The Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) is a philanthropic organization sanctioned by the U.S. government to represent the interests of veterans who are disabled. To generate donations, the PVA sends out greeting cards and mailing address labels periodically with its requests for donations. To increase its efficiency, the organization would like to be able to model the amount of donations based on past giving and demographic variables of donors. The data set ch21_MCSP_pva contains data on 3648 donors who gave to a recent solicitation. There are 26 predictor variables and 1 response variable. The response variable (GIFTAMNT) is the amount of money contributed by the donor to the last solicitation. Find a model from the 26 predictor variables using any model selection procedure you like to predict this amount. The variables include:

Variables Based on the Donor’s Zip Code

MALEVET (% male veterans)
VIETVETS (% Vietnam veterans)
WWIIVETS (% WWII veterans)
LOCALGOV (% employed by local government)
STATEGOV (% employed by state government)
FEDGOV (% employed by federal government)

Variables Specific to the Individual Donor
CARDPROM (number of card promotions received lifetime)
MAXADATE (date of most recent promotion received in YYMM year month format)
NUMPROM (number of promotions received lifetime)
CARDPRM12 (number of card promotions received in last 12 months)
NUMPRM12 (number of promotions received in last 12 months)
NGIFTALL (number of gifts given lifetime to date)
CARDGIFT (number of gifts to card promotions given lifetime to date)
MINRAMNT (amount of smallest gift to date in $)
MINRDATE (date associated with the smallest gift to date—YYMM format)
MAXRAMNT (amount of largest gift to date in $)
MAXRDATE (date associated with the largest gift to date—YYMM format)
LASTGIFT (amount of most recent gift in $)
AVGGIFT (average amount of gifts to date in $)
CONTROLN (control number—unique record identifier)
HPHONE_D (indicator variable for presence of a published home phone
number: 1 = Yes; 0 = No)
CLUSTER2 (classic cluster code—nominal field)
CHILDREN (number of children living at home)

Response Variable

GIFTAMNT (response variable—amount of last gift in $) Be sure to include exploratory data analysis, and evaluate the relationship among these variables using graphical and correlation analysis to guide you in building your regression models. Write a report summarizing your analysis.