Fundraising CRM News from DonorPerfect

Feeling Green…

August 22nd, 2010
BAD LIGHTBULBS

33 Energy Sucking Flood Lights

What you see to the left are 33 bulbs that on average consume 120 Watts as a standard incandescent bulb.  These were mostly in the basement and the first floor of our recent new house we just moved into.

The message?  I was completely amazed that replacing these with Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) reduced the power consumption by 700%.  Literally, though they cost $350 to replace (because they require  ‘dimmer’ compatible bulbs, you can save more by replacing the actual switches), they will save us $1200+ / year. I break even in 4 months.

During the time that we have moved, I gave a lot away on Craigslist (boxes, couches and other things left by the owner, etc.), but these bulbs- though ‘worth’ $100- are being recycled to be never used again.

I know a lot of people read this blog – including many competitors- so let’s do our part and save the planet.  It’s easy and we’re all on the same team.


Park City, Mobile Giving, and Surprising Facebook Test…

August 3rd, 2010

Park City, Utah in Summer

The summer is flying by as it always does around here- in the fundraising software world, summer is the season of data conversions and implementations as organizations improve their infrastructure to prepare themselves for the fall fundraising season.

This summer has been no exception- and we easily broke our record for number of installations from last year.  I’d like to think it has something to do with our easy to use software, but in reality, it really boils down to the great people we have in our client support services.  These are the folks that make sure your LYBUNTS and SYBUNTS (oh my!) work correctly and that your incoming data is perfectly transferred into DonorPerfect.

I did have some time to attend the Giving Institute Summer Symposium in Park City, Utah in the middle of July.  Park City in July is stunningly beautiful, and I regret I didn’t have more time to explore the outdoors as the sessions were simply too good to pass up.  Sessions included the future of giving (especially related to capital campaigns), as well as the the role that technology plays in developing fundraising techniques.  The discussion was spirited and genuine, and it was a unique experience I will not soon forget.

One of the discussion topics focused on Mobile Giving.  As I mentioned in my post from February, Mobile Giving (in it’s current incarnation) should really only be pursued by a select few organizations.  My beliefs were confirmed by the following blog post from Raymund Flandez who said:

Indeed, the National Wildlife Federation, which is running a mobile-giving campaign for animals affected by the Gulf oil spill, has recently pulled its text-to-donate message from its Web site. The reason? The Reston, Va., conservation group wants visitors to donate more — and not think that a $10 text gift is all they needed to give, officials say.

Clearly, if an organization as large as the NWF is having mixed results with mobile giving, then other organizations should be very careful before they dive in the same waters.

………

Recently, I also had an opportunity to raise funds for an organization I support, called Salute, Org. I blogged about it last month, and you can reach my personal fundraising page here:  http://pcc2.donorpages.com/pcc3/jp2/.

Certainly, we’re encouraging everyone to use their social networks as much as possible – including Facebook and Twitter- but we knew that the number one tool to raise money would just be email.  However, I decided to run a very non-scientific test, and wanted to see how many donations came from my Facebook posts, or from sending email.

The result?  It’s not even a contest.  Despite having 62 friends (and I have met all of them at one point or another), I have received exactly 7 things from these friends:

Zero, Zip, Natta, Nothing, Null, Nill, and Zilch.

Either I don’t have enough friends or they don’t have any money- either way it’s not good.  Luckily, I sent out two email blasts to my address book (about 75 addresses), and received 8 donations totaling $530.00.  I expect to raise another $300- will any of it be through Facebook?  At this point, I really doubt it.  What’s the lesson?  Email works.  It’s powerful and it’s much more meaningful than a status update on Facebook.  People receiving email eventually have to respond (especially when you keep pestering them!), while on Facebook, it’s normal behavior to ignore status updates.

We’re actually in the process of embedding tracking widgets for incoming donations via Facebook.  While I’m certain we are receiving at least some donations through Facebook, my gut is telling me it’s very few.  For the vast majority of people, sending email will be the superior solicitation method for a long, long time.


Update…

June 1st, 2010

It’s been quite a while since I last blogged- and this time I have some really good excuses:

  1. We upgraded from Blogger.  Apparently, our company was part of the small group of users that utilized FTP uploads to automatically connect our website with Blogger.  Call it early adoptercitis.  By being an early adopter, we started using some features that the rest of the world didn’t need years later.  Therefore, Google eliminated them and us.  But WordPress does the same thing, and the automatic import from Blogger was seamless.
  2. I’m currently running a social fundraising event.  It’s called the “Player’s Charity Championship”, and is based on a virtual golf tournament.  It revolves around a group of 30 and 40 something year old guys across the country who haven’t quite grown out of some of our hobbies, so we justify getting together by raising a ton of money for charity.  Sounds like a good excuse, eh?  In fact, why not donate to our cause?  We’re helping our service men and women by helping those that run into financial distress when they return from their deployments.  Click here to get to my donation page and read more about it.  (I’m using – naturally- DonorPerfect and DonorPages to manage the event- check it out!)
  3. If you haven’t noticed, we changed our DonorPerfect Online Fundraising Software pricing structure.  Times have changed, and it’s clear organizations are more tech savvy and also desire more transparency.  In addition, we’ve added a lot of value to our software by eliminating add-on’s and bundling the most frequently used features together in a way that makes sense for small, medium, and large organizations.  We’re going back to our roots of offering comprehensive software, so that organizations should not feel penalized if they want to use new features.
  4. We partnered with Constant Contact (CTCT), and we are leading the way in advanced email integration among all of their partners.  This way, our customers get the best of both worlds- Awesome CRM within DonorPerfect, and superior Email Management within Constant Contact- all offered seamlessly within DonorPerfect.  In fact, we even expanded some of their capabilities, such as unlimited campaign tracking that otherwise expired after 90 days.

Yes, it’s pretty exciting around here- stay tuned as always!


The Truth about Email Usage for Nonprofits

March 16th, 2010


It seems painfully clear that nonprofit organizations should use email as a way to communicate to their donors, right? So what would you guess is the percentage that nonprofits primarily use email to communicate to their constituents? 75%? 50%? 20%? (Or if you are in the more optimistic crowd, 95%?)

The fact of the matter is that it’s tiny. Our own research suggests that only 10-20% of non profits track emails for their donors on any regular basis. Most non profits only use email for their core constituents – staff, board members, and volunteers. Donors are entirely a separate animal.

If I were to guess, the average email list for an average small nonprofit would be ~1000 for an active email organization (ones in the 10-20% category above).

The real problem facing nonprofits is actually not sending email, it’s collecting email addresses AND keeping them up to date. That’s hard and takes real effort – staff resources – which most people think would be better if directed to mission related activities (though one could certainly argue that collecting email addresses for communication purposes is VERY mission related).

What’s your experience? Does your non profit primarily use email to reach out to ALL of their constituents or just a fraction?


Fundraising IS Rocket Science…

February 1st, 2010


My last blog post seemed to generate a lot of buzz (well, not in the comments yet) but in the emails I received from some other fundraising industry insiders.

Though we are in challenging times, it’s important to stay focused on the bigger picture. At DonorPerfect, we’re focusing our energy helping our clients retain the donors that they have. While average donation amounts are declining, it’s critical to keep and retain donors for the long term.

As a result, as a company we’ve seen a great increase in business in the last part of the year as nonprofits are struggling with ways to raise funds or simply keep their funding the same. After all, while the results were down across the spectrum, there was still a large group – 40% – that actually grew their fundraising revenue last year.

Fundraising is hard. It really is rocket science. You would never try to build a rocket ship without the right tools and materials, so why limp along with the equivalent of hammer and chisel with Excel or Microsoft Access? It doesn’t make sense.

In other news, my partner and colleague, Doug Schoenberg, recently blogged how cell phone fundraising is affecting the Haiti relief efforts.

Overall, I think cell phone fundraising is great – for the right organization. Unfortunately, people may jump to the conclusion that they need to start fundraising via cell phones, when in reality their chances of success are actually quite small.

Consider this:

The maximum cell phone donation is $10. The average online gift is $120.00. That means you roughly need 12 times (1,200%!) more donors to give via cell phone simply to make up the huge loss in the average donation amount. Can you realistically see your donor base grow 12 times? It’s not likely. Your resources will be more effective if applied elsewhere in your organization.

Before people start drinking from the mobile giving kool-aid drinking fountain, they really need to make sure they have their best practices established. Creating and maintaining a direct mail program, on-line giving, major donors, newsletters, annual program, special events, capital campaigns, etc., all take a good deal of time and effort. To date, all of these fundraising techniques will be much more effective than mobile giving and should be considered first and foremost as the best bang for your buck.


2010 – Light at the End of the Tunnel?

January 20th, 2010


Now that 2009 is in the books and our clients have had a chance to enter all of their data for December, it’s time to review the fundraising results for the year. It’s not pretty.

2009 will likely be the worst year-over-year performance in the non-profit sector since 1956- the year the Giving USA Foundation first began publishing annual reports of philanthropy in the USA.

Because DonorPerfect is a SaaS (Software as a Service) based CRM fundraising software solution, we are able to aggregate the fundraising results of all of our clients. In a sample size of 468 clients that have been using our software for at least 3 years, giving in 2009 dropped 10.77% vs. 2008.*

The bad news doesn’t stop there unfortunately- the average gift for this same group of clients dropped from $530.68 in 2008 to $475.94 in 2009, a 10.3% decline. (Note: this includes all gifts- direct mail, major donors, pledge payments, on-line, etc.) The average on-line gift amount collected through our web based giving solutions, WebLink and DonorPages, also declined 12.3%, from $139.17 in 2008 to $122.12 in 2009.

However, as this post is titled, there is some good news, and it could be the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the holiday period (November and December 2009), giving actually increased by 2% over the same period in 2008. In addition, on-line giving increased nearly 65% for all of 2009 vs. 2008.

What does all of this mean?

First of all, if you are in the group that raised more in 2009 vs. 2008 (and that is still nearly40% of you) – congratulations! You are well ahead of your peers. If you dropped some but less than 10%, you’re still doing well compared to the average. Finally, if you dropped more than 11%, now is not the time to panic. Similar to all financial trends, fundraising goes in cycles, and this one is no different.

The key to maintaining your results is still the same this year as in the past- retain, retain, and retain your donors. One of the worst things to do is to ‘give your donors a rest’ or cut your fundraising expenses. Such thinking will quickly turn loyal donors into lapsed donors, and the end result will be MUCH less revenue, especially now since you need it the most! Worse, your results will geometrically suffer in the coming months as donors who are ‘resting’ lose interest in your organization and give elsewhere.

So, stick to the fundamentals, and maintain your mailing/solicitation frequency. The giving climate will turn around and things will get better- it’s inevitable!

* Note: Results based on a sample size of 468 clients using DonorPerfect Online for at least 3 years, raising at least $10,000/year/client. Total raised was $763,047,713.86 in 2008 vs. $688,871,107.30 in 2009 , or a 10.77% decline in fundraising gifts. Totals include all payments and gifts-in-kind.


Update! New Website, New Version!

November 19th, 2009


If you’re reading this now, then chances are you took notice of our brand new website launch!!!

While we’ve always been proud of the information we provided on fundraising software on our old website, it was clear that we needed to redo everything and give DonorPerfect a new look moving forward.

The website is part of a new wave in design for DonorPerfect. For the past 25 years, we want to make sure that ALL of our software, including our website, takes the latest and greatest technology to make it easier for our clients to fulfill their mission. The website and our new client area will make it easy for non profit organizations to understand and realize the benefits of professional fundraising software.

But we’re not just talking about our web site either! Several weeks ago we launched our latest release of DonorPerfect Online! Updated with a completely new look and feel, DonorPerfect Online has now set the standard for what easy to use online fundraising software should look like. Personally, I think it makes Apple look uncool, but I’ll plainly admit I’m a bit prejudice and you can judge for yourself:


The DonorPerfect Online Dashboard. Menu items are now organized at the
top of the screen, and client resources are available in the lower left.

A Sample Constituent/Donor record. Actions, such as attaching a file or viewing an
information sheet are logically grouped together at the top of the screen.

Whether or not it’s ‘Apple’ cool, I think it’s crystal clear that the new version and new website will make it easier for non profit organizations to raise more money and save valuable time to focus on their mission.

If you haven’t seen the new version, try DonorPerfect today!


NCDC, Inc. 500

September 25th, 2009


The summer goes by pretty quickly, and with Fall just around the corner, the start of fundraising conference season kicks in again.

This season we kicked it off with another visit to the National Catholic Development Conference, held in Crystal City, VA. The conference was very well attended, and it was great to see everyone again and also some new faces.

As you may have been noticing on the recent Twitter feed, we’ll be announcing some news- and we were able to share that with the attendees at this year’s conference. October 6th is the date, and the newest release of DonorPerfect Online Fundraising Software (Fall 2009) will likely turn out to be our largest ever! Look for a post soon with screen shots as we get closer to the date.

I also had the opportunity to attend the Inc. 500 conference held just a couple of days later. This conference attracted some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs, and it also wasn’t surprising that philanthropy was on quite a few agendas. I think the key points about building successful companies and organizations really centered on two key concepts- persistence and execution. (It also didn’t hurt to know a few other successful people as well, of course)

Finally, I had some interesting travel experiences as well. On my ride back to Philadelphia, the train was delayed for security reasons. Why? Because Vice President Joe Biden rides Amtrak. Not sure where he is though- I didn’t see him except for the extra security in place.


New Partnership…

July 31st, 2009

What happens when you combine the good work of two fundraising software companies with the same philosophies?

You get the new DonorPerfectLifeLine partnership, making it easy for LifeLine users, who need on-line access to their data, convert to DonorPerfect Online.

It all started several years ago, when we were converting a client from LifeLine to DonorPerfect. We were having trouble with the data extraction, so we thought a call to LifeLine was in order.

To our pleasant surprise, not only did we receive the help we needed, but also affirmation from LifeLine that they knew they were a success when someone outgrew their program!

Flash forward a couple of years, and I reached out to the CEO of LifeLine, Barry Genzlinger, to see if it makes sense for us to work together. Lifeline has always been a good solution for small non-profits, but if they wanted web-access or other features (like online donations or QuickBooks Accounting integration), what would they do?

In just a few short months, we worked out an agreement whereby LifeLine customers would be able to convert to DonorPerfect Online with no data transfer fees. This is quite valuable, as previous data conversions from LifeLine cost anywhere from $500 to as much as $4000, depending on the size of the database and the usage of the system. Because of the partnership, this fee can be eliminated, making it easier and more cost effective for LifeLine clients to convert to DonorPerfect Online.

We’re proud to partner ourselves with Barry and all of LifeLine- I really believe both companies are the best at delivering comprehensive software at the best value for our respective segments of the non-profit industry. Working with Barry was delightful- if you ever get up to New Hampshire, near Lake Sunapee, let Barry know! I’m sure he’ll be glad to meet you!

Random Ramblings…

July 28th, 2009


Summer’s here and like most everyone else, I’ve been busy and neglecting certain things- hmmm, like this blog. I think my own advice from several posts ago suggested that a good blog strategy is not necessarily the frequency of communication but the predictability of it.

Unfortunately, I’ve been unpredictable lately.

I have only a few excuses- summer being one of them- and apparently the number of ‘tweets’ I send from watching the Phillies (Yes, I am a die hard Phillies fan).

So here’s a few random thoughts I wanted to share:

Deceptive Credit Card Sweepstakes.

On the radio the other day, I heard that TD Bank (a major banking institution here in the NorthEast) is offering a summer sweepstakes whereby their Debit cardholders can win a prize if they ’swipe and sign’ instead of entering in their PIN number when making a transaction.

Why is TD Bank encouraging their customers to sign a receipt instead of using their PIN? Simple. Just follow the money. By classifying the transaction as a VISA/MC purchase, TD Bank (or their affiliates) can charge more than if the transaction is using a PIN number. That is, they can charge the merchant/business 3% instead of 1% or even less. That adds up- and quickly. No wonder TD Bank is willing to give away $50,000 to make it happen but the end result is that everyone else loses. By encouraging these transactions, businesses have to pay more in fees which inevitably leads to higher prices which hurts everyone. So the advice of the day? If you are going to use a Debit card, try to use your PIN. You save the merchant money which will be passed onto you in the future in the form of lower prices.

For non-profits, it works the same way. If your organization has the capability to process Debit cards with a PIN, or better and you can use ACH (Checking/Saving Account info)- you can save your organization a lot of dough (and you don’t have to win a ridiculous sweepstakes to get it).

DonorPerfect Roadmap Roadshow

Tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll be presenting the DonorPerfect Roadmap Roadshow (TM). Nearly a thousand clients have already signed up but it’s not too late! Check your email for the invitation or login to your client account for more information. This 45 minute presentation will highlight our direction for DonorPerfect and outline plans for our impending release of DonorPerfect.NExT- scheduled for October 6, 2009!

Social Network Fundraising

As many of you know, we’ve been offering a Social Network Fundraising solution for over a year now. Called DonorPages, this groundbreaking solution makes it easy to enable your constituents to raise money on your behalf. We’ve got a ton of success stories, and with that success we recently promoted Rob Strickler to manage the division. Rob just launched his blog here, so take a look- DonorPages is simple the most powerful, easiest and cost effective solution in the marketplace!


Free Fundraising Software Demo Link