The situation
The charity had everything it needed to retain donors except the ability to see them. Years of giving history sat in the CRM, GA4 was installed but barely configured, and reporting was a monthly export that arrived too late to change anything. The team knew that acquiring a new donor cost far more than keeping an existing one, but they had no reliable way to spot a supporter drifting towards lapse.
What we did
- A measurement layer that holds up. We rebuilt GA4 and Google Tag Manager around how people actually give, added server-side tracking for accuracy as cookies disappear, and made sure consent was respected throughout.
- Segmentation that means something. We modelled supporters by recency, frequency and monetary value, and estimated lifetime value, so the team could tell a one-off emergency donor from a committed regular giver.
- Early warning, not hindsight. We built a Looker Studio dashboard that surfaced at-risk supporters while there was still time to reach them, refreshed automatically and readable by non-analysts.
- Handover, not lock-in. Everything was built in the charity’s own accounts and documented, so the team could run it without us.
The outcome
The charity moved from reporting on the past to acting on the present — focusing stewardship on the supporters most likely to give again, and catching at-risk donors before they lapsed. Verified figures will be published here once confirmed.
