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Fundraising

Nov 09
0

Build a Successful Major Donor Fundraising Program

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iStock_000007489713XSmallCelebrate the New Year by resolving to build a successful major donor fundraising program. Focusing on your largest givers is the quickest way for any nonprofit to bring in more funds and create a stable revenue stream. The right fundraising software can help you at every stage in the process.

The Pareto Principle holds true for fundraising. The top 20% of your donors will provide about 80% of your total income. An integrated donor management system allows you to pull together data from multiple sources in order to identify and serve these valuable constituents. You will be able to analyze giving patterns in terms of amount and frequency, and whether people are interested in general support or specific programs like scholarships or a new building. You may even find potential donors in unexpected places such as your volunteers or event attendees. Once you identify them, you can also use your system to track contact history and develop reliable data for designing renewal and upgrading strategies.

Detailed reports give you a clearer picture of your potential and performance. You’ll see if your major donor base is growing or declining. You’ll also be able to map out a gift pyramid showing you how many donors you need at each giving level to meet your objectives.

Of course, major donor fundraising is time and labor intensive. Technology allows you to target your resources for where they will have the most impact. It helps you to be more responsive to your donor’s individuals needs and communicate with them regularly and effectively. Most of all you’ll become a good steward of the contributions you receive. You’ll avoid missed opportunities by connecting with people who are dedicated to your cause and using the appropriate cultivation and solicitation strategies.

Contact us to learn more about effective nonprofit software solutions. We can help you build the financial and administrative infrastructure you need to enable you to advance your mission.

Nov 07
0

Get Your Donor Management in Place before the End-of-Year Rush

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Happy New Year 2014 replace 2013 concept on the sea beachMost people think of the week between Christmas and New Year’s as a great week to take vacation. Families fill planes, trains and automobiles to get together across the country, snowbound New Englanders head for the Caribbean, groups of friends shop the after-Christmas sales, and in general most people aren’t thinking about work.

But if you work in the nonprofit industry, you know that someone has to be in the office during that critical week between Christmas and New Year’s, because that’s when lots of donors make last-minute donation decisions. If there’s no one in the office to handle the nonprofit’s side of the donation transaction (especially with regard to a donation of stocks, or property), the nonprofit might lose out. Then there are all the checks arriving by mail during the week as well; someone has to process those donations and get the checks to the bank.

Regardless of who is designated to handle these end-of-year donations, your entire team can benefit from a robust donor management system when it comes to efficiently processing the end-of-year rush. Capably getting the hard copy checks to the bank is pretty straightforward—but if you don’t have a donor management system in place, your team might be playing “catch up” in January in order to get annual donor letters out the door in time.

You also never know if someone is going to walk in the door and announce that they want to donate a parcel of property down the street, or call to arrange a gift of some of the stocks they inherited from grandma 6 months ago. Without a powerful software system that is tailored to the particular needs of nonprofits, these donations can be pretty difficult to handle appropriately in a short period of time.

If your accounting and fundraising teams are not completely in sync, you might find yourself mandating work days at the end of December—when you could be letting a software program do the bulk of the work. Yes, someone will need to mind the office during the last week in December, but if you have appropriate donor management software in place, when staff returns to work in January, they will be able to easily pick up their piece of the process and seamlessly generate thank you notes, financial reports and management updates with ease. So prepare now for the end-of-year giving rush, and implement an updated donor management program today.