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Use the Alternate Addresses featureHere in southern Arizona (location of the FundRaiser training office), they are affectionately called "snowbirds". They leave their main homes and "fly" south when the weather becomes cold and bitter, and tend to return in the spring, at least until retirement. When I lived in Florida, vacationing Canadians were given the same nickname. The populace of the United States is a very mobile one, and keeping up with any one person can be difficult. FundRaiser Select and Professional have a feature that will help you keep up with your "migratory" donors and prospects, and it's called Alternate Addresses. If you have FundRaiser Spark, or Basic, you may want to check into moving up to Select or Professional here. 1. Store all known addresses for a donor/prospectMany folks have permanenet vacation addresses. Many don't. For those who don't, try to get email addresses and you'll still be able to reach them no matter where they are. For those who DO have permanent alternate residences, simply enter them in the Alt Add tab in the Name Details section of their name record. One thing to note is that there are two (2) different ways to tell FundRaiser which address should be used at any given time. When you enter an alternate address, you have the option of assigning a code to the address, which can be handy for different "types" of addresses, like work vs. home, or current vs. previous, but you also have the option of assigning a date range to show when the alternate address will be occupied. This is a much better solution , in my opinion, for vacationers, when you have a good idea what that date range will be. You might want to store previous addresses, and, when someone moves, you'll be able to "save" the old address as an "inactive" alternate address, too. You can pull an alternate address into the primary address page just as easily, from the Alt Add tab.
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Tags: training tip, training, tech tip, features, general
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 Non-traditional ways to honor mothers
Mother's Day was begun, back in the early 1900's, as a celebration of the person to whom we owe our very existence, but quickly became so commercialized that even the originator of the day became disenfranchised with it. If we want to truly celebrate our mothers, we can do better than giving flowers or a dinner out, I think, and FundRaiser can be a part of that effort. Tributes ModuleFundRaiser recently got an upgrade to the Tributes module, in that there is now an "In Celebration of" tribute type, in addition to the usual "In Honor of", and "In Memory of" tributes. You might consider an effort to solicit donations "In Celebration of Mother's Day", as an alternative to the gifts, cards, dinners, flowers, etc. A donation to (your worthy cause here) can be a loving tribute that lasts longer that it takes to read a card, eat a dinner, or for those flowers to wilt. Using the Tributes Module (optional in Select, standard in Professional) will let you easily track these types of donations, create lists of tribute donors for newsletters, as well as send appropriate correspondence to donors AND to the mothers they are honoring in this way. If you don't yet have the module, you can learn more about it here.
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Tags: features, nonprofit fundraising, training tip
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 General features you can use for event managementNo matter which version of FundRaiser (Spark, Select, or Professional) you use, there are features that can help you track events. While Professional has a Campaign Management component, it's not necessary for simple tracking, as I'll explain. Using gift- and name record-based codes, along with TIckles, you can keep a better handle on planning of events, as well as their results.
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Tags: training tip, training, features, general
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 Okay, so we're not going to travel back in time to keep tabs on Ulysses, here, but in tracking grant proposal progress, it is important to make sure that each step of the process is done in a timely manner. There are usually deadlines that must be met to be considered for grant monies, so it is imperative that we have some method of reminding ourselves when those deadlines are coming near. Tickle Your MemoryIn FundRaiser Professional and FundRaiser Select, the "Tickler" system fills this need. Tickles are date-sensitive reminders that can be associated directly with a name record, such as a Foundation from which we are seeking a grant. There is a Tickle tab for each and every name record. In this tabbed page, we can keep multiple tickles, with "Do Dates", notes, and more. In the case of a grant application, you would set up separate tickles for each stage of the application process, and later for the reporting deadlines. If different staff members need to be involved, you can assign tickles to the responsible staff members to accomplish. Once they have completed their portion of a tickle, they can pass the tickle along to the next staff member, or when completed, can give it back to you. Automatic Tickle RemindersWhen FundRaiser is started, it will remind you of all tickles coming due in the next "X" number of days that pertain to you. You get to tell it how many days that "X" should be, whether it is "0" to show only those due today, or "7" for a week's advance notice, or "30" for a month, and so forth. This is set in the Options > Personal > Tickles section of the program. Print Tickle ReportsOnce in the program, you can view all tickles for a specific donor by looking on their Tickles tab. You can view all tickles that pertain to you by going to Windows > Staff Tickler. And, you can print a variety of reports in Print > Tickle Reports. Assign Tickles to FundRaiser UsersTo allow tickles to be assigned to certain users, each person must be given a program password. To do this go to the Options menu and click on User List/Security. In this window, you set up the passwords with which each user will login to FundRaiser. After that, tickles can be designated for a specific user, by name, or can be for all the staff. The "supervisor" of FundRaiser will be able to see all tickles for everyone, if you choose, and will be able to limit others to see only the tickles that apply directly to them and/or those assigned to "all staff members". As always, if you have questions on how best to use these features, drop me an email (
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) or give me a call (800-880-2997)
Tags: nonprofit fundraising, training, tech tip, fundraising, features, general
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 The Ozarks have put on a truly breathtaking show this Fall. I have never seen colors so vivid. The trees stand boldly clad in crimson and gold. Ruby vines twine around trunks and gently swing from branches like expensive jewelry. Even when clouds darken the sky, the colors continue to glow as if lit from within. Color is such an important part of our lives. Naming colors is one of the first things we learn as children. Since color is a near universal language, stemming from somewhere deep in our primeval history, we can use color to communicate many things without words. Red usually means stop or danger, yellow inspires caution or attention, and green suggests going ahead. Like most people, I suspect, I don’t even have to think about these impressions, they are just there.
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Tags: tech tip, support, look and feel, features
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