FundRaiser Blog

When many people think about alternate addresses, second homes or vacation homes come to mind. And FundRaiser Software has the capability to not just hold unlimited alternate addresses, but also code them based on the type of address. Depending on the choices selected (date range or specific code) FundRaiser will then send to the alternate address instead of the main address on the record.

However, alternate addresses are great for more than just vacation, offices, or secondary homes. Here are some additional uses for alternate addresses.

A common question that I receive in support is how to see a list of donors who gave in subsequent years. Along with the question, they also want to know who gave multiple times in a year, or even in multiple years. It’s easy to find out the answers to those questions, and more, when you begin with a grouping.

When creating a grouping, on the “common patterns” tab, there are multiple options for different types of donors. The LYBUNT or SYBUNT categories capture your donors who gave last year, but not this year, or some year, but not this year. However, how do you capture those donors who have given in multiple years?

An important aspect of fundraising is making connections with your prospective donors on a deeper level. It is one thing to connect with someone over a shared concern over animal welfare, for example, but reaching them with a story about a rescued cat or one who needs funds for an expensive surgery creates an immediate connection, one that you can tailor to the person’s interests through category codes.

Within FundRaiser category codes are designed to document and segment the non-giving aspects of your donors’ lives. Using category codes can help you create a more meaningful relationship. Document what activities your donors like, for example, and you could entice them to an event that seems tailor made for them.

You go where money you think you can get is to be found in the greatest quantities and most of the time that means you look to the individual donor

No fund-raising campaign should ever be started until you have identified the sources from which you will draw contributions. Sources here does not refer to specific potential donors, but to the six categories of donors who contribute money to non-profit organizations. They are:

Dear Kim:

How does a really good organization get foundation funding?  I know from your books that you don’t recommend relying on grants, but it seems like they are a help for getting programs off the ground.  I have used the Foundation Center’s database, which is great, and I have identified potential grantmakers, followed instructions, but so far have nothing to show for it.  I took an online course on grant writing and, I hope without sounding arrogant, I feel I know how to write a grant.  But it seems like you need to really know somebody to get grant money.  Can you share any secrets? 

Have you wanted to take a training class, but the schedule just didn’t work out for some reason? Or maybe a last minute project or meeting prevented you from attending the class you really wanted. We understand that things happen, which is why we’re pleased to introduce our new training class, Open For Requests.

We’ve scheduled two Open sessions a month—one at each of our normal times, 10am and 3pm. With this session, simply sign up and let us know what class you would like to take. They are first come, first serve, and we will update the training calendar when they have been taken.

Have you ever had a question about something in FundRaiser? Maybe it wasn’t a big question or something you felt like you needed to call for, but you wondered how to do something or maybe if FundRaiser could accomplish a task your organization wanted to have done. With this in mind, our training department has created a new class that’s less of a class and more of an opportunity for you to ask questions.

In April, we debuted a new training session called the Q&A. Scheduled on every other Thursday afternoon, this session provides an opportunity for customers to ask “how to” questions or discuss various projects within FundRaiser.

A tribe of happy feral cats lives near the FundRaiser office and several staff members are involved in helping care for them. Last September, I mentioned this colony in the FundRaiser newsletter. Newsletter readers responded warmly and we received quite a few emails expressing concern for the cats. Along with sharing our feelings for the cats, many hoped that we had plans to spay and neuter them.

This month, Autumn Shirley of FundRaiser organized a campaign to do just that.

The development committee has basic responsibility for overseeing and advising on the organization’s fund-raising activities. Its main duties are to:

Chairs of development committees, like development directors, must resolve the various contributed income needs of the organization without exhausting its base of support. The best development committee chairpersons are able to see the job in its entirety. They have broad vision. They don’t fall in love with one fund-raising idea, campaign, or concept at the expense of the overall development effort.My preferred development committee chairperson is a general managerial type with a strong marketing background. Ideally, this chairperson is something of an alter ego of the development director. I have been my most successful when my development chairpersons and I shared the same fund-raising vision. In a sense, the best development chairperson is a leader whom a competent development director is able to lead. The development chairperson has clout within the community that the development director is unlikely to possess, while the latter has fund-raising knowledge that is probably outside of the development chairperson’s purview. The partnership between the development chairperson and the development director works best when the professional develops the ideas and then gains the agreement of the volunteer leader, who uses his or her clout to get cooperation from the board and other volunteer campaign leaders.

One of the things I receive questions on as I’m hosting training classes is email through FundRaiser. How does the program know that someone can get emails? What can be sent via email? Is there a copy? The convenience of email, not to mention the cost savings, makes it appealing to use. So let’s talk about emailing within FundRaiser.

For each record within FundRaiser you have complete control over the communications preferences. If someone prefers email—and many people do these days—then the customer’s record can be set to email only. Additionally, with each correspondence that is sent, you can choose if it will be sent through the postal mail or via email where appropriate.

So you’ve downloaded an evaluation trial of our software or setup an online trail, and you’ve opened the program. Now what? Or maybe you’ve stepped into a new position and need to get up and running quickly. Whichever the case, here are some tips for getting started quickly with FundRaiser software.

First, if you are working with a trial copy, don’t be afraid to experiment. The sample data is already in the program for you to work with. Feel free to change the data, add gifts, etc. When you are ready to use the program with your data, it’s simple to remove the sample data.

When organizations talk about pledges, often times they have different meanings. For some, a specific payment promise, such as a fixed amount each month for a year (or in perpetuity) constitutes a pledge. Others believe that any promise to pay is a pledge, whether it’s for a certain amount or a certain timeframe. The dictionary definition of the word pledge is simply a promise to give money. (There are other definitions, but for our purposes we’re focusing on the financial one.) The question remains: when is a pledge not a pledge?

When it comes to putting promises to pay into FundRaiser Software, there are a couple of options. The first is to consider it a later promise to pay. This is good when there isn’t a definitive time frame for the money to be paid. In fact, there often may be some uncertainty about the money to be paid.

Inevitably if you’ve been working with FundRaiser (or any software using codes or tags) for any length of time, duplicate codes begin to happen. Maybe someone put in a code with the year first; maybe someone put the category first, then the year. However it happens, duplicate codes grow in the database and there needs to be a way to manage them.

Luckily within FundRaiser, there’s the ability to review all the codes. You can even print a list of the codes if you’re the type of person who likes paper and pencil for planning. Once you’ve reviewed your codes to determine how you’d like to merge, or maybe even delete some of them, then you’re ready to clean up your database.

Last Thursday, people around the FundRaiser office had their eyes glued to the weather radar. A tornado was headed our direction. It hit in the early morning hours of Friday, April 3rd. Although the damage wasn't widespread, many of us were personally connected to someone who was impacted. One of those was the Whetstone Boy's Ranch, a boarding school for at-risk and troubled boys in Mountain View, Missouri. Whetstone is a FundRaiser user. A further connection for us it that Joey Patten, of FundRaiser Technical Support, has been helping with the damage clean-up at the Ranch, along with other members of his church, the Pomona Christian Church. 

Everyone at the Ranch is safe -- boys, staff and animals. The Ranch, however, has been severely damaged. It's a devastating sight, relieved in part by news of the faith and funds being raised to recover from the damage. On their facebook page, Whetstone is reporting rapid fundraising progress. We are so sorry that this has happened, and are looking forward to hearing more happy news as the recovery process continues.

The Volunteers module in FundRaiser Select, and included in Professional, allows your organization to track much more than the names of your volunteers. With the ability to set up projects and teams, you can create work schedules and get detailed information about the work your volunteers accomplish.

The Volunteers module comes built into FundRaiser Professional; it’s an add on for FundRaiser Select. Within this module is the ability to track as little information (Volunteer names and contact information, for example) or as much as you need. When looking at big projects, such as a group for outreach or a specific event, you may want to establish a team or a project. This is easy to do within the module, and it allows you to group various volunteers together and track their hours.

Dear Kim,

We have 500 donors, of whom 50 give over $1,000 and another 50 give between $500-999. We do a decent job of keeping in touch with these 100 donors, usually talking to them by phone or visiting the top 20 largest donors at least once a year. I keep all the information on these donors and I am retiring, so cleaning out my files and getting ready to pass this information on to the next person. I have pages of stuff on some people, and almost nothing on others. But what should I have? And what should I delete?

Some of you may remember my stories about my wondrous Great Aunt Frances. We grew into close friends over the years I lived a few blocks from her in NYC.

Aunt Frances was fantastic—a warm, loving, down-to-earth lady who’d had many life adventures and was a fantastic cook.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of a development operation, and trustees are the most important volunteers of all. The trustees approve an organization’s budget and they must accept personal responsibility for raising called-for contributed income. They are expected to set the pace in giving, recruiting other volunteers, and soliciting major donors.

Too often I have been engaged as a consultant only to have the executive director of the organization or chair of the board of trustees tell me, “Our board doesn’t raise money. You’ll have to look elsewhere for fund-raising leadership.” That’s when I tell them they have to change the makeup of the board. A board must include individuals capable of leading a major fund-raising campaign. There is no greater strength in a fund-raising campaign than a board ready and willing to lead. There is no greater weakness than one which sees fund-raising as someone else's responsibility.

When your organization needs to send out communications, the mass mailings feature within FundRaiser provides a quick and easy way to do so. Simply choose the letter, select who receives it, and then print and send. In times of disaster or when funds are needed urgently, the Mass Mailings feature provides a way for you to communicate with your donors, even through email.

What sort of letters can be sent out through Mass Mailings? Anything you can create. As long as you can format the template, it can be sent. Mass mailings also works for mailing labels and envelopes, which means labeling postcards just became a lot easier.

Sending a mailing, whether it is a postcard or an appeals letter, doesn’t end the communication with the donor or prospective donor. Hopefully a reply is received with a donation, and you will want to track this to better understand the effectiveness of your campaigns. Within FundRaiser Professional there are two ways to monitor and track this information.

The Campaigns and Events module makes tracking mailings, as well as other events within a campaign, easy. Include people who receive appeals letters sent through Mass Mailings as participants and then attribute gifts received to the letter. Reports found within the module will enable you to see the response you received as well as the cost and the return on investment.