Peak and DNX Help Nonprofits Drive Record-Breaking Donor Retention with AWS

With resource constraints, limited access to expertise, and high costs of keeping pace with technology, it can be challenging for charities to gain meaningful insights into their fundraising programs. For most nonprofits, the process to determine the success of a campaign and to pinpoint potential donors involves hours of manual data entry. This task can be so time-intensive, that using analytics to drive decision-making might only occur once a year. Without timely insights, charities can’t proactively adapt their fundraising programs, which reduces the likelihood that they will see a return on their investment (ROI). Recognizing these challenges, Peak wanted to build a system on Amazon Web Services (AWS) that would help charities increase donor retention, identify promising donors, boost recurrent giving, and use their fundraising budgets more efficiently.

To start, Peak searched for a solution that would bring together and analyze data in near-real time, automating processes that were previously holding charities back. The team explored options that could grow with the customer, were easy to use, visualized data, and offered low-effort reporting. Peak landed on Amazon QuickSight, a solution that unifies business intelligence at hyperscale. “We had been measuring a snapshot of a donor at a given point in time, but with this solution, we could provide charities with an understanding of donors over any period,” said Paul Twomey, general manager at Peak Fundraising System. “Being able to map that over time helps charities better understand the return they are getting on their efforts, which can greatly improve their fundraising programs.”

To make this vision a reality, AWS connected Peak with DNX Solutions, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner that specializes in cloud-driven transformation. DNX worked with Peak to understand its current and future goals, creating a plan using AWS solutions to automate what nonprofits had been doing manually. DNX also considered factors such as security and regional growth. “Our approach involves both technical capability and business acumen,” said Kelly Griffin, chief technology officer at DNX. “In addition to finding the right design and timelines for Peak, we helped the team communicate the business value that got stakeholder buy-in.”

Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store data at virtually any scale, Amazon Athena for flexible querying, and Amazon QuickSight, to visualize the data in a dashboard interface, Peak can provide its customers with a more comprehensive snapshot of their donors. “The system helps charities take a forecast approach to fundraising efforts instead of learning what went wrong in hindsight, which helps managers improve their programs much more effectively,” said Twomey. “And it’s a business-friendly tool that allows people to collaborate without needing to think about it.” With guidance from DNX, Peak built a system that provides immediate insight into donors and fundraising performance, bringing rapid transparency to nonprofits, saving them time and increasing the success of their efforts. The system automatically imports data from customer relationship management platforms in near-real time so nonprofits can drill down on individual fundraisers. With simplified reporting, they can also visualize that data to determine which donors to further invest in. Having these insights ready to go allows nonprofits to shape their campaigns in midstream.

As a partner that caters to the unique needs of small- and medium-sized businesses, DNX has helped Peak take advantage of advanced, enterprise-grade technology. At the same time, working with DNX has led to more robust security and access to reliable support. “AWS and DNX have helped us to measure what matters so that our customers can manage their campaigns proactively in real time, which is absolutely critical for success,” Twomey said.