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Fat and Sassy

October 26, 2012 Tech Blog by Sherry Willis Edit

The brilliant colors of Fall have moved from the trees to the ground. Bright confetti of red, orange, and yellow leaves litters the road and yards. The smell of fallen foliage is rich and brings back childhood memories of jumping into piles of crunchy, newly raked leaves. The summer complement of flying bugs is gone leaving only a few industrious honeybees to visit the few yellow flowers left on my dying tomato plants.

We have had our little foundling kitten, Mab, for nearly two months now. She’s a very different creature than the starved little waif who showed up on our doorstep. She has become our fat little porch guardian, content to curl up on the step and sleep in the sun or hover just out of reach when we try to pet her. It’s amazing the difference regular feeding makes.

Tags: nonprofit fundraising, fundraising letters, fundraising, word processor

Keeping on Top of Grant Deadlines

October 25, 2012 Non-Profit Fundraising Tips by Larry Weaver Edit

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 Memory

In 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 Reminders

When 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 Reports

Once 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 Users

To 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 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or give me a call (800-880-2997)

Tags: nonprofit fundraising, training, tech tip, fundraising, features, general

7 steps to increased donations for schools using a donor database

October 04, 2012 Non-Profit Fundraising Tips by Sasha Daucus Edit

increasing donations for schools large and small

Schools can significantly increase incoming donations by clarifying who their most generous constituent groups are and then focusing development efforts on those donor segments. Several FundRaiser users have done this, with excellent results.

1. Enter your donation amounts into your database

The first step to locating your most generous donors is easy. “It’s a simple matter of entering your checks into FundRaiser. Then all that information is there,” says Ellen Bouye, Administrative Assistant of Oklahoma Christian Academy and a FundRaiser Select user.

Tags: nonprofit fundraising, online donations , fundraising

Attack of the Killer Strawberries

August 16, 2012 Tech Blog by Sherry Willis Edit

Currently, I am using on a particular list of keywords to optimize the whole website, and I thought it would make sense to use that list for the blog, but after a session with our marketing analytics company (HubSpot), I realize that may not be the best approach to the website. It may make more sense to develop a separate list of keywords for the blog For example, I had been operating under the idea that using two or three keywords in an article would generate the best results, but our HubSpot consultant said they generally focus on one keyword per article.

I have a lovely south facing window next to my desk at the FundRaiser office. Early this spring I replaced the sinuous vines that had been growing on the windowsill next to my desk. They had been slyly trailing beneath my desk, giving me the impression that they were ready to wrap around my feet and drag me under the moment I wasn’t paying attention.

I decided that sweet, innocent strawberry plants would be a lovely replacement. After all, there could be nothing sinister about the fresh green, rounded leaves and delicate white blossoms with their cheery yellow centers. The vines went into the compost pile and five small strawberry plants took their place in fresh new soil. The plants seemed very happy in their new home and the June bearing variety quickly produced blooms followed by small tart berries. Then the runners spouted. It began with a single, innocent shoot. Now the longest one is relentlessly reaching for me across the top of my desk. Time to find the pruning shears....

A coding scheme in your donor management software can be very much like these vines.

Tags: nonprofit fundraising, training, tech tip, fundraising, support, features

Not gone yet...! Lapsed donors

August 14, 2012 Non-Profit Fundraising Tips by Sasha Daucus Edit

You still have time to catch them... and it's easier to do it while they are still in sight, than later when they are totally gone. That's lapsed donors I'm talking about.

One of the most important groups to send letters to are Lapsed Donors - those who have given in the past, but not in the most recent 9-24 months. It’s much easier, and less expensive, to win a donor back than to find a new one.

Lapsed donors have indicated that they are interested enough in your organization to donate at least once. This makes them highly qualified as potential future donors. For some reason they have not felt the incentive to donate again recently. That may be for reasons beyond your control, but it might also be because you haven't asked.

Tags: user spotlights, nonprofit fundraising, fundraising letters, fundraising, features

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Fat and Sassy