Tag Archives | Donor Management Software

Nonprofit Tech Spotlight #5

By on June 8, 2012 in About, Awareness, Donor Tools, Good Words, Leadership, Ministry, Nonprofit Tech Spotlight, Nonprofits

It’s the 5th installment of highlighting awesome nonprofits, their leaders, and their use of technology. Today, we get to hear from Elana Ford, Founder and Executive Director at Starting Blocks (Facebook), an organization that is focused on preparing students for life. Beyond reading this highlight, be sure to check out her story. Her quest to help students is a great one… enjoy!

Self – Tweet

Laid back Corporate Warrior in Recovery seeks fellow intellectually curious people for conversation and toddler play dates.

Organization – Tweet

Starting Blocks teaches teens to get hired for jobs and internships that further their career goals.  Be Prepared, Connected and Confident!

Best Book Ever

Elie Wiesel. Night.  (Sorry, not for the lighthearted)

Favorite Mobile App

Does Fruit Ninja Count?  No, seriously…Pandora is my answer.  Now that I’m a mom, I have no time to make playlists or even hear new music.  My perfectly culled Pandora stations can be accessed from anywhere and totally satisfy my music related cravings.

Biggest Work-Related Challenge

Not enough hours in the day.  We are a 100% volunteer-run organization.  Even I don’t expect a stipend this year and now that my day job is Stay at Home Mama, I have to pay to put Baby Girl in day care every time I want to work on Starting Blocks.  I have a million ideas I want to pursue and I am trying to learn how to focus on the actions that will have the most bang and not take on too much.

Life Lesson

I have two and because I have survived a wild animal attack and had a lot of time to think about life lessons, I’m giving myself permission to share them both.  1) Prioritize spending quality time with the people who are precious to you.  Spend time just being together and don’t schedule yourself so tightly that you can’t build meaningful relationships with the people around you.  2) Take time every day to be thankful for the good things in your life.  Don’t take even the smallest thing for granted.  It will make you a happier person and more able to deal with life ebbs and flows.

Favorite 90′s Show or Movie

Friends

How are you harnessing technology to simplify work

Technology helps me stay organized and allows me to easily share information with my dispersed/virtual volunteer base.  If used correctly technology can eliminate issues of version control, which could be fatal to an organization like ours.

What problems exist (if any) with the blending of technology and your work

Having grown up with a computer in the home (any one else remember DOS and Word Perfect?), I have always used technology to do things like manage workflows, store and organize data, etc in addition to more mundane tasks such as word processing.  The biggest problem that Starting Blocks has right now is that we have too many different technologies which volunteers must contend with.  Right now, on a regular basis, we must manage: A contact tracking system (Donor Tools), A mass email system, a document management system and an accounting system in addition to the home made spreadsheets we have to manage workflows.  All of these talk to each other to some extent but its not automatic. Small Business is yearning for the App to rule them all or at least much more advanced integration.

Honestly, Fruit Ninja is a fantastic productivity app… meaning, if you are looking to be anti-productive, you should get it! Can you relate to Elana’s Work-Related Challenge? How do you determine what to do in your organization so that you get the most bang for your buck?

If you want to be a future spotlight, hop over to the about section to contact us.

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Tackling the donation fear factor

By on June 7, 2012 in Donor Tools, Donors, Fundraising

Taken from the Donor Tools Blog archive.

Seth Godin’s thought provoking posts have never failed to amaze me and this latest one “Fear of philanthropy (avert your eyes)” is no exception. Without going on about how well put this one was, here is an extract from the post which ends with an important factor for donor management:

Peter Singer is famous for posing a stunningly difficult question, paraphrased as, “If you are walking by a pond and you see a child drowning, do you save her? What if it means ruining a very fancy pair of Italian shoes?” Okay, if we assume the answer is yes, then why not spend the cost of those shoes to save 20 kids who are starving to death across town or the world? There’s really no difference. Or by, extension, invest in research or development that solves a problem forever… The issues are proximity and attention.

My take is that most people would instantly save the kid, but given the choice, probably wouldn’t take the road by the pond again any time soon. We like to avoid these situations, because these situations make us uncomfortable. Source: Seth’s Blog

 

As Seth points out donors fear doing something about a cause because it makes them uncomfortable. This feeling of discomfort is perhaps the biggest hurdle fundraisers are faced with and it stands right between a potential donor and a donation being made. Consciously making the donor comfortable at every step of the donation and fundraising process can make an impact on how many donation opportunities actually convert into a completed donation. Here are just a few ideas which could bring a tiny bit of direction and comfort to donors during the process most would prefer to avoid:

  • Have a clear message around the cause which highlights that every contribution is appreciated regardless of how much. It makes it ever so slightly more difficult to avoid donating something.
  • Having said that, suggesting amounts can help provide some perspective on following up with an action rather than leaving a donor with another question mark which may have them walk away avoiding it. For example Donate $5, $20, $100, $500 or more can help provide some direction and comfort in the process as compared to not knowing how much to give.
  • Connecting donation amounts to the change they can effect often helps provide some comfort. For example mentioning that a donation of $20 can buy X amount of food for the hungry and provide someone with Y meals.
  • Equating donation amounts to daily spending items the donor can sacrifice for the cause can also help bring some clarity to the decision making. For example sacrificing $50 afternoon at Starbucks, a $100 hair do or $200 concert tickets could help change …

It’s all about keeping someone’s focus on the cause at hand and prompting for a ‘defined’ action in the form of a donation request. It’s about how to bring even a little bit of comfort to an otherwise uncomfortable situation.

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Nonprofit Tech Spotlight #4

By on June 1, 2012 in About, Awareness, Good Words, Leadership, Nonprofit Tech Spotlight, Nonprofits, Technology

It’s our 4th installment of highlighting awesome nonprofits, their leaders, and their use of technology. Today, we get to hear from Adrienne Pierce (@AdriennePeirce) who works at minne✱, a Minnesota nonprofit that is focused on bringing together the tech and entrepreneur community. Their work is cool, very cool. You should check it out.  Here’s Adrienne’s thoughts on work, life, technology, and the all important 90′s entertainment genre… enjoy!

Self – Tweet

Planner, organizer, beginner programmer, mechanical engineer, MS Paint artist, WordPress power user, volunteer coordinator.

Organization – Tweet

minne✱ brings together the Minnesota tech community by creating awesome demo and conference events.

Best Book Ever

Oh geez. I’m going to have to say Grapes of Wrath. If I was trying to represent the minne✱ community, I might go with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

Favorite Mobile App

The Eventbrite check-in app. It’s so well made that any volunteer can jump in with no training and be checking in dozens and dozens of event attendees right away. When you are trying to get 900 people through the door to your conference, this one’s a lifesaver.

Biggest Work-Related Challenge

As an organization, we are just getting to a point where we can’t do it all ourselves. Luckily, the tech community here in Minnesota is happy to help out and donate a whole bunch of hours doing everything from ordering t-shirts to building event software. It’s not easy to give up control, but we’re getting better at it.

Life Lesson

Change doesn’t get easier if you wait. There is no better time. If you want to try something new or switch careers or move somewhere or anything, just do it right now.

Favorite 90′s Show or Movie

Hmmmmm. Fargo (despite the terrible Minnesota accents) or maybe Edward Scissorhands.

How are you harnessing technology to simplify work

Since we are a non-profit serving and led by tech folks, we use a lot of technology. Basecamp for project management, a wiki for the community information (http://wiki.minnestar.org/wiki/Main_Page), a custom conference session tool to help with room assignment and display to attendees (http://sessions.minnestar.org/), Mailchimp for emails, etc. And, of course, DonorTools to manage all of our interaction with the people who make it all possible- our donors.

What problems exist (if any) with the blending of technology and your work

We’re all tech enthusiasts, so we are at risk of trying too many tools, or using more technology than we need to solve a problem. I’m not sure that’s a problem, but it might become one as we bring on more volunteers.

Adrienne mentions a struggle we all have – giving up control and relying on others to help us accomplish the tasks we need to get done. This is scary… and often necessary. Any tips for doing this successfully?

Lastly, were you as shocked as I was that people in Minn. don’t sound like the actors in Fargo?!?! :-)

If you want to be a future spotlight, hop over to the about section to contact us.

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Guidelines for Selecting Donor Management Software

By on April 13, 2012 in Church, Donor Tools, Donors, Fundraising, Nonprofits, Technology

If it is true that Donor Management Software is to nonprofits and ministries, what Robin is to Batman – i.e. the perfect compliment – then we should all strive to acquire such a sidekick! This article follows a previous post and shares some guidelines for selecting a donor management tool.

Higher Pixels is biased, but the principles we share are pulled from years of experience in the trenches of church, ministry and nonprofit work. 

Know Yourself

If your fund development team consists of highly functional and technical staff members, this article isn’t for you.

If your “fund development team” is non-existent, volunteer-based, or a small staff with multiple hats, then you should read on.

On a similar note, you need to pick a donor management tool that matches the skill set, needs, and cost of where your organization is today – as in right now. Don’t buy a super-CRM software that has more features than you can count, especially if you can count your “development staff/volunteers” on one hand. You need to find something that works for YOUR organization.

If you purchase something that is so complicated that no one uses it, you’ve wasted time (staff attempting to learn the software) and money (staff attempting to learn the software). Find something simple and easy for YOUR end-users to manage, which might include:

  • The volunteers who help with data entry
  • The fundraiser who spends more time out of the office than in the office
  • The staff-member who would rather focus on ministry than “sales and marketing”
  • And the Fundraising Committee that consists of members with other full-time jobs

Organize the important stuff (not the fluff)

A good donor database management system should help you organize your important files. Think of it as a centralized bank of information that helps you learn valuable insights regarding your donations, donors, volunteers, pledges, campaigns, and events.

Sound simple? It should be. We want technology to simplify our lives, not complicate it. If you’re researching CRMs that can also organize the genetic chromosomes of your donor’s second cousin, you may be exploring an overly complicated system. And seriously, when would you need that information anyway?

Accomplish the fundamentals

Our donor tools should help us make sense of our raw data and make mundane tasks even easier to accomplish. Find a software that will allow you to:

  • Easily log donations coming from online and offline sources
  • Create response letters and emails after collecting a donation
  • Analyze funds by source and payment methods
  • Keep great notes about the people who have given to your organization
  • Track your volunteers
  • Allow you to set and measure the progress of a fundraising target, pledge, or campaign
  • And simply organize your data for actionable fundraising strategies

Integrate with your other tools

Your donation management system should also integrate nicely with the other software applications that you use. If you use QuickBooks for accounting, then make sure that your donor software works well with your bookkeeping software. If you use Microsoft Excel, you should be able to export data accordingly.  If you are receiving gifts online, make sure it can work with applications like Paypal or others. And, since we are speaking of online, you should highly consider a system that will allow you to access your protected data on the web, enabling you to upload and collect valuable information from anywhere, whether you are on a Mac or PC.

Understand the costs

Perhaps one of the most important points is to understand the costs involved with your decision. Your research should include the expenses that are associated with set-up, installation, and the ongoing usage of the product. Furthermore, it is important to evaluate how competing products quantify their charges (number of donors, reports, donation volume, etc). How a donor management software quantifies their costs may make one product appear cheaper than another, only to later discover that the reverse is true.

Likewise, one should also determine if it is necessary to train your staff to adequately use the software. Is the software intuitive and easy to use? Or do you have pay for training? Do they have a simple “user guide” that is organized and readily available to help you learn the product, or does that cost extra?

Summary

Donor Management Software can help you get organized, save time on tedious tasks, turn data into information, and grow funds. When researching the donor tools you need, make sure that you follow the guidelines of knowing who will use the product, what it should organize for you, what it should accomplish, how it should integrate with your other software, and the costs associated with making that purchase. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll do well in making that important purchase that can help you save time and develop better fundraising strategies.

Additional Research Links

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/databases/page6085.cfm (Ten Common Mistakes in Selecting Donor Databases)

http://www.idealware.org/articles/Excel_isnt_database.php (Back Away from That Spreadsheet: Why Excel isn’t a Donor Database)

http://www.idealware.org/articles/four-principles-choosing-donor-management-software-0 (Four Principles of Choosing Donor Management Software)

What other guidelines should churches, ministries, and smaller nonprofits follow when researching donor management software?

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Why you need Donor Management Software

By on April 3, 2012 in Church, Donors, Fundraising, Nonprofits, Technology, Uncategorized, Volunteer

Batman is better with Robin. Cake is better with ice cream. And nonprofits are better with donor management software. This article explains why.

Confession – You should know that we are totally biased…but with good reason! We built our donor management tool because nonprofits wanted it! Good donor management software can help you get organized, save time, and grow funds.

Get Organized

How many excel worksheets and files are you toggling to get the information you need about your donors, donations and pledges? How many people on your staff manage their own files about the people you interact with? Are they adding contact information, personal notes, volunteer hours, and other vital pieces of information that could be beneficial to other departments? What happens when key volunteer or staff members leave? Do you lose information about your donors when they move-on? Donor Management Software can help you get organized by becoming the centralized bank of information for all things volunteer, donor, donation, and pledge related.

Save Time

The mundane and tedious tasks of donation collecting, tracking, report-building, and follow-up can be simplified with a web-based software. Organized data and increased efficiency can help you spend less time on donor management and more time on accomplishing the work of your ministry or nonprofit.

Know Your Donors

People have given you their hard-earned money! Do you have any idea who they are? They obviously know who you are. At the very least you should know how much money they have given you, when their birthday is, what’s important in their life, what sort of interests they have, and if they have volunteered in any capacity at your organization. Anything less than that gives the impression that you only see your donors as a means to an end.

Donors are real people. And only a donor management system will empower you with the tools you need to help donors feel like one.

Appreciate Your Donors

Are you thanking your donors with each donation? Growing up, I had to write a thank you note for every gift I received from friends and family. It was the courteous thing to do. A good donor management system will make this task even easier with easy to use, time-saving response letters and emails.

Grow Your Funds

Data is good, but organized data is better. The reason? Organized data can lead to information, and information is what we want and need. If you want to grow the funds in your organization you’ll need all the information you can get to help strategize on effective fundraising practices. Expect more on this point in a later post.

If your nonprofit has been operating without donor management software, it’s time to explore getting one. Who wouldn’t want to be more efficient, better at appreciating their donors, and better at increasing their funds? The best part… with the advancement of affordable web-based donor tools, good donor management is now possible from anywhere, at anytime, and on any computer. The question every nonprofit needs to ask is this, could they be better off with a donor management system? Kinda like Batman is with Robin, Cake is with Ice Cream…

What are some other benefits of donor management software? Or, if you want to be more fun, what else is better when you add something to it…like Peanut Butter with Jelly?

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