5 days ago2 min read

Tracking ≠ Measuring

I talk about tracking all the time. Tracking conversions, tracking engagement, tracking performance, etc. Often—let’s be honest, very often—I’ll use “tracking” interchangeably with “measuring”.

But I’ve been getting it wrong. I’m sorry.

They are very, very different and the more effectively we can distinguish them, the better we’ll all be at running fundraising campaigns and programs that grow, and last.

Here’s the difference:

We measure what we know. A thing that exists or can be observed, like the size of something, the date and the time it happened, and where you saw it happen.
We track what we think exists but have yet to find. It might exist but we only have clues, like another person’s findings or an anecdote worth testing.

So when you’ve heard me say “track your conversions,” or “tracking visitor behaviour,” that’s me getting it wrong because those are actually things we measure, not track. Mea culpa.

Track the footprints, measure the animal.

This became crystal clear for me in the post “The Craft of Complexity Leadership” by Julian Norris, PhD, at Wolf Willow. In the context of complexity leadership techniques, he describes tracking like this:

Tracking: trackers follow that which they cannot yet see. They bring a quality of disciplined observation to signs and faint signals which they carefully analyze. They form and test hypotheses about their quarry’s behaviour or movements. They deduce where it might go next. […]

He goes into more detail, and I strongly recommend reading his full post and subscribing to the Substack if this sounds up your alley.

What does this have to do with fundraising?

If you’re only counting gifts, clicks, leads or the like, you’re only measuring. And you should be doing that of course, but do it knowing you’re only looking backward. Ask yourself what’s still missing, and make a plan for how you might find it and what signals will tell you you’re on the right track.