Welcome to Lesson 10.7! Having a wealth of data is only useful if you can easily understand and act upon it. To help you monitor the financial health of your nonprofit at a glance, FastFund Raising features a dynamic, real-time Dashboard.
The Fund Raising Financial Data Dashboard is a visual representation of your data that analyzes and displays key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. In this lesson, we will explore the different dashboard elements and learn how to customize these visualizations to help you make more informed management decisions.
1. Core Financial Metrics
At the top of the dashboard, FastFund provides immediate numerical snapshots of your current fundraising progress. These dynamic data points update automatically as transactions are entered into the system.
The primary metric boxes include:
- Donations This Year & Donations This Month: Displays the total amount raised, the total number of donations, the average donation amount, and the number of brand new donors acquired.
- InKinds This Year: Summarizes the total value, number of contributions, and average amount of non-cash gifts.
- Pledge Summary: Displays the total unpaid pledge balance across all of your open pledge accounts as of the current system date.
Tip: Inside each dashboard element, you can hover over the Question Mark icon for a hint explaining what the data represents, or click the Directional icon to drill down directly into the associated report or control register.
2. Visualizing Revenue with Charts and Graphs
To help you identify trends and successful initiatives, the dashboard translates your raw data into visual charts:
- Appeals and Gifts Pie Charts: These charts provide a year-to-date summary of donations received for each active Appeal and Gift. If you have more than ten active categories during the year, the pie chart will highlight the top ten and conveniently group all remaining categories into a single slice labeled “Other”.
- Donations by Month Line Graph: This graph offers a visual curve of your revenue across the year. You can hover your mouse pointer over the dot on each month’s vertical axis to see the exact total amount raised for that month. Clicking the link in the upper right corner of this graph will take you directly to the Multi-Year Trend Analysis report.
3. Anticipating Future Activity
The dashboard doesn’t just look at the past; it also helps you manage your pending workload and anticipate upcoming revenue.
- Upcoming Recurring Transactions: This window displays a list of all automated, recurring transactions that are scheduled to post in the coming days. It lists the transaction date, type, and the associated constituent, allowing you to easily forecast expected cash flow.
- Unposted Transactions: This window alerts you to any imported batch transactions (such as daily website donations) or unposted journal entries that are sitting in a staging area waiting for your team to review and post them.
4. Customizing Your Dashboard Preferences
Because every organization evaluates data differently, FastFund allows each user to customize how their dashboard displays information. You can adjust these settings by navigating to your My Account > Preferences area.
- Fund Raising YTD Basis: By default, the dashboard calculates your year-to-date metrics based on your Fiscal Year. However, since many donors track their giving by the calendar year, you can change this preference to display data based on the Calendar Year.
- Appeal/Gift Order: You can dictate how the pie charts organize their slices. You can sort the chart by Value (which assigns the largest dollar amounts first in descending order) or alphabetically by Name.
- Detailed Pie Chart Legend: By default, the legends next to your pie charts display the category names alongside their exact dollar amounts and percentages. If you prefer a cleaner look, you can uncheck the “Detailed Pie Chart Legend” box so that the legend only displays the category names.