ROADMAP

This page is intended to be a resource for FundRaiser customers and interested parties to learn more about what is coming for the FundRaiser Family of products. This is not a technical document and will be a very high level view of what we are working on. Rarely will we include timelines or release dates until we are very close to release. It is simply meant as a resource for those of you who would like to know what will the future holds for your software. If you have questions about what you read here, we encourage you to give us a call - we love to talk about what we're working on! With that said, we hope you are as excited about the future of FundRaiser as we are.

MILESTONE 1: AN UPDATED FUNDRAISER

It is not an understatement to say that the current FundRaiser interface isn't a thing of beauty. It is bulky and outdated and needs attention. Over the years, as new features have been added, the interface has become busier with a whole host of buttons, tabs, and fields. We get it - it's time for a facelift and we're on it. We are working to modernize the interface with a combination of new skins for FundRaiser, which will change the look and feel of the tabs and buttons, as well as a complete reorganization of the interface and the way that you, the user, will interact with the software. A couple of things to look forward to are:

• A more streamlined way to navigate through the database by moving, re-imagining, and/or removing existing tabs
• Updated processes for adding, removing or editing information
• More visual graphs and live reports for common information
• A new profile view with collapsible fields containing the most useful information about your donors

But worry not - we are leaving a function in FundRaiser that will allow you to revert to the current interface if you simply prefer things as they are. This is big and we think you're going to love it!

MILESTONE 2: COMPARTMENTS FOR FUNDRAISER

Compartments are a way for organizations to isolate certain sets of data - much like Groupings, except that the data in Compartments is completely separate. This will greatly enhance the capability of organizations to manage separate datasets. It can be used to:

• Separate Volunteers from the rest of the contacts in FundRaiser
• Manage entirely different groups of donors, like major donors who are only interested in donating when there is a Capital Campaign, for example
• Manage data for different organizations. This will be useful for consultants and fundraising professionals who manage the development work of multiple organizations
• Manage data for different regions. Many organizations work in multiple regions and wish to keep the donors separate

Compartments will be a very powerful extension to FundRaiser's existing capabilities.

MILESTONE 3: INTEGRATION WITH MORE THIRD PARTY APPS

You've been asking for integration with other programs like ConstantContact, and we are about to deliver. Our developers are working to boost our API so that FundRaiser can seamlessly integrate with more third party products. This will greatly expand the functionality of the software and allow you to do more with your data. With an improved API, it will be possible to integrate with products such as ConstantContact, wealth mining software, online event platforms, peer-to-peer fundraising, and more.

Explore Features

{slide=Contact & Donor Management}

Easily track your donors, prospects, and contacts in a single set of intuitive screens.

• Store and manage an unlimited number of records
• Keep information at your fingertips with extensive donor fields for contact information, contact preferences, codes, employer, birthdays, notes, etc.
• Record multiple addresses
• Search and sort quickly and easily
• Use advanced filtering to select desired records
• Control access to specific features with complete password protection

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Monitor donations and track the effectiveness of your appeals, events and offers.

• Store unlimited donations and notes
• Manage unlimited donations
• Automatically generate thank-you letters from templates that you design or modify
• Instantly see totals for each giving source
• Conduct extensive reporting on donation demographics

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Built-in email and word processing systems make it easy to manage and record all donor correspondence from within FundRaiser.

• Print and email letters in the same operation
• Incorporate merged data into both printed letters and emails
• Choose from a variety of customized letter templates
• Merge any field or common summarized information into your correspondence

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Segment donors using Groupings for targeted mailings. Useful for reports, and for viewing, editing or exporting select portions of your donor list.

• Simplify complex queries with form-based criteria – no knowledge of SQL language needed
• Define criteria based on virtually any data
• Use And/Or/Not combinations of criteria to include or exclude data
• Save, mark, update, refresh, delete, combine or archive Groupings

{/slide}{slide=Reports}

Generate a full range of analytical reports to understand all the donor management activities you perform with FundRaiser. Can also be exported to Microsoft® Excel, HTML, RTF (Rich Text Format) and other popular formats.

• Multiple donation and donor reports
• Analysis reports
• Correspondence reports
• Solicitation and appeals reports

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Duplicate Checking

Automatically checks for duplicate entries by name, as well as by address. After-the-fact merging of duplicates is especially useful after importing.

Export

Export data from FundRaiser to most other programs, including common database and spreadsheet applications; or to send to mailing houses for processing.

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Import

Import your current database, as well as data you receive from others. (We also have data conversion specialists who handle complex or unusual data. Ask your salesperson for details.)

• Import donor demographics like names, addresses, phone numbers and notes from other programs, including Microsoft® Excel and Access
• Import data with ease from other FundRaiser programs

Backup

Insure that your data is always safe with automatic backup.

• Schedule backup for a pre-set time every day
• Specify location for storage of the backup
• Restore to any FundRaiser installation

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Detailed Comparison Chart

Calculating Event ROI with FundRaiser

by Larry Weaver

What is ROI? Why do we need it? How do we get it? Return On Investment (ROI) is simply a mathematical statement that tells us how much money we got back from an event when compared to how much we spent on the event. It’s not the whole picture of an event, by any means, but it does tell us, dollar for dollar, how we increased our money on a particular event. Because some events will be held as much to increase the number of donors as to raise money, it’s important to understand that ROI is all about the money, not acquisition or retention of donors, nor upgrading donors to new levels, so it is not always a good indicator of whether or not an event was successful in any broader sense.

When an event is held primarily as a fund raiser, it’s a good idea to be able to figure out both “projected” ROI (before you commit to the event) as well as a post-event evaluation of “actual” ROI. Before the event, it’s good to know if there is any chance it will be profitable, but there are a lot of unknowns, like how many will attend, how many who attend will give, how much the average gift might be, and other aspects, like the cost of the event in dollars and time.

In FundRaiser Professional, the Campaign Management section allows you to plug in a single expense figure (overall cost of the event) so that the program can then figure out ROI for the event. In FundRaiser Select, you can manually come to the same figures, as long as you know the cost of the event. With Professional, you use the Campaign Management section to identify people who will be attending, keep track of attendance and gifts, and more. Then, at any time, you can print out various reports about the event, some of which will include the ROI figures.

If you’ve had similar events in the past, and used FundRaiser to record gifts coded specifically for the events, it will be fairly easy, even with Select, to do a report based on the time period and gift code(s) to see how many people gave and what was given. Then some hand-calculations will give you other numbers, like the average gift per person, for instance. 

The main gift code used to identify the event in FundRaiser is the Motivation Code. It might be used “generically” for recurring events, such as the Annual Spaghetti Dinner, or it could be used specifically for each event, such as the 2008 Annual Spaghetti Dinner. Either way works, as long as you remain consistent with that event. If it’s generically identified, then reports for a specific year will need to include a date range when you are looking for just that year’s figures. With specific codes, each event is kept separate and can be easily compared, especially with the Donation/Deposit report variation called “Summary Report”. This report breaks down all giving during the time period specified into all the different codes, including the Motivation Code.

The Summary Report will also break down gifts based on whether they were “In Kind” or “Monetary”, as well as showing not just the amount given, but the number of gifts involved and the number of donors involved. The latter is important for accurately assessing the event, too, as the “cost per donor” and “cost per gift” will be different if you have donors who gave multiple times for a single event. You might want to keep track of the ratio of the number of people invited vs. the number who attended, as well. If you’ve sent invitations to a particular Grouping of folks, or to multiple groupings, you can keep track of those numbers, or assign everyone invited a category code (en mass, through the Groupings menu) so that you can gather them all together at some time in the future.

Have you seen the pattern here? It is that the real key to coming up with good pre- and post-event figures, including ROI, is consistent coding, both people and gifts. If you want more information on coding, consider attending a live webinar.  Sign up on the training calendar on our website.

Larry Weaver is the FundRaiser Training Manager. He's worked in and around computers since the working as a Navy sonar technician in the late 1960's. His passion is operations, whether operating sonar gear, computers, guitars, motorcycles, or any other motorized vehicle. He's applied his  passion to FundRaiser's Training department, holding live web training sessions and recording training CD's on various FundRaiser Software related topics.

Resources

Case Study: Our Lady of the Holy Spirit

Campaign Management Console in FundRaiser