Here’s a powerful story of a client and how on-line fundraising grows from year to year.

As I blogged about it last year, the Woody’s Circle of Care Foundation conducts an annual charity golf outing. Like last year, they used WebLink to collect registration fees and additional donations.

The difference was that this year, over 95% of the attendees registered on-line for the event vs. about 50% last year. In fact, only a few people paid on-site, which eliminated any resemblance of a registration line.

The benefits were many:

• Increased donations. Donors donated more when using a credit card.
• Eliminated donor frustration and enhanced donor convenience. Since money did not have to be collected on-site, donors were not waiting and having fun instead.
• Saved significant staff time. On-line registration saved significant hours of staff time as compared to just 2 years ago.
• Captured more prospects. Since all golfers registered online, their demographic and email information were captured for future solicitations.

We’re signing up dozens of WebLink clients a month- are you ready to become the next success story? Click here to find out how.

You may have seen some of the following legendary sports stars on TV today:

Andre Agassi
Muhammad Ali
Lance Armstrong
Warrick Dunn
Jeff Gordon
Mia Hamm
Tony Hawk
Andrea Jaeger
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Mario Lemieux
Alonzo Mourning
Cal Ripken, Jr.

Collectively, their individual foundations have raised over $500 million dollars over the years funding a wide variety of philanthropic organizations.

They’ve now banded together to make a difference. They’ve joined forces and formed Athletes for Hope, to build upon the connection between these athletes and their fans to inspire millions of people to follow the lead of athletes in a philanthropic movement.

Here’s their website:

www.athletesforhope.org

We’re proud that they have chosen to use both DonorPerfect and WebLink to assist them in their mission. Specifically, they are using WebLink’s custom forms to capture constituent information from their website and have it automatically transferred to their DonorPerfect system. The process is seamless, and most importantly, affordable.

WebLink was created for organizations of all sizes, and there’s pricing that can fit your budget. Whether you’re hosting a small, local Casino Night event, or taking to the airwaves on Good Morning America, there’s a DonorPerfect and Weblink solution right for you.

From time to time I recognize clients who I know well, are well recognized by others, and are using our solutions in innovative ways.

The Gerald Ford Foundation is one such client. They are using WebLink to capture all of their online donations. Here’s a link to their website, and here’s a link to their WebLink form.

We’re very proud to be associated with this organization and continue to hope that other organizations can increase their fundraising efforts by offering online donation processing through WebLink.

One of the best ideas about improving your relationship with your donors is to experience first hand what it’s like to donate to your own organization. It doesn’t require too much effort, and can really open your eyes to improve the way you communicate and interact with the lifeblood of your organization.

So, try these steps (it will help to submit a different name than your own so that the results aren’t influenced!):

1. Send an email to the contact email on your web-site and see if you get a timely, professional response. Better yet, make a phone call during a random time of day and ask for information. Measure how long it takes the information to arrive in the mail.
2. See how long it takes to find your “Donate Now” button on your web-site. (Don’t have one? Click here for WebLink)
3. How long does it take to find out if there are volunteering opportunities at your organization?
4. Make a donation through the mail and see how long it takes to receive a “Thank You” acknowledgment.
5. Try and search for your website using keywords related to your organization on any of the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)
6. Attend a fundraising event to a different organization- not as a volunteer, but as a donor.

By trying these different steps you’ll be able to see through the eyes of the donor and make sure the message you are trying to convey is actually happening. Then take this insight and improve your communications and procedures- it will be well worth the effort!

I had the good fortune of participating at a recent golf outing for Woody’s Circle of Care, a non-profit organization that gives grants to at-risk families in our local community. It was a perfect day in the Northeast, so getting away from work for the day (after so much traveling) was relaxing.

They used WebLink to capture all of their golf registrations and raffle ticket purchases, and offered credit cards as a payment option. It was quite interesting to see the staff at the golf course, connected to a wireless internet connection, using the software to register everyone- and it was very successful.

If your organization hosts a fundraising event, you should definitely consider WebLink as it saved this organization dozens and dozens of hours in administration time. In addition, they realized that just being able to accept a credit card had distinct advantages. I witnessed one exchange at the registration table where one golfer said:

“Oh you take credit cards? Here, run $1000 through this [card] and keep the remainder as a donation.”

Before this extra donation he was contributing ~$450, so offering credit cards netted an additional $550!

Finally, since this was their first event using WebLink, they did learn a few things. For example, though they were able to accomplish the registration process with one laptop computer, it really required two (and in fact, based on this experience, we at DonorPerfect believe you should have 1 laptop for every 50-60 guests.) Additionally, it does make sense to make sure you have a backup system (paper notebook) in place in case an internet connection goes down (which happened for 3-4 minutes and ended up being an issue with the laptop’s wireless card).

Regardless of the small hiccups, everyone agreed the outing was a huge success and they look forward to using WebLink for their future on-line registration needs. Contact Julie Blum at jblum@donorperfect.com to see how WebLink can solve your on-line form and payment processing needs.

Oh, and the scores that day??? Well, I’m not the best golfer in the world, but our team did manage to shoot under par… (as long as you include all the mulligans we took! )

As you may know, our WebLink solution makes it easy for you to capture information from your web site and have that data automatically integrate with your DonorPerfect software.

WebLink is so flexible, it’s being used for:

Online Donations
Event Registrations
Volunteer Sign-up Forms
Petitions
Surveys
Orders (Requires Order Inventory Module)
And much, much more

Our latest successes include Institute for Public Relations and Voice of the Faithful. In fact, Michelle Hinson (Development director for the Institute for Public Relations) said:

“I am happier and less stressed since WebLink came into my office. I no longer have tons of paper registrations and payments strewn everywhere. I feel like I am now in control.”

See for yourself how WebLink can make you more happier and less stressful and call Julie Blum at 800-220-3537 or jblum@donorperfect.com