A while ago, I was invited to a small meeting with a handful of participants who represented large nonprofit organizations and leading fundraising agencies. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the meaning of return on investment for multichannel fundraising efforts.

I thought it was going to be a short meeting.

But eight hours later it became apparent that the direct response fundraising professionals gathered at the table did not have an accepted definition of what return on investment meant—let alone an agreed upon methodology to measure it.

This is a big problem. As fundraising efforts expand across channels—and the continuing tough economic times demand innovation—we must have an agreed upon way measure of return on investment in order to be able to measure the success of new initiatives and to accurately benchmark across organizations.

That meeting and the quandary it presented led to the development of our latest white paper, Measuring Your Return on Investment in Multichannel Fundraising Campaigns.

It is also the driving force behind a groundbreaking new initiative at Mal Warwick Donordigital—to move beyond benchmarks that only compare gross revenue and number of gifts and develop a true benchmark of multichannel return on investment for direct response fundraising efforts. If you’d like to be a part of this exciting endeavor, please leave comment below, or contact me at peter@malwarwick.com.

Peter Schoewe is a Vice President at Mal Warwick Donordigital, providing direct response fundraising, advocacy and marketing services for nonprofits nationwide.