annual
Annual Peer Mean
A Day Boarding School
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Focus on Legacies
The bar graph below shows the percentage of time spent in 2011 by A Day Boarding School and peer group schools on legacies.
The pie chart below shows the stage of a legacy campaign at which A Day Boarding School and peer group schools are in 2011. 25% 0% 13% 8% 54%
Legacy stage
Planning Stage Feasibility study Quiet Launch Fallow period Fully OpenA Day Boarding School = Fallow Period
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Fundraising focus 2011 - Legacies
Legacies Peer Mean
A Day Boarding School
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Development team size, role levels and salaries
This section of the report provides information on your development team, its size and the role levels of members of the team, compared with your peers. It also examines salaries paid to members of the team. In order to facilitate comparisons between schools we have provided the following standardisation;
1) We work only in full-time equivalent numbers of development team staff based on a full working year (i.e. not just term-time)
2) In our questionnaire we asked for each staff member to be placed in one of four role-levels. These were director, manager, clerical and graduate levels. Whilst roles can never be precise this can give an indication of the relative seniority levels of team members.
The graph below therefore compares the full-time equivalent number of staff in the development team at A Day Boarding School with its peer group. After this graph, wethen compare the split of the total
development resource between the four seniority levels in your development office and your peer group.
In order to give a fuller comparison of the true level of development resource available at your school and its peers we have then introduced the concept of
“resource rating”. Our system gives a resource rating of 300 to a time development director, 200 to a full-time development manager, 100 to a full-full-time clerical staff member and 50 to a full-time graduate, with proportionate reductions made for less than full-time roles. Totalling the resource rating for your school and the peer schools then allows a more useful benchmark of the comparative resources available to you. This is shown in a spread graph.
The final section shows the average levels of salary paid to director, manager and clerical level staff in your and peer group schools. Note that the figures are expressed in full-time equivalent salaries so the figures shown will not be the actual salaries paid if staff are not full-time. They will however be shown on a comparable basis, or what we like to call a “level playing field”.
Number of development staff
The graph below shows the number of full-time equivalent development staff at your school in comparison with peer group schools, regardless of role levels in the office.
3 2 1 4 3 4 2 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 0.7 1.1 1.1 1.5 1.5 1.9 1.9 2.4 2.4 2.8 2.8 3.2 3.2 3.6 3.6 4
Number of full-time equivalent development staff
Number of full-time equivalent development staff
A Day Boarding School = 3.6
N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 2.5 Median = 2.6 Number of staff
A Day Boarding School
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Role levels of development staff and total development staff resource available
The table below shows the proportion of full time equivalent development staff in your school and the mean level in your peer group, split by role level.
Level A Day Boarding School Peer Schools
Director Level 1 0.7
Manager Level 1 0.7
Clerical Level 1.6 1.0
Graduate Level 0 0.1
Total FTE staff 3.6 2.5
The graph below looks at the “resource rating” available to your school and your peer schools (see introduction for details about how this is calculated). The higher the “resource rating”, the higher the total level and seniority of the resource available to the schools shown below.
7 2 9 4 2 1 0 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 14 0 - 302 30 2 - 464 46 4 - 626 62 6 - 788 78 8 950 95 0 - 111 2 11 12 12 74 12 74 14 36
Total Resource Rating
Total Resource Rating A Day Boarding = 660 N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 551 Median = 600 Rating
A Day Boarding School
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Salaries paid to development staff
The graphs below indicate the salaries paid to members of the development team in A Day Boarding School compared with your peer schools. These are expressed in full-time equivalent terms. If your school does not have a staff member in such a role the graphs are still shown but the field for your school is marked with a zero. The first graph deals with salaries paid to staff at a development director level.
The second graph shows salaries paid to staff at a development manager level.
The third graph shows salaries paid to staff at a development clerical level. 3 4 2 1 0 0 3 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 45 000 5 0750 50 750 5 6500 56 500 6 2250 62 250 6 8000 68 00 0 7 37 50 73 750 7 9500 79 500 8 5250 85 250 9 1010
Salary of Director level staff
Salary of Director level staff
A Day Boarding School = £50,000
N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 64,167 Median = £ 60,000 Salary £ 1 3 2 0 3 2 1 1 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 17 143 2 1500 21 500 2 5857 25 857 3 0214 30 214 3 4571 34 57 1 3 89 28 38 928 4 3285 43 285 4 7642 47 642 5 2009
Salary of Manager level staff
Salary of Manager level staff
A Day Boarding School = £30,000
Nu m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 32,488 Median = £ 32,500 Salary £ 3 1 5 2 2 1 2 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 12 000 1 5500 15 500 1 9000 19 000 2 2500 22 500 2 6000 26 00 0 2 95 00 29 500 3 3000 33 000 3 6500 36 500 4 0010
Salary of Clerical level staff
Salary of Clerical level staff
A Day Boarding School = £20,000
N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 24,645 Median = £ 22,613 Salary £
A Day Boarding School
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Additional information about the senior development professional
Our survey asked questions about the background of senior development professionals. Note that, whilst in most cases the senior development professional was someone at director level, this was by no means always the case. Comparing salaries of one senior development professional at a director level with another at manager level is unhelpful. However, comparing information about the experience of the senior development professional is. The table below therefore compares the experience of the senior development professional at A Day Boarding School with that of the mean result for the senior development professionals in your peer group schools.
The Senior Development Professional A Day Boarding School Peer Schools
Percent Female Female 58
Time at your school (Years) 1.0 3.5
Educational Development (Years) 4.0 6.6
Total Development (Years) 8.0 9.5
Previous role at school (Percent "Yes") 0.0 35 Fee remission granted (Percent "Yes") Yes 76
Fee remission amount (Percent) 0.0 66
Number in team 4.0 2.6
Team prior experience (Years) 0.0 0.6
A Day Boarding School
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Development team activity
Lights, Camera, Action – the Development Activity model
Development staff are asked to undertake a very large range of activities. These can range from research to database management, communications and the holding of and attendance at internal meetings, events to direct asks. They are also often asked to undertake roles disconnected with any direct development or fundraising activity such as organising alumni reunions and events or carrying out school marketing. Our challenge was to find a way of categorising activities such that one school could compare what its team does with another. To do this we established a development activity model which we have called Lights, Camera, Action. The concept is that, in order to bring a theatrical performance to its first night a great deal of preparation work is needed. Development reflects a similar concept. One cannot launch a major capital campaign or annual fund without planning work i.e. research, database management and external communications, and yet, of itself, the planning will not raise money. No activity is more or less important than any other – each is needed in order for development to be successful.
The development activity model separates development roles into four parts;
1) “Off-Stage” activity i.e. activity not directly connected with the core development function in the office. This includes school marketing, alumni
relations (without a development focus) and all other non-development activities
2) “Lights” activity – database management, research, internal meetings and administration 3) “Camera” activity – events, communications,
friend raising and development marketing 4) “Action” activity- direct asks, major campaigns
and annual funds
This section compares the activities carried out by the development team in A Day Boarding School with those carried out by your peer schools, split into the four stages above. Our research suggests that off-stage activity is usually at its highest in the first year of establishing a new development office, as the team seeks to define their development roles. Lights activity is usually at its highest in the second year as extensive database and research work takes place and Camera activity is at its highest in year three or four as the team organises events and moves from friend-raising to direct fundraising. In most cases, apart from “easy wins”, our research suggests that it will usually take 3 to 5 years for a team to get from start-up to major campaigns, annual funds or major direct asks. Also, the split of time spent in Lights Camera and Action areas will be reflective of the current campaign or fundraising focus adopted by your and peer group schools. You may therefore wish to refer back to the section on Fundraising Focus when looking at the data provided here.
Lights, Camera, Action
The pie charts below compare the development team activity of A Day Boarding School with your peer group schools. If you require more detailed breakdowns of time spent within each of the four main areas, please contact us.
17%
37% 29%
17%
Lights Camera Action
Off Stage Lights Camera Action Peer Group 17% 52% 19% 12%
Lights Camera Action
Off Stage Lights Camera Action
A Day Boarding School
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The cost of running a development office
One of the most common questions we are asked is “How much does it cost to set up and run a
development office?” There is no clear answer to this, as it depends very much on the type and size of school and what the development office is hoping to achieve. It also very much depends on what other roles the development office is expected to take on outside of the mainstream development role. These non-development roles/activities could include organising events on behalf of the alumni society or carrying out school marketing.
Our questionnaire asked for office running costs for the academic years 2010 and 2011. We provided a
suggested split of expenditure by type of cost and this is reported in this section. We are of course aware that it is difficult to get consistency of reporting by
expenditure category and therefore the analysis below should be read in this light. However, the total costs, the proportions spent on salaries and the approximate split between other expenditure areas are we hope useful in establishing broad parameters. If schools want to dig further into the analysis of costs within the peer group below, please contact us.
Total expenditure
The graph below provides information on the total development expenditure of A Day Boarding School compared with peer group schools. The information presented below covers the academic year 2010/11. High level information for the academic year 2009/10 is shown underneath the graph.
In 2009/10 A Day Boarding School’s total expenditure was £218,000. The mean expenditure of the peer group in 2009/10 was £117,969 and the median was £113,150. Total expenditure in 2011 for A Day Boarding School increased by 12.3% over 2010, with the median increase in the peer group being 25.2%.
2 5 3 4 3 2 4 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 3.5 43.5 43 .5 - 83 .5 83 .5 - 123 .5 12 3.5 - 16 3.5 16 3.5 20 3.5 20 3.5 - 24 3.5 24 3.5 - 28 3.5 > 28 3.5
Total development expenditure 2010/11 Total development expenditure
2010/11
A Day Boarding School = £244,900 Nu m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 142,822 Median = £ 141,627 Expenditure £000
A Day Boarding School
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Percentage of expenditure spent on salaries
The chart below indicates the percentage of the total development expenditure in 2011 that was spent on salaries at A Day Boarding School and in peer schools.
Expenditure type
The table provides information on areas of development expenditure the year 10/11 for A Day Boarding School and your peer group schools.
Key Indicator Units A Day Boarding
School Median Mean
Total expenditure 2011 £ £244,900 £141,627 £142,822 Salaries percentage % 73.5 66.4 65.0 Salaries £ £180,000 £86,000 £92,022 Database £ £1,900 £4,500 £5,664 Marketing £ £10,000 £6,114 £9,919 Communications £ £0 £4,000 £6,227 Events £ £12,000 £7,500 £13,578 Donor Meetings £ £0 £1,500 £2,575 Overseas £ £30,000 £0 £4,467 Administration £ £11,000 £2,000 £3,693 Other £ £0 £0 £4,677 1 0 1 1 4 10 4 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 1 2.5 12 .5 - 25 25 37.5 37 .5 - 50 50 62.5 62 .5 - 75 75 87.5 87 .5 - 1 00 Salaries percentage Salaries percentage
A Day Boarding School = 73.5 %
N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 65.0% Median = 66.4% Salaries percentage
A Day Boarding School
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Giving
Who gives?
This section examines who gives and the kinds of fundraising focuses donors give to. In the donor connections section we asked schools to estimate, for the academic year 2011, who had given donations i.e. what the donor’s connection with the school had been. We found that the donor varied by type of school, with alumni usually giving the most, but parents appeared to donate more commonly in girls’ schools and in the maintained sector. We then asked what fundraising
focus was donated towards i.e. bursaries, capital, other restricted or unrestricted. Both questions asked for percentage estimation answers in respect of 2011 giving.
The survey also asked how much was raised and categorised funds raised by type of giving. We provide charts below for schools to show this information.
Donor connections and nature of initiatives supported
The graphs below show the nature of the donor’s connection with A Day Boarding School and peer group schools in 2011.
The pie charts below consider the fundraising focus given to by donors, again as an estimated percentage for the year 2011. Note that this section looks at actual giving, whereas the earlier fundraising focus section looked at team time.
5% 46% 30% 2% 12% 5%
Donor connections 2011
Governor Gift Alumni Gift Parents Gift Staff Gift Trusts Gift Other Gift Peer Group 5% 45% 40% 5% 5% 0%Donor connections 2011
Governor Gift Alumni Gift Parents Gift Staff Gift Trusts Gift Other Gift A Day Boarding School24%
19% 27%
9% 21%
Fundraising focus given to in 2011
Bursary Endowment Bursary Restricted Capital Other Restricted Unrestricted Peer Group 70% 0% 20% 0% 10%
Fundraising focus given to in 2011
Bursary Endowment Bursary Restricted Capital Other Restricted Unrestricted A Day Boarding School
A Day Boarding School
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How much is given and to what?
This graphs below show how much money was raised in 2011 and in 2010 in A Day Boarding School and in your peer schools. 6 2 3 4 2 0 1 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 00 10 0 - 2 00 20 0 - 3 00 30 0 - 4 00 40 0 - 500 50 0 - 6 00 60 0 - 7 00 > 70 0 Total giving 2011 Total giving 2011 A Day Boarding School = £305,000 N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 528,472 Median = £ 333,000 Total giving £000 10 3 0 1 2 2 1 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 1 00 10 0 - 200 20 0 - 300 30 0 - 400 40 0 500 50 0 - 600 60 0 - 700 > 70 0 Total giving 2010 Total giving 2010
A Day Boarding School = £620,000 Nu m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 549,459 Median = £ 186,629 Total giving £000
A Day Boarding School
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The pie charts below then indicate, for A Day Boarding School and for the peer group, the nature of giving in 2011.The next two pie charts show this same information for 2010.
16% 12% 53% 10% 9%
Split of giving 2011
Trusts Legacies Major Gift Annual Fund Other Peer Group 0% 28% 66% 6% 0%Split of giving 2011
Trusts Legacies Major Gift Annual Fund OtherA Day Boarding School
13% 19% 52% 7% 9%
Split of giving 2010
Trusts Legacies Major Gift Annual Fund Other Peer Group 0% 32% 65% 3%0%Split of giving 2010
Trusts Legacies Major Gift Annual Fund Other A Day Boarding SchoolA Day Boarding School
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Fundraising profits
Fundraising profits can be seen as a very emotive subject in a school. On the one hand Governors and Senior Management may have unrealistic expectations based on the age of the development office or the stage of fundraising activity or a campaign the
development office is at, when actually little or no profit should reasonably be expected at certain stages. On the other hand development teams are expected to generate a profit as part of their raison-d’etre and it is only reasonable that as such they should be held to account. Nevertheless the information below should be read with a significant degree of caution applied. As profits fluctuate to such a degree in the
development sector it is dangerous to consider any
one year in isolation. For this reason we have not considered 2011’s profit alone and have instead provided information below on the average profit across 2010 and 2011 combined. This is shown in the first graph.
However, finding out that a small school is achieving a lower profit than a larger school is not necessarily very helpful. We have developed the concept of profit per pupil i.e. dividing the actual profit figure by the number of pupils in the school. This allows a degree of
comparability across schools of different sizes to assess relative performance. Per pupil profit information is shown in the second graph below.
Profits averaged across 2010 and 2011
The graph below shows the average profits achieved by A Day Boarding School and its peer schools over 2010 and 2011.
Profits per pupil averaged across 2010 and 2011
The graph below shows the average profit per pupil achieved by A Day Boarding School and its peer schools over 2010 and 2011 1 6 4 2 2 0 2 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 150 -50 50 50 50 150 15 0 - 250 25 0 350 35 0 - 450 45 0 - 550 > 55 0 Average profit 2010/2011 Average profit 2010/2011
A Day Boarding School = £231,050 N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 432,003 Median = £ 217,000 Profit £000 3 5 3 1 1 1 2 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 111 9 9 1 29 12 9 - 249 24 9 - 369 36 9 489 48 9 - 609 60 9 - 729 > 72 9
Average profit per pupil 2010/2011
Average profit per pupil 2010/2011 A Day Boarding School = £231
N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = £ 574 Median = £ 231 Profit £
A Day Boarding School
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Return on Investment
Return on investment is a phrase used widely in the development community and is clearly very important. It is usually defined as fundraised income divided by fundraised costs or to put it another way round how much income has been raised for every £ of costs (or investment). However, partly because the ratio is simple it is also very dangerous as too much can be read into it, particularly if the time period considered is too short. So, for example money can be spent in years 1 and 2 of a capital campaign when income is only expected to be raised in year 3. Furthermore, legacy
development will have a very long time period for payback. However, since the ratio is an important one the average return on investment for A Day Boarding School and your peer schools averaged over the years 2010 and 2011 is shown below. The lower returns (shown in red) represent losses over the 2-year period. We do however stress that great caution should be exercised in reading too much into these numbers alone.
0 5 10 15 20 25 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Return on Investment
Return on Investment Break-even
A Day Boarding School
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The fundraising database
Our research indicated significant differences between otherwise similar schools in relation to the quality of information on the fundraising database. Some schools had many years’ worth of student and alumni records, with not just up to date emails etc. but
information on school years, interests, professions and event attendance. Other schools had very little. Our survey asked schools to rate the quality of the information on their database and we provided guide criteria to be used but this question was not answered well and will be explored more in later surveys. However, some areas were answered well and this section therefore covers;
1) The total number of records held 2) The split of the above records by type
3) The total number of records held as a multiple of the total number of pupils in the school. This gives a better feel for a comparison between schools of different sizes
4) The name of the database being used
5) Whether wealth checkers have been used and whether this service was helpful
6) The most recent time at which data cleansing took place
Records on the database
This section examines the total number of records held on school databases and the split of this total number into the categories of alumni, parents and former parents. Schools also hold details for other organisations and connections on their databases, but as these are so disparate we have excluded them from analysis. The graph below indicates the total number of records held on your database compared with those at peer schools. Please note our comments in the introduction of this section which refer to the quality of records.
5 4 2 6 4 2 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 40 00 62 42 62 42 84 84 84 84 10 726 10 726 1 2968 12 96 8 1 52 10 15 210 1 7452 17 452 1 9694 19 694 2 1946
Total number of database records
Total number of database records A Day Boarding School = 15,000 N u m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 11,438 Median = 12,298 Records
A Day Boarding School
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Database records as multiple of pupil numbers
The potential number of database records will of course vary with the size and age of the school, such that larger schools are more likely to have larger numbers of database records than smaller schools as they will inevitably have a larger potential contact market. In order to establish a comparable approach to the number of records on the database the graph below compares the number of database records with the total number of pupils currently at the school and then expresses the number of records as a multiple of the pupil numbers. So a school with 5000 records and 1000 pupils would have a multiple of 5 in the graph below (i.e. 5 years’ worth of pupil roll). This allows schools to see whether they have more or less comparable database records than their peers after adjusting for school size.
Split of data records
The pie charts below then show the percentage of contacts at A Day Boarding School and its peer schools who are alumni, parents and former parents. Note as before that we have excluded Trusts etc. as the way these are recorded is very variable. 1 2 1 8 4 2 2 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 2 .7 2.7 5.4 5.4 8 8 - 1 0.7 10 .7 - 13. 4 13 .4 - 16 .1 16 .1 - 18 .8 18 .8 - 21 .5
Database records as a multiple of pupil numbers
Database records as a multiple of pupil numbers A Day Boarding School = 15
Nu m b er o f Sch o o ls Mean = 12.4 Median = 11.1 Records 78% 5% 17%
Split of database records
Alumni Parents Former Parents Peer Group 80% 7% 13%
Split of database records
Alumni Parents Former Parents
A Day Boarding School
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Wealth checking
Some schools employ external wealth checkers to help determine which of their alumni is most targetable for major gifts. The pie charts below indicate whether or not peer schools have done this and, if they did so, to what extent it was considered to have been a useful exercise on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 being very useful and 1 being of no use).
Name of database
The pie charts below show which database A Day Boarding School and peer group schools are using and the time at which these schools last carried out data cleansing,
11% 12% 35% 12% 15% 15%
Which database?
InTouch IRIS Donor Strategy Raiser's Edge WCBS PASS WebAlumnus Other A Day Boarding School = Raiser's Edge0% 36% 16% 28% 12% 4% 4%
When data cleansing last took place
Database has just been set up
Cleansing is constant More than 3 years ago
1-3 years ago Less than 1 year ago Less than 6 months ago
Never A Day Boarding School = Less than 6 months ago 32%
16% 4% 16%
32%
Use of wealth checkers
Never used More than 3 years ago
2 to 3 years ago 1 to 2 years ago Less than 1 year ago/current A Day Boarding School = Never used
0% 19%
50% 19%
12%
Usefulness of wealth checkers
1 2 3 4 5
A Day Boarding School
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Communications
Development departments communicate with their alumni, parents, contacts and donors in a variety of ways. This section explores a number of the ways in which contacts are communicated with. The section covers websites, publications and the use of consultants. Our questionnaire also asked for
information on events held but the quality of the data provided was not good enough to be used in this report. The area of events will be examined more in later surveys.
Website
The survey asked whether development had its own section on the school website or whether development has its own website which sits separately from the school. The data for the peer group is shown below.
Use of consultants
Development offices often use consultants. The chart below indicates whether or not your school and the peer group have used external consultants during their establishment.
85%
15%
Separate section of school website?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School = Yes
25% 75%
Dedicated development website?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School =
88%
12%
Use of consultants?
Yes No
A Day Boarding School
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The table below indicates, for those schools which have used consultants, which areas consultants were asked toadvise on.
Consultancy areas A Day Boarding
School Peers (% Yes)
Feasibility Study No 27 Telephone Campaign No 55 Capital Campaign No 18 Development Strategy No 36 Wealth Checkers No 55 Other No 23
Publications
Development offices are involved in the preparation of a variety of publications. Some relate more to the school and its marketing, whilst others are specifically focussed on development. The first table below indicates which publications are produced by the development office of A Day Boarding School and compares this with the percentage of
publications which are produced by the development teams in peer schools. The second table then indicates, only for those schools which produce each publication, the percentage of peer schools which write, design and then print each publication internally, as opposed to using external resources. The information below allows schools to get a feel as to the comparative publication workload across peer group development offices.
Publication types A Day Boarding
School Peers (% Yes)
Devt Newsletter Yes 56
Annual Review No 44
School Magazine Yes 72
Event Invites Yes 96
Fundraising Letters Yes 96
Legacy leaflets Yes 88
A Day Boarding School
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A Day Boarding School Peer Group
Written Internally Designed Internally Printed Internally Written Internally Designed Internally Printed Internally Publication type % % %
Development Newsletter Yes Yes No 100 59 19
Annual Review Blank Blank Blank 100 36 9
School Magazine Yes No No 100 30 0
Events Invites Yes Yes Yes 100 73 58
Fundraising Letters Yes Yes Yes 96 64 40
Legacy Leaflets Yes No No 100 13 4
