FundRaiser Blog

Many of our users have expressed a desire to learn but have difficulty taking time away from other important duties, but I'd like to encourage each of you to learn as much as you can about the program, even if it means taking a bit of time away from something else to do it.  In the long run, time spent early on learning the software will be regained many times over by avoiding simple time-wasting pitfalls later on.  Some of you might think, as I did about music notation, "well, I know just enough to do what I have to do, so I'll leave the rest for later”, not realizing how much easier your fund-raising life might be with just a bit more knowledge.

One girl’s chore is another girl’s pleasure… it’s really just a matter of perspective. I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. We recently moved to a tiny cottage less than three blocks from the FundRaiser office. It actually takes me less time to walk to work now than it does to drive. Being primarily a country girl, I’ve never before had this luxury of being able to walk to where I need to be. There’s amazing freedom in knowing I don’t have to fret about a three cent gasoline price hike. 

Economics aside, there’s another joy in walking that I never imagined. I see things in a different way. This morning I noticed the tiny oak leaves spreading in the sun over the alley, each one a perfect miniature of its grown-up self, untouched by bug or storm. This afternoon I walked through nodding pallid globes, all that is left of this morning’s bold yellow dandelions, and watched as they released their feathery children into the world. I heard the musical drone of honeybees as they ambled among the fragrant blooming lilac branches. Had I been in my car, I would have missed all of this.

Just as it took a change in my routine for me to realize I was missing so much, it is very easy to “get in a rut” in how you do things in your FundRaiser database.

Calvin Bader of WJIE  loves the FundRaiser custom page. In the WJIE case study, he mentions how much simpler their online fundraising drives have been as a result. This article will help familiarize you with it’s intended design and purpose.

First of all, let me point out that, originally, the Custom Page was created in order to allow you to put all of the data fields YOU consider important to view at a single glance on a single page. This, as Calvin points out, prevents you from having to switch from tab to tab looking for the information you consider pertinent.  Calvin has taken it a step further, by using it as a single page into which WJIE volunteers can INPUT information, rather than simply viewing it, but this can have certain difficulties, as I will explain....

We’ve had a few days of gentle rain, slowly soaking our rocky Ozark soil to the brim. Water rushes merrily in all the little wet weather streams that chuckle downhill in frothy exuberance. A golden sun blazed forth this morning among billowing clouds and the muted colors of the past few days were transformed into vibrant greens glittering with sparkling jewels of dew.

Everything is growing by leaps and bounds now. The wooly sage colored leaves and tiny purple flowers of henbit push brazenly toward the sun while vivid purple violets bow modestly amid their leafy rosettes. I cringe at mowing such lovely plants, but something must be done to keep them in check lest they take over the entire lawn and push out their more timid cousins.

Since this is the final week of Spring Cleaning, I thought a quick lesson on “weeding” out your old Codes would be in order. Codes, especially Category Codes, can certainly grow like weeds in your database obscuring the codes you use frequently and making it time consuming to create reports.

The weather has been delightful this week, certainly more like June than March in the Ozarks. Warm fragrant days are interposed with nights of crashing thunderstorms and fresh rain. Plants are pushing through the rocky soil with wild abandon. The blooming pear trees rain white petals and reveal slender branches clad in delicate spring green. A few intrepid butterflies flit here and there among the wildflowers.

All this loveliness is urging me to plunge in to my usual spring planting frenzy. I always plant way more than I need while in the throes of spring fever. All the work and weeding of summer never seems to cross my mind as I decide I can certainly use ten more tomato plants and three kinds of pumpkins. All those seedlings are so small and pretty, somehow I can’t seem to remember just how large they get later. Of course this inexorably ends with crowded garden beds and less yield from all the plants unless I ruthlessly thin them so those that are left can get all the attention they need.

Databases are kind of like gardens that way. It is easy for them to get overcrowded with old or outdated Donor records. This makes it cumbersome and takes your attention away from your active donors. Therefore our Spring Cleaning task for this week is to find and delete all those old, unproductive records. 

While many of you may still be caught in the icy grip of Old Man Winter, Spring has shown her gentle face in the Ozarks. Trees are blossoming in frothy white and stunning maroon. The undergrowth and thickets sport wisps of tender green. Daffodils and crocus echo the warm yellow sunshine while tiny blue wildflowers lay across the ground like little snips of sky.

Spring has always been a time of cleaning and renewal for me. One of my fondest childhood memories is that the first nice weekend in spring we washed all of the winter-stale bedding and hung it outside in the fresh breeze. That first night of snuggling in crisp sheets and inhaling the sweet smell of outdoors was a real treat!

Spring is also a good time to clean out your FundRaiser Database, getting it ready for all the events and fundraisers that will be taking place over the rest of the year. So I am dedicating the month of March as FundRaiser Spring Cleaning Month and will have a project each week to help your database work more smoothly and be easier to use.

Joshua and I have just returned from our second year attending and exhibiting at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Nashville, TN, and what a year it was! It was very inspiring to be surrounded by so many passionate and engaged community leaders! I have returned feeling refreshed, invigorated, and excited about what the future holds for us. I found myself thinking over and over, as I met some of the most amazing people, "This is what it's all about. This is why we do this."

We really enjoyed the opportunity to meet with some of our new customers from last year, as well as customers who have been using FundRaiser for years. At one point, Joe Emert and his lovely wife, Jenny (both pictured at right, along with myself), from Life Radio Ministries were chatting with us, when Eric Jingst and Aaron Darr from WLMB-TV40 walked up. Joe said he remembered reading their recent Case Study (published in February's newsletter) that they were using some parts of FundRaiser which he hadn't explored yet, and he'd like to talk with them about that some more to see if it could work for his organization. 

What does the winning of broadcast awards have to do with donor management software? More than you might think!WLMB-TV40 has been recognized for the excellence of its broadcasting with many awards, including 4 time winner of TV Station of the Year by NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) and 7 time winner of the Peoples Choice Award. Visible in their programming is a deep understanding of their audience, and this is where FundRaiser comes in...

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We are going to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention Feb 18 - 21, just a little over a week from now! We had a wonderful time last year; it was so invigorating and inspiring to be surrounded by passionate, engaged nonprofit leaders. We enjoyed so much having the opportunity to meet with some of our clients there, and we hope to connect with more of you this year, too. We'll be at Booth #463, and will be looking for you!

Yesterday, I heard a great simple idea on how to target newsletters to different segments of your mailing list. If you are sending out an email newsletter to your donors, you can easily customize that content to your donors' specific interests with a little reformatting.You are probably already including a variety of articles in order to appeal to a variety of interests among your donors. So, to help them connect to the specific content that interests them:

We're wishing smooth sailing at this busy time of year! How are things going with producing tax summary letters? If you run into questions about using FundRaiser, please contact us for help !    

Step One... Read More

This year at the FundRaiser Christmas party, we all seemed to be in a mellow mood... except occasionally our office cat, Smudge (more on that later). James Ware (in photo at left), our main sales rep, brought a pitcher of margaritas, and it is possible that this helped, but at least it didn't hurt. No dancing on the tables or other classic 'office party' humiliations. I'd say we enjoy being together, and the Mexican food everyone brought helped, too. I'm not sure it all classified as strictly Mexican, but it did classify as good and even interesting. Sherry, who works in FundRaiser Tech Support, brought cheese cake made from the milk of the goats she raises. If you've never tried her goat milk cheesecake, then don't wrinkle your nose... it is excellent.

Joe Salrin (in photo at right) spent the time relaxing from his work doing data conversion at FundRaiser. If you ever need to move your data from a previous program into FundRaiser, Joe is the one that you talk to.

Life Radio Ministries needed to update their donor management software. "We were using something that had served us well enough over the years, but it was becoming extremely expensive to maintain, as well as being outdated. We decided to look for something that was more reasonably priced and which had stayed up with technology," says Joe Emert, General Manager of Life Radio Ministries.He was looking for features that allow him to create a personal, 'high touch' connection with donors...Read more ...

Last week, a friend of mine was complaining about people who ask to 'friend' her on Facebook and don't bother to add a personal note to their request. Reading this, I was aware of an uncomfortable feeling, because I've gotten pretty casual about this myself, although I really enjoy getting a little note myself. It only takes a few words to let me know that the person values the connection they are asking for.That's the topic of a new FundRaiser case study. In it, Joe Emert of Life Radio Ministries reminds us of the need for staying human in our communications with donors.

Last week, a friend of mine was complaining about people who ask to 'friend' her on Facebook and don't bother to add a personal note to their request. Reading this, I was aware of an uncomfortable feeling, because I've gotten pretty casual about this myself, although I really enjoy getting a little note myself. It only takes a few words to let me know that the person values the connection they are asking for.That's the topic of a new FundRaiser case study. In it, Joe Emert of Life Radio Ministries reminds us of the need for staying human in our communications with donors.

I was recently asked what my greatest technology challenge was, during an interview for TechSoup . For me, it's keeping up with changes. Sometimes you can participate those changes directly, for instance by giving input to us here at FundRaiser that could influence how we develop the software. Other times, you may not have much say about the a change, but you can choose your attitude and adjustment to it, for instance the growing importance of online fundraising, highlighted in our case study with Sacred Heart Radio this month.     A pleasant change at the FundRaiser office is the addition of Jonathan Smith to the FundRaiser tech support team. He joined us in August. He has previously worked in internet technology for a large phone company, and more recently as a computer instructor for Missouri State University.

Today I was looking through my emails and I noticed that I have quite a few from customers who want me to update their contact information for billing  purposes in our database. I’m happy to do this, of course, but I also wanted to  point out a way that you, as a FundRaiser customer, can control your own contact information.  Accessing this information through our Customer Portal is just for you!

You can log in, set up multiple users, view free training videos, review help technical support help documents and interact with other users and the FundRaiser staff through the Support Forum.  Make sure you contact our Technical Support staff to obtain your username or you can reset your password on your own from the login page.