The second-best time to plant a tree

You've probably heard this one before:

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The second-best time to plant a tree is today.

Here's the thing:

It would probably help you a lot to have one year, or two years, or even five years of historical data on trends showing the connections between observable constituent behavior, your own actions, and the actions that you want your constituents to take.

• How many events does a person attend before they decide to become a paying member?

• For a donor who's been giving at a certain level, what's the right ask amount to help them move up to a higher level?

• When a member is coming up for renewal, how many reminder emails will get them to renew, and how many will just annoy them?

Whatever your specific goals are, what are the trends that, if your knew them, would help you get there?

If you have that information, it's incredibly useful. Presumably you would have started collecting it sometime ago.

That would have been the best time to start.

Would you like to guess when is the second-best time to start?

All the best,
A.