Integration Yields Automated Giving System For HCR ManorCare

Every nonprofit wants to maximize the efficiency of processing gifts and pledges — and effective integration with existing software, websites, and other departments is the key to minimizing work. With over 75,000 donor records, most of which are for employees, efficiency was an urgent necessity for this leading healthcare provider. They decided to look for a fundraising system to manage their two nonprofits, which receive contributions from over 60,000 employees, as well as family, friends, and others. Little wonder that they wanted it to work seamlessly with their human resource system, website, and other systems.

The Mission

This organization has multiple funds that serve different missions. One memorial fund enables memorials and honorariums to be made on behalf of patients, and another fund was created as a way for employees to help other employees with financial assistance when confronted with an unexpected catastrophic event.

The Needs

This nonprofit needed all the normal fundraising capabilities to manage gifts, pledges, thank-you’s and reporting, but they also wanted to allow employees to manage their own accounts via the web.

Having employees manage their own contributions via the web eliminates the need for a lot of data entry resources, which saves lots of time and money.

So they turned to SofterWare’s web-based solution, DonorPerfect. DonorPerfect fundraising software enables them to manage, analyze and report on all their donors and fundraising efforts, but also offers the tools to allow them to integrate with a variety of their existing systems.

Contact your DonorPerfect regional account manager to answer your questions about DonorPerfect.

Workplace Giving

A key feature of this organization’s employees managing their accounts online is logging in with their employee ID to make both one-time donations and monthly payroll deduction pledges. This required setting up an automated process to transfer employee data from their Human Resource system to DonorPerfect, as well as an automated process to transfer the preauthorized pledge transactions back to payroll. This was accomplished using import and export utilities and was fully automated with a few simple custom procedures.

Website Integration

To integrate with fund specific websites, the nonprofit worked with SofterWare’s consultant team to use DonorPerfect’s XML interface, which provides an intelligent ‘back door’ to the website. Contributors experience the same look and feel, but the fields of information are tied directly and securely to DonorPerfect, eliminating the need for a separate web database and avoiding possible issues with data redundancy. The integration is completely transparent to their website’s users and takes place behind the scenes – in real time. SofterWare even created an online payroll calculator so that employees can determine how much they could afford to give over the course of the year.

The Business Systems Specialist noted, “Our website also allows employees and non-employees to make one-time donations by credit card, and SofterWare assisted us in using the same XML interface to integrate with our credit card processor.”

Anyone who donates receives an on-screen receipt they can print, and, via integration with the email system, contributors receive an automated email receipt as well.

The Results

Offline Donations

“We also use DonorPerfect’s acknowledgment tools to send several different types of thank-you letters automatically. For example, if your aunt donates on behalf of your mother who passed away, your aunt receives a thank you letter, and you receive a letter notifying you of your aunt’s contribution in your mother’s honor. It’s all done automatically, which is a huge time saver when you consider the numbers we’re dealing with.”

“With DonorPerfect, we’re able to automate virtually the entire process. And, the integration of DonorPerfect with our website, HR tool, Microsoft Word®, email, and credit card processing has enabled us to create a web-based system that is nearly flawless, with close to zero defects. If we were forced into a one-size-fits-all system, without the flexibility and customization that DonorPerfect provides, we would have been sunk.” Fortunately, this was not the case. “We started collecting donations and awarding grants in June 2005. In fact, we were able to help employees affected by the hurricanes.”