Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sound the Alarm?
As it does every year, the Giving USA Foundation released its annual study of giving in the USA, and it reported charitable giving dropped 2% from 2007 to 2008. Here's a Washington Post article, along with the actual press release. Though a drop of 2% sounds reasonable considering our country's current economic turmoil, the drop could actually become much worse in 2009- read on if you dare!
Back in December of 2008, I blogged about our analysis that showed DonorPerfect clients donations were actually up 4% in the preceding 12 months (October 2007-October 2008). Using the same data analysis technique and aggregating our clients' results, we now show that overall giving for DonorPerfect clients for the entire calendar year of 2008 vs. 2007 remained relatively flat, increasing .5% (the mean result was -.8%). Note that this is higher than the Giving USA data, and it’s consistent with our multi-year analysis that shows DonorPerfect fundraising software clients improve their fundraising results by 1% to 2% above the national average of all non-profits.
Given that our clients were up 4% in the first 10 months of 2008, the flat results for the year mean that fundraising was down significantly in November and December. Our analysis shows a drop of nearly 18% in that two month period, an unprecedented decline.
What's does that mean for 2009? Well, our analysis for the 1st quarter shows an 8.4% decline vs the prior year. This shows improvement from the huge drop at the end of last year, but unless this improving trend continues, there is a good chance that overall giving in the USA in 2009 may be down more than 2008’s -2%, perhaps even as low as -10%!
The obvious fear is that cash-strapped nonprofits will need to reduce services at the very time when they will be needed most.
The good news is that this does not have to be a foregone conclusion. After all, Americans are still some of the most generous people in the world. Our data shows that there are still many nonprofits that are maintaining – even growing their donation levels using DonorPerfect. Yes, it may be harder to reach your goals in 2009, but there are still many opportunities to reach out to supporters with a compelling message and achieve success.
Just tonight I came across this. It's certainly funny, and probably will work for them. (Heck, even this blog post will likely increase their traffic).
However, shouldn't this large company start reducing their inflated prices instead of spending their money on this????
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Data Hostage Crisis!
Nothing frustrates me more than when companies take advantage of their client's relationship to make it difficult for them to switch to another company. After all, needs change over time, and what may be best today may not be best tomorrow.
Example: Wireless Industry. For years, once you had a cellular telephone number, you could never change carriers/vendors unless you also changed your number. Of course, no one wanted to do that, because they didn't want to become disconnected from their social network. Luckily, the FCC enabled Wireless Local Number Portability, and now it's easy to switch carriers and keep your local number, though the carriers fought this tooth and nail!
What does this have to do with non profits and their data?
Many fundraising software companies go out of their way, on purpose, to make it extraordinarily difficult to switch to another software. Our industry is not immune- some vendors in the Health Care industry do the same thing, here, and here.
The easiest way to get your data out of ANY system, is to ask for a comma-delimited file, for each table in the system, with the field names in the first row. This allows anyone to open the files in something as basic as Excel or Microsoft Access, and see the data that they own. For example, in DonorPerfect fundraising software, you can always download your data in this format at any time- it's easy to do and does not cost anything extra.
However, in systems from some companies- it's impossible. In fact, the vendor actually goes out of their way to create a way where the download process is either complicated, impossible, or- worse- so complex that it takes someone with a graduate degree from both MIT and Harvard to decipher the data.
For example, in eTapestry, the only way to get gift, contacts, and other 'journal' information is to download one HUGE 'flat' file that contains all the records from these separate tables. The problem lies that the field names they provide do not match the actual data- they actual re-use field names and export different data in the fields based on the type of record!
For example, the field name maybe called "Gift Date" but for some records in the file it's actually the 'Contact Date'. This obtuse process makes it extremely difficult for any normal tech person to understand the data, and significantly increases any costs associated with moving from their system or even understanding what you own.
Worse, many times you can't even export the data at ALL because the system (being web-based) simply times out. To be candid, though, eTapestry is not alone in this area. Some vendors, such as PledgeMaker, charge at least $500 to export this simple format. Others, including Kintera, Convio, and SalesForce all time out if you export 'too much data'. Basically, you can try to export your records, but the system can't do it.
Their common solution? Try to separate the export process, starting with Last Names from A-C, then Names from D-G, etc. Or, export less fields, because more fields takes too long.
Is this a valid solution??!?!?
HECK NO!
Non-profits should be mad that they are taken advantage this way. If the tools provided by the vendor cannot download their data, in a reasonable time, then choose a different vendor. Giftworks, for example, stores their client's data in an easily accessible Microsoft Access database. Others that provide a simple export option include DonorQuest, DonorPro, Donor2, Exceed, MatchMaker, Sage 50, and LifeLine.
What's the lesson here? Change happens. Make sure that your non-profit is covered so that if (when) they do switch, you account for all of the hidden charges and fees in your evaluation. Look for secret 'gotchas!' like additional fees for exporting data or minimum contract lengths (in some contract, it's 5 years!) Never commit for more than 2.
After all, it's YOUR data. You should always be free to get it back since you owned it in the first place.
Monday, May 11, 2009
DonorPerfect is # 1
In a recent survey by Idealware, DonorPerfect had the most "Best Bets" and the most "Excellent" ratings- far more than any other fundraising software solution.
Now, for years, it's been difficult to objectively rate the different fundraising software solutions that are available on the marketplace. In the past, surveys have been attempted, but most of them were not independent at all (You had to pay to be included and/or the results were biased in many different ways (For example, a company having a response rate that is completely disproportionate to their actual market share typically means that the results were unduly influenced by that company- and surprise! it's always in their favor.)
Now, for the first time in my memory, an independent organization finally succeeded in the herculean task for evaluating the myriad choices that non profit organizations have when choosing fundraising software. The independent non-profit group Idealware evaluated 33 separate fundraising software solutions, and in the end DonorPerfect came out on top (by a landslide) for the most recommendations and the most 'Excellent' ratings in the survey.
We're proud of our showing and we believe these results reinforce our commitment to the non profit community to provide the best fundraising software that money can buy.
I'm also grateful for our dedicated team of developers, account managers, support personnel, trainers, and marketing pros- we have a great winning team and if you are a non profit organization looking for great software, please consider DonorPerfect.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Recipe for Fundraising Disaster...
What's the worst thing a non-profit organization can do to jeopardize it's long term fundraising success?
Stop fundraising.
Seems simple right? If you stop fundraising, you'll not only lose money now, but also lose future donors (and their future donation stream) not just once, but forever. After all, just run a recency report in DonorPerfect fundraising software and you will clearly see that the #1 reason why a donor gives again is directly related to the time since their last gift. That is, the longer the time length between today and their last gift, the less likely they will ever give again.
Yet I see organization after organization delaying or canceling their fundraising events. Why? Because they feel they need to give their donors a 'rest', likely because of the economy, and that the donors will be 'refreshed' if they wait.
My friends, that's not how it works. While it's true that some donors may respond favorably this way, you can't ignore statistics because the vast majority will not. Every day that goes by without a donation from your donors is another lost donor(s) that will not renew their giving.
Stick with your plan- keep fundraising. Even if the results are down year-over-year, you are still much better off by retaining donors so that they will give again, and again, and again, and again.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Update from AFP...
We've been very busy lately, with the new release of DonorPerfect Online and our continued concentration on releasing our product Roadmap to our clients (It won't be released on my blog- check your email soon for more information about our exciting developments).
We did have some time to video tape some happy clients in New Orleans. There's no picture with this blog posting- I don't think one is needed.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
New Spring 2009 DPO Release in time for AFP
It's that time of year again, and this year we're looking to make a big splash at the Association of Fundraising Professional's (AFP) annual 2009 International Conference, held this year in New Orleans, LA. We'll be hard to miss- we're sending a whole team of people in Blue and White DonorPerfect fundraising software shirts to help people understand why DonorPerfect continues to grow and is the leader for small, medium, and even larger non-profit organizations.
We'll also be introducing our latest upgrade, the Spring 2009 release of DonorPerfect Online. This new release is packed with enhancements, and we're automatically releasing this week to everyone on the DonorPerfect Online system. As always, upgrades are automatic and are included FREE as part of our ongoing service to our clients.
The major part of the upgrade will be the release of our new business rules module, called SmartActions. SmartActions allow any organization to create their own workflow rules based on changes or events that occur in the software or database.
Here's how it works:
SmartActions™
Overview The SmartActions module allows you to set up actions that your DonorPerfect Online system will carry out automatically when the specified "trigger" conditions are encountered. For example, if a gift of $500 or more is entered into DonorPerfect (the trigger), an email notification can be sent to the Development Director automatically and a call can be set up in the DPO Contact Manager (the actions). You can set up as many SmartActions as you would like. Create pop-up alerts and reminders, send emails, enter data into fields, launch websites – it’s all done automatically!
Benefits
Increase system configurability.
Save time by automating emails and other tasks.
Reduce the need for custom programming.
Run your nonprofit more efficiently.
Eliminate errors due to forgetfulness.
Improve effectiveness of new staff.
Features
Simple step-by-step wizard setup
Create Triggers when you open, create, edit, or save any of these record types:
Donor
Gift
Pledge
Contact
Other Info
Address record
Combine Triggers with filters to meet specific conditions.
SmartActions include the ability to:
Send email notifications to one or more staff.
Create a Contact or Other Info record.
Update a field.
Display a pop-up message.
Open a new browser window and display any web page or web site
All Actions can include merged fields for even greater flexibility!
We're really excited about this release and are looking forward to meeting all of our existing clients and meeting future ones. If you're an existing DonorPerfect client, stop on by to take a look! If you are new to DonorPerfect, we'd love to show you this great new feature and all of the other benefits of DonorPerfect that will make you raise more money and spend less time.
