A useful giving program scorecard separates interest, participation, contributions, and funds received. Those stages tell you where the program is working and where a change is needed.
Review the same definitions each month. If one report counts people and another counts linked accounts, reconcile the difference before comparing them.
Start with these measures
| Measure | Working definition | What it helps answer |
|---|---|---|
| Completed enrollments | Unique people who completed the required setup during the period | Are interested supporters getting started? |
| Active contributors | Unique people with at least one successfully collected contribution during the period | Are enrollments becoming participation? |
| Gross collected contributions | Successfully collected funds before reported deductions | What was collected? |
| Net funds received | Funds paid to the organization after the deductions reflected in those payouts | What cash reached the organization? |
| Funding by source | Supporter, Impact Partner, and employer amounts reported separately | Where does support come from? |
| Contribution retention | Share of a defined earlier contributor group that also contributed in the review period | Is that group continuing? |
| Support workload | Program-related requests and staff time during the period | What does operating the program require? |
Gross collections and net payouts may relate to different periods because of settlement timing. Reconcile dates and adjustments before treating their difference as fees.
Use cohort-based calculations
For an enrollment conversion rate, choose a defined group of attributable visitors and a conversion window. Divide completed enrollments from that group by the eligible visitors in that same group. Avoid combining all historical enrollments with this month’s traffic.
For a simple month-to-month contribution retention measure, start with the people who contributed in the prior month. Count how many of those same people contributed in the current month, then divide by the prior-month group size.
For example, if 80 people contributed last month and 60 of those same people contributed this month, the measure is 75%. New contributors are reported separately. This is a contribution-activity measure; it does not necessarily mean everyone else canceled. Some may have a different giving schedule or no qualifying activity.
Copy this monthly review template
Period: ______
Program owner: ______
New completed enrollments: ______
Active contributors: ______
Gross collected contributions: $______
Net funds received: $______
Impact Partner funding received: $______
Employer funding received: $______
Defined cohort retention: ______%
Unresolved exceptions: ______
Staff time spent: ______
Main finding: ______
One change to test next period: ______
Impact Partner and employer amounts are breakdowns of the appropriate totals, not amounts to add again if they are already included.
Turn the numbers into a decision
For referral-led programs, use the ambassador program playbook to define attribution before comparing outreach performance.
If visits are high but enrollment is low, review the invitation and setup experience. If enrollment is healthy but collected contributions are low, investigate timing, eligibility, configuration, and payment issues before increasing promotion.
If gross contributions grow while net funds or staff capacity do not, examine costs and operational effort. Assess changes in existing giving before describing the new program’s receipts as entirely additional revenue.
For a CauseFi. program, agree on these definitions with your team and map them to the reporting available in your configuration. A compact, consistent scorecard is more useful than a large dashboard nobody can reconcile.
When sharing results beyond the team, use the supporter-facing impact update template to translate verified activity into a clear account of what changed, what remains unfinished, and what happens next.
Next step: Compare actual results with your giving revenue worksheet and adjust the next pilot period.