Planning: Fund cohorts & lifetime value
Who gives to a fund, how often, and what is a fund worth over time?
Households are grouped into cohorts using RFM — how Recently they gave, how Frequently, and how much Monetary value. No names, only cohorts and counts.
- Recency
- How long since the last gift. Recent givers respond to appeals; long-lapsed ones rarely do.
- Frequency
- How many separate gifts in the window. Frequency separates habitual givers from one-time responders.
- Monetary
- Total given in the window.
- Cohort tiers
- Combinations of the three, in plain terms: committed, steady, occasional, new, at-risk and lapsed.
- Fund lifetime value
- Average total a household in each cohort gives to the fund across its lifetime — useful for judging which cohorts actually sustain a fund.
Example
A building fund draws 60% of its money from the committed cohort and almost nothing from new households. Appeals for it should start with existing committed givers; a broad all-church ask will under-perform.
Cohorts sit on the same page as Fund health, below the concentration and flow sections.
Where to click: Planning → Fund analysis