Middle Segment Trends Dashboard
This dashboard-format analytic gives you a year-over-year view of the health of your Middle donor segment, drawn from analysis QX205.
How to use the Middle Segment Trends Dashboard
This is a dashboard-format analytic that gives you a year-over-year picture of the health of your Middle donor segment. It is built on the data from analysis QX205 (Middle Segment Trends), which produces one row per fiscal year covering the most recent full fiscal year and the seven before it. Instead of a single flat table, the workbook presents that data across several visualization tabs so you can read the trend at a glance.
The tabs each focus on a different dimension of Middle segment health. Size and Revenue tracks the number of Middle donors and the revenue they generate, with year-over-year change. Prior-Year Cohort Flow shows where last year's Middle donors went, whether they were retained, promoted, downgraded, or lapsed, and where this year's Middle donors came from, which lets you see the segment as a living cohort rather than a static count. Distribution shows per-donor annual giving and per-gift transaction size, using both averages and medians so a handful of large gifts does not distort the picture. Retention shows the percentage staying in the segment, staying or being promoted, and staying overall.
These metrics matter because the Middle is where most upgrade and attrition activity happens. Watching whether the Middle is being fed by promotions from the Bottom or drained by lapse tells you whether your pipeline is healthy, and the distribution measures tell you whether typical Middle giving is drifting up or down over time.
You should refresh and review this at the close of each fiscal year and again at mid-year, and it is most useful in the hands of your development director and the manager who owns mid-level or annual giving. Use the cohort flow view to build targeted upgrade and win-back lists, and use the distribution trend to decide whether your segment thresholds still make sense.
To measure impact, track Middle donor count and revenue growth year over year, improvement in the in-segment and promoted retention rates, and a healthy ratio of inflows to outflows in the cohort view.
Analytic ID: QX255
Analytic Name: Middle Segment Trends Dashboard
Focus: 0.1: Getting Started; 3.3: Dashboards; 2.3: Within-Segment Growth; 1.1: Year-over-Year Donation Trends
Type: Dashboard Style
Segments: Middle | Scope: Segment
Description: This dashboard style analytic includes visualizations for data from Analytic QX205.
Key Question: What is going on with my Middle Segment Donors over time?
Action: Use the visualizations in these dashboards to get a detailed understanding of what is happening in your Middle Segment. These visualizations are based on Analytic QX205.