FundRaiser Blog

Mariemont School Foundation didn’t really want to move from their Excel spreadsheets to a donor database, but their new development director said they needed to if they wanted to be more successful. “The people who were on the foundation board didn’t want to learn something new, but then they hired a development director who said in order to be a successful group, donor management software was something we needed to grow our organization. You start out as a grass roots organization and then you need someone to say, ‘to grow your organization this is something you need to do’.” says Ann Pardue, who is a Trustee on the Board of the Mariemont School Foundation.

According to Ann, Mariemont has been able to:

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.

The environmental organization I volunteer for is important to me, so it followed that when I discovered they were using Excel spreadsheets to track the donors who help make it happen each year, I suggested that we use a FundRaiser Software program instead.

My co-volunteers were leery about moving from Excel to a donor database. They don't know me as any kind of expert on non-profit fundraising. They feared that using a donor database would simply complicate matters. Excel spreadsheets are free and everyone knew how to use them. Their questions led me to do some research so I could tell them more clearly why I was making my suggestion. Here's what I turned up:

Winter is on its way here in the Ozarks.  The trees are putting on their bright end of year party dresses, the morning glories, who stood unruffled in 100+ temperatures, wilt in the cooler temperatures, and the squirrels bury their bounty here and there in frenzied anticipation of the deep cold.  Perhaps we’ll even have a winter this year.

It is time for me to think about putting up our bird feeder.  This will be our first winter here and I am eager to see what kind of visitors we get.  There are always the bright cardinals and the pushy blue jays.   These birds are entertaining but somehow I find myself enjoying the quieter finches and woodpeckers more.   Some of our summer birds are already gone.  The robins are few and far between, the hummingbirds no longer zip and fight from one flower to the next, and tiny grey birds can be seen practicing their formations for the long flight south.  Soon they will be gone and the others who have stayed hidden in the greenery of summer will come out to be seen.

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.

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.

Clean data is good data, that's for sure, but how can we insure that we're getting clean data, or that we're keeping data clean, and what, exactly, IS "clean" data.  

First of all, from a data entry viewpoint, clean data is information that is entered in a consistent way, with every data entry person adding things in the same way, using codes in the same way, and so forth.  For instance, if we use mailing labels, we want to insure that all of our mailing labels are consistent in style, both with names of donors and street addresses. 

City, State, and Zip (Postal Code) fields usually take care of themselves in FundRaiser, using the US Postal Code Lookup feature: i.e., entering the 5- or 9-digit US postal code will automatically (and consistently) fill in the corresponding City and State.  So far as the style used for the names on a mailing label, the Name Defaults section of the Options menu can help with that.  

After such a long hot summer, Autumn seems to be speeding by in the Ozarks.  The trees that only had the slightest hint on color three days ago are now beginning to blaze gloriously.  We’ve had several thunderstorms and lots of badly needed rain.  The air smells fresh and woodsy and I occasionally catch the hint of wood smoke wafting from someone’s lawn while doing their fall cleanup.  A bowl of crisp apples sits on the table and I’ve gathered up acorns and bright fallen leaves so I can have a bit of brightness when Winter comes.

The squirrels are busy too.  They scamper here and there, carrying large walnuts and tiny acorns to hide away for lean times in the winter.  It fascinates me to watch them scurry across power lines as secure and confident as if they were walking on the street.  Our foundling kitten, Mab, watches them too and occasionally makes a dash to try to catch one so bold as to come too near.  Since she is smaller than a squirrel, I think she would quickly discover she’s bitten off more than she could chew should she actually catch one.

“Donors share personal things in letters when they send donations. For instance they might say that they recently lost a loved one. I want to be able to use my software to respond to that person, to create ‘high touch’ communications, and even to become friend,” says Joe Emert of Life Radio Ministries.

Joe makes it part of his mission to interact with donors as people. He also knows that a good relationship to a donor can have a positive impact on giving. “I don’t just do things to help me get another donation and yet I know that if I meet the needs of a donor not just on the radio but also by responding appropriately to an inquiry or something that is said in a letter, that creates a better relationship.

The brilliant colors of Fall are beginning to blaze here in the Ozarks.  I see crimson blushed sumacs nestled among the stalwart green of the oaks.  Oaks are the last trees to change color, calmly keeping their glossy green raiment as a lovely backdrop to the riotous colors of less sedate trees.  Acorns and walnuts rain down and the grass grows with spring-like abandon.

All of this color and abundance tends to make me forget we are heading into the cold, drab days of winter.  Days when all is quiet and still and where growth happens unseen below fallen leaves and brown grasses.  I always long to take some green with me into winter and this year I am determined to do so.  I have spent the last month designing a hydroponic system for growing wheat grass.  The idea was to be able to feed the few critters I want to add to our home without having to depend on outside hay.  I accomplished this, but since I am currently “critterless” with the exeption of a few cats, I am now considering using it to grow salad greens all winter.  What can be better that eating a fresh picked salad as I watch the snow fall outside? 

When you decide to move into a more advanced FundRaiser program, it usually means that your organization is in a time of positive change: your organization is growing and having enough success that you can no longer make due with the limitations of your previous software. You make the jump to a more powerful program, open it up and then try to get as comfortable as you used to be with the old software.

I had that kind of positive confusion on my mind when I went over to the FundRaiser Tech Support department and asked Jonathan what would be his ‘best advice’ for organizations who were having 'software growing pains.' He had some great suggestions, but overall it boiled down to this simple piece of advice:

What is the question?  What should we code or not code?  And why?  In FundRaiser we have the option to use a lot of different types of codes, and sometimes, in a well-meaning effort to document as many aspects of our donors as possible, we end up duplicating our efforts and making things more confusing by creating unnecessary codes.  And what, exactly, ARE “unnecessary” codes?? 

It was a lovely morning as I walked to work. The sky was pearl grey and the air was moist and cool.  I noticed the walnut tree behind the house starting to put on her fall clothing and the walnut husks stood boldly out against the lacy yellow-green leaves.  Walnut trees lose their leaves first and soon she will stand with her slim, twisted branches bare among the still-green foliage of the maples.  Autumn is a season of thrilling changes.  Colors blaze and fade among the foliage.  Plants that haven’t finished blooming do so with reckless abandon.  Somehow cloudy days only seem to intensify the hues.

A change has come to our house as well.  About a week ago we heard our tomcat, Phillip, fighting with something.  As it is his job to keep other cats away, we don’t usually interfere.  But the cries of the other cat were those of surrender rather than challenge, so we went to see what was happening.  Phillip was holding down a tiny kitten, so thin her hips jutted above the ridges of her backbone like hills.  Phillip released his little victim on command and she skittered a short distance away.  Ten minutes later the scene was repeated and we once again insisted he let her go.  Phillip must have gotten the message at that point as he willingly allowed the kitten to eat from his dish from then on.  Thus the scrawny, half wild Queen Mab has joined our family.

Many FundRaiser users also work as the bookkeeper for their office or interface closely with their organization's bookkeeper. FundRaiser makes this as simple as possible with its integration features for QuickBooks and Peachtree accounting programs. Good people plus good software make an office run well. In our office, the people part of our bookkeeping equation is Mary Badiny and we all interface with her most happily.

She's worked as a bookkeeper all her life, starting during college as a way to support herself. “While I was going to school for a business degree, I got my first bookkeeping job. The woman who interviewed me for that first job said, 'I really need someone with experience, but I'm going to give you a chance.' She became a kind of mentor to me, and we were both happy with how it went. I've been a bookkeeper now for 41 years," says Mary. "You'd think I'd be burned out, but I found the perfect office de-stressor. It's my garden. Of course there is stress, like no rain for 3 months, but it’s a totally different kind and it gives me the right balance."

If you have a Mac computer and are looking for a donor management system, you probably already know that there very few donor management programs written specifically for Mac computers. So what do you do-- just go with the one of the few Mac options out there? That's fine if one of those programs offers exactly the features you want, but given the huge array of donor management programs for Windows users, you might feel a little resentful about being limited in that way.

Good news-- even as a Mac user there are two ways to have nearly as many options in donor management software as Windows users have:

If you are working with FundRaiser software, you are spending some time in front of a computer, just like we are. I enjoy that similarity, and also, seeing the photos of you working at your computers. I’ve been sent a few of these during my time writing about the way organizations use our software. Usually they come with a slightly apologetic comment, like, ‘I know this isn’t a very exciting photo’… or something along those lines. I love them and I think they are beautiful. And I can relate, because that’s how I look when I am working, too. You might be surprised to know, also, that when I post them, they are our most popular photos because we can all relate.

All of us connected to FundRaiser have in common that we are spending time behind our computers. In many of the photos I receive, people are looking up, the way we often talk to people who come to our computers station. Or you may be looking directly across at the camera, the way we sit in an office across from each other. It’s also pretty common to see people turned to look over their shoulder, because we are all facing the screen in front of us, and not the world behind. This is the world we live in, at least for the length of time we are working in a database.

Working mostly from his corner desk by the windows, Joe Salrin quietly fields many data emergencies for both FundRaiser customers and staff. His primary job is data conversion – moving data out of other brands of software and into FundRaiser for new customers. He is also the ‘go-to’ person for difficult, quirky, or just plain obstinate problems that involve technology and data at our office.

I asked him to tell me what he does in a normal day, and he laughed. “There is no normal day,” he answered. “Normal is whatever happens.

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.

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.

It's scorching hot here in the Southwest (training office is in Arizona), and the monsoon rains just haven't been as heavy or as often as we'd like to cool things down or build the water table up.  This is the time of the year when many of us become lethargic and just don't want to do much more than sit and think.  And I was thinking of the impending deadline most all of our users have in the near future.  It's just around the corner:  the deadline for getting the best upgrade pricing for Client / Server.  And some folks may be wondering how much change this will make in their use of the program.  Most of us are used to routines in entering data, creating reports, sending thank you letters, and so on, and ANY change can be a bit intimidating.

How much will you need to re-learn once you've upgraded to the Client / Server version?NOTHING.

I am going to go out on a limb here--  I believe that in order to enjoy life you have to really get into it, and sometimes that includes taking risks. If you are like me,  you may like to take them slowly, a step at a time, with thoughtful pauses. Or you may just sprint ahead.

One way or another, you may find yourself out on the proverbial limb: even though it is holding you up at the moment, you aren't quite sure if it will continue to hold you, or where the next step is.