Monday, August 18, 2008
New Hire(s) on Board!!!
One of the many challenges all organizations face is what to do in the first 90 days when you hire someone. Besides getting them trained on DonorPerfect of course, I ran across a great tip today that details the "The 10 Commandments of Employee Onboarding"
As we continue to double in size every 18-20 months (Similar to Moore's Law, which is rather scary in a way), we're bringing on people at a very fast pace ourselves- it just makes sense to follow these tips when you put in so much energy in hiring the right people.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Why Fundraising CRM Software?
A lot of people, even some people within the non-profit industry itself, are rather surprised that most organizations do not use professional CRM Fundraising Software - I'd estimate it's at only 4% of all non-profits (about 50,000 of the approximately 1.6 million non profits registered in the United States) . These include all the clients from DonorPerfect, Blackbaud, Convio, Exceed, Sage, Donor2, etc. - combined.
Yes, the other 96% tend to use something, like Microsoft Excel or Access, but at the end of the day there's still very few who take the necessary next step to increase their fundraising performance through CRM fundraising software.
Founded in 1995, the foundation has provided full scholar camperships to low-income middle-school children to private independent residential camps. What's unique is that the organization's recipients may continue to receive an annual campership- as long as they continue to meet their school’s academic and citizenship standards and are invited to return by their respective camps.
It's a fascinating program and as a former camp counselor and assistant camp director, I believe 100% in their mission.
When it comes to fundraising technology, however, they are admittedly a bit behind the times. About 2 months, I had a chat with one of the board members who had a simple question: "Why should anyone buy CRM Fundraising Software?" It seemed like a very reasonable question, and I couldn't believe that we had exactly ZERO web pages or marketing material that addressed it. In reality, for many years we've been operating under an assumption that everyone knows why they need to buy fundraising software, for the same reason as why everyone needs to buy food, shelter, transportation, etc. It was a flawed way of thinking and one we set out to correct. (Note: Apparently, we're not alone. I checked Intuit Software (makers of Quickbooks accounting software), and they didn't have anything either that answered the question why one would purchase accounting software in the first place- it was just a given)
As a result, we've developed some material, and by far our largest effort was to communicate it through a new marketing channel for us- a YouTube Video.
So here's the video link that we'll be using and perhaps we can get the other 96% to consider fundraising software after all. Feel free to pass it along.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Shorter is better...
Today I received an email from a non profit organization that read like a novel. I'm surprised Google accepted it instead of marking it as spam. It was so long I copied it to Word and counted the number of characters and words.
3108 words. 21,000 characters. And it wasn't a newsletter.
The call to action was buried on page 6. I didn't make it past page 8.
We know that with our clients, less is more- we get much better responses from shorter email marketing campaigns.
In your next campaign, try a short, text only message. Keep it simple and direct- i.e., we are x% short of our goal this year and need your help- click here to give.
Try it, and as always, test against your standard communication. I think you will be surprised by the results.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
UK Fundraising....
It's been a while since my last post. Must. Post. More. Frequently.
One of the reasons is that I spent the last week in the United Kingdom helping our new UK distributor, CSDM (www.csdm.co.uk), get up and running to promote, sell and support our DonorPerfect customers in the UK.
Though we've never had a concentrated effort to build our business in the UK, we've always attracted non profits in the UK who bought our software. As you can imagine, supporting a client base with a 5 hour time difference is not an easy nor efficient task, so we realized that a local, established distributor was the way to go.
I visited CSDM in beautiful Ross-on-Wye and met with CSDM's founder, (ahem, Managing Director as that title is more recognized in the UK) for several days of intense training, understanding, and sharing of our similar yet distinct markets.
For example, one of the largest differences in UK fundraising is the absence of a US system of using individual tax deductions to encourage individual giving and a use of GiftAid instead. GiftAid is a program set-up by the UK government that allows individuals to declare their status as a UK taxpayer. Upon this declaration, any registered non-profit in the UK can submit a form of these declared donors' donations, and receive a rebate back from the GiftAid program.
Think of it as a government backed matching gift program that sends a check to the non-profit for approximately 28% of every pound pledged. For example, if a non-profit declares that 200 donors gave £10,000 in June 2008, then they are entitled to a GiftAid check of ~ £2,800.
Furthermore, if a donor declares GiftAid now and has given previously to the organization, the organization can declare those previous donations (to a maximum of 6 years) for GiftAid immediately. DonorPerfect easily identifies these previous donations, and automatically generates the correct report that matches the current GiftAid requirements- making it easy for our clients to generate 28% more in income.
In addition to supporting GiftAid, our UK version of DonorPerfect supports the European date format (DD/MM/YYYY) as well as the currency (£) and addressing requirements (postal code) inherent to all UK non profit organizations.
We're excited to expand our presence in the UK and look forward to serving the market through our relationship with CSDM. It's fascinating to see the growth of DonorPerfect in markets outside the US, and perhaps sometime in the future I'll be able to say again, "Can you help me get back to the M-5???"
Monday, June 02, 2008
DonorPerfect Online - New Features June 7th!
We're releasing some new upgrades to DonorPerfect Online- we already sent a notice out to clients last week and the changes will occur seamlessly and automatically this weekend on June 7th.
Here's just a few of the great features:
Expanded Flexibility in Filter Builder Wizard. The filter builder wizard interface was updated to make it easier to use, and users can easily alter and add new criteria to existing filters using the same wizard.
Standard Fundraising Filter Folder. We've added a folder of over 45 commonly used fundraising filters. These filters make it easy to select some more sophisticated segments of your database, such as Re-activated Donors (Donors that have given in previous years, but not last year, and gave again this year) or Active Donors with Contact Activity (Donors that have given this year, and are in direct contact with your organization)
Unlimited Auto-Calculated Fields. This powerful component allows users to define user-defined metrics from any transaction table to aggregate information for advanced reporting and analysis. Examples include the ability to calculate at the constituent level any of the following metrics:
Initial Gift Amount to a specific General Ledger Fund
Total Giving over X years
Sum of Giving, within any date range, to any Fund
Count of Gifts over a user defined time period
Most Recent Contact date for a specific Solicitation
And Much More!
Once these metrics are defined, they are stored in the Constituent's record and can easily be used for filters and reporting. We're introducing this component now as it will form the basis for our Business Rules and Analytics module, which we are feverishly working on for an early fall release.
We'll be sending out a complete guide to all DonorPerfect Online Clients later this week and will also update our documentation and training programs.
Overall, we're very excited about this release as we believe it will result in dramatic and positive results for our clients who will be able to segment and analyze their critical data so that they can make better decisions and increase their fundraising success!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Blackbaud buys Kintera (KNTA)..
Last night I received an email announcing Blackbaud's (BLKB) purchase of Kintera (KNTA), and you can read the rest of the details here:
"Blackbaud no doubt views Kintera's 3,900 customers, which include the American Lung Association, Lance Armstrong Foundation and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, among its prized assets."
It does bother me that the organizations that we are trying to serve are treated as prizes to be won at any cost.
Like Blackbaud's other acquisitions in the past, it's inevitable that most if not all of Kintera will be assimilated within Blackbaud. For example, Kintera offers both Fundware, (Fund Accounting), and Pin! (Prospect Research), which are direct competitors to Blackbaud's Financial Edge and WealthPoint respectively. Kintera's Sphere is a bit different, and could hang on longer. Friends asking Friends will probably remain untouched.
So, where does that leave DonorPerfect?
Again, as I have mentioned numerous times in the past, we are very confident about our position in the marketplace, our robust fundraising solutions, and price-point. We continue to grow at a double digit pace, gaining clients the old fashioned way- we would rather earn a client's respect than buy it.
Competition is good for the non profit market- it reduces prices and increases innovation. We look forward to continue competing with Blackbaud, and expect to further increase our market share as they sort out their most recent acquisition.
If you're an existing Kintera client or prospect, or simply a non-profit looking for a great web-based (or installed) fundraising system at a great price, give us a try. A very friendly and experienced account manager (with an average experience over 8 years!) can walk you through our products, and I think you'll be impressed- I know our clients are!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Update...
Been traveling a lot again in the last 2 weeks, to Las Vegas and Long Beach, CA, for a presentation with Netzel Associates. I met their President and COO, Jay Grigsby, at a conference last fall, and while he may not have been impressed with my golf game, he did seem to like what I had to say- specifically about fundraising software solutions. As a result I was invited to speak during their national team meetings this month.
It's clear they LOVE what they do. They offer a full spectrum of services, such as development/feasibility studies, capital and endowment fundraising campaigns, executive searches, major gift programs, planned giving/endowment development, grant writing and research and more.
I even picked up a quick tip - when asking for a major gift, it's best to make the final ask in this way:
"Bob, we would like to honor you with a request for $100,000 as a leading gift for our XXX Campaign"
Pretty clever, eh?
In addition to asking the right way, they also use our integration with Wealth Engine to make sure they are asking the right amount. To that end, they are able to use a combination of DonorPerfect Online and Wealth Engine to accurately predict a donor's Giving Capacity.
It's important to know everything you can about your major donors, and our solution makes it easy so that you make sure you honor your donor appropriately without leaving money on the table.
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