Face-to-face fundraising assessment. Baseline your program in 2–4 weeks.
We measure cohort retention, unit economics, and vendor performance. You leave with an executable fix plan — prioritized actions, owners, and timelines. No guessing.
30 minutes · No obligation · Custom to your program
The cost of not knowing
The average nonprofit donor retention rate is 42.9% (AFP FEP Q4 2024). Face-to-face programs that do not actively manage retention lose 30–50% of new sustainers within six months. At $275–$300 per acquired donor, every churned sustainer represents hundreds of dollars in unrecovered acquisition cost.
A program acquiring 5,000 sustainers annually with 45% first-year attrition wastes roughly $675,000 per year in acquisition spend that never pays back. Most of that loss is preventable.
Most programs try random changes — tightening scripts, switching vendors, adding training — and hope for improvement. That is the core problem with how face-to-face is managed. The assessment is the starting point for any effort to fix a canvass program because diagnostics force a better sequence: measure what is actually happening, prioritize by financial impact, execute in the right order. That is how you stabilize fast. For the full diagnostic framework, see our face-to-face fundraising audit methodology.
Who this is for
- You have volume but net revenue is weak.
- Retention is flat or falling and you cannot explain why.
- Leadership does not trust the reporting.
- Vendor performance is hard to verify.
- Payment failure feels like a constant tax on your file.
- You need board-ready data to justify investment or restructuring.
How the assessment works
Four phases, 2–4 weeks, about 3 hours of your team's time.
Discovery
We scope your program structure, data access, and priority questions. You tell us what keeps you up at night. We define the analysis plan.
Data & Analysis
Your team exports the data — cohort retention, payment health, early churn patterns, QA data, and vendor performance. We tell you exactly what we need. We do the analysis.
F2F Health Score
We score your program across 7 operational dimensions using our F2F Health Score framework. Each area gets a rating, a financial impact estimate, and a fix priority.
Readout & Roadmap
You receive the full diagnostic report, an executive summary for board presentation, and a prioritized fix plan with owners and timelines.
Free scoping call. We will tell you if an assessment is the right starting point.
The F2F Health Score
Every program is scored across seven operational dimensions. Each dimension gets a rating, a financial impact estimate, and a fix priority. The score makes abstract problems concrete and gives your team a shared language for what needs to change.
Cohort Retention
Survival rates by acquisition model, team, vendor, and vintage. The single most important metric in F2F.
Early Churn
Cancellation patterns in the first 30–90 days. Where donors are lost before they ever become valuable.
Payment Health
Decline rates, recovery workflows, and involuntary churn. The silent killer of sustainer files.
QA & Coaching
Whether quality assurance changes behavior or just documents it. Coaching cadence, feedback loops, escalation paths.
Expectation Setting
What donors are told at the point of sign-up versus what actually happens. Verification steps, welcome flows, first-touch timing.
Vendor Alignment
Contract incentives, scorecard structures, audit rights, and enforcement mechanisms. Whether your vendor is rewarded for what you actually need.
Reporting & Visibility
Dashboard accuracy, metric definitions, and whether leadership can see what is actually happening in real time.
What you get
- F2F Health Score report — your program rated across all 7 dimensions with financial impact estimates for each.
- Prioritized fix plan — sequenced actions with owners, timelines, and expected impact. Not a list of problems. A roadmap.
- Executive summary — board-ready presentation of findings, cost of inaction, and recommended investment.
- Draft standards and QA rubric — if missing, we build the baseline your program needs to enforce quality.
- Measurement plan — retention, payment health, and LTV tracking framework so you can see progress after implementation.
If the assessment reveals issues that extend beyond the canvass program itself — development operations, CRM architecture, team structure, or cross-channel reporting — our parent practice offers a full nonprofit fundraising operations audit that evaluates the broader infrastructure.
Where this methodology was built
The assessment framework comes from the same retention-first operating system that scaled Greenpeace USA's canvass program to 400 staff across 17 offices. Under Paul's direct management, the in-house program delivered 2.5:1 ROI. After he left, the system he built continued to compound — by 2023 it was delivering 55% ROI per cohort at year five, and the organization's income had doubled in seven years.
The same principles — measure first, fix the mechanism, enforce standards — apply whether you run 5 canvassers or 500. The assessment is the starting point, and the solution is always retention-first governance.
Investment
Assessments start at $7,500. Scope depends on program complexity, number of vendors, and data access.
Our clients typically identify 5–10x the assessment cost in recoverable value from preventable attrition, payment failure, and vendor misalignment. A program losing $675K annually in preventable churn does not have a budget problem. It has a diagnostic problem.
The assessment includes an executive summary framed as a program investment with projected ROI — built for the board conversation you will need to have.
Who runs your assessment
Paul Moriarty
Founder
20 years in F2F fundraising. Built the largest in-house canvass program in the U.S. (400 staff, 17 offices, $11M budget). Former VP-level at Greenpeace USA managing $50M+ in development operations. Has been inside this market from every angle: canvasser, field manager, national director, vendor, face-to-face fundraising consultant.
Full bio →
Devlin O'Neill
Senior Strategy Advisor
Business development and strategy for The Canvass. Devlin brings a sharp eye for competitive positioning and client relationship management across the F2F landscape.
Full bio →Frequently Asked Questions
Schedule your assessment
Tell us about your program. We will respond within one business day with a recommended scope, timeline, and next steps.
What to expect:
- Free 30-minute scoping call
- We will tell you if an assessment is the right starting point
- No obligation, no pitch deck, no pressure
Prefer email? paul@lfgandme.com
Go deeper
- F2F Retention Guide — The full framework for diagnosing and fixing sustainer attrition.
- The Definitive Guide to Face-to-Face Fundraising — Data, benchmarks, and the retention-first operating model.
- Canvass Vendor Scorecard — How to evaluate your vendor's actual performance.
- In-House vs. Vendor — A data-driven comparison of program structures.
- Canvass ROI Calculator — Model the true ROI of your F2F investment.
- Calculate your true CPA →
- Face-to-Face ROI and LTV
Stop buying churn. Start with the diagnostic.
If you want face-to-face fundraising that compounds, you need to know what is actually happening first. The assessment gives you that baseline — and a plan to fix it.