Exploring Donor Management Software: A Go-To Guide for Small Nonprofits / By Mike Crum
The best software for fundraising activities include a range of impressive features that help with the different stages of a fundraising cycle. A good fundraising software can help you optimize your virtual fundraising approach. Usually these software offerings come with features like personalized donation pages, donation receipts, reminders, peer-to-peer campaigns and more. Having a full-fledged fundraising software system allows your donors to be engaged with the cause. Parallely, Nonprofit staff also find it easier to manage campaigns with the help of a supportive software.
On this blog we’ll cover the important features of a fundraising software solution, how to optimize the use of software and some of the best options in the market.
The best way to use online fundraising software for Nonprofits.
It takes a village to raise a child and run a fundraising campaign. While that statement may be exaggerated, writing personalized emails, manually sending thank-you notes, launching multiple fundraising campaigns is no easy task. The work keeps piling on for staff members and program success is affected due to operational inefficiency. This major pitfall can be avoided by investing in the best software for fundraising activities. Many manual tasks can be automated with the help of efficient software.
Online fundraising software helps you establish a solid professional reputation while preventing you from losing out on fundraising chances. Your nonprofit fundraising software may manage targeted campaigns, communications, and donor follow-up to streamline the donor experience and possibly increase future revenue.
What characteristics should I look for in software for online fundraising?
Every nonprofit will have different requirements for the features of internet fundraising. The needs of your Nonprofit must be understood in order to select the best solution. Consider the following common characteristics when assessing potential solutions:
Donation pages: A landing page where your donors can make an online donation is a donation page. Many online fundraising tools provide donation-page builders so that charities can design unique forms to integrate into their websites.
Donation buttons: You can direct website visitors to your donation page or a specific fundraising campaign page using a donation button as a call-to-action link. Typically, your online fundraising platform allows you to design donation buttons and integrate them with your website. Donation buttons can be added to your social media accounts on some social media networks, including Facebook and Instagram for a fundraising effort. When visitors click your donation button, a donation form may be displayed on your donation page or embedded within your website. Your donation form will have sections for the donation amount, donor information, payment information, the ability to set up recurring donations, and the choice for donors to pay processing costs.
Event registration and ticketing: Using an event registration tool, you may organize supporter registration and ticketing for physical or online events. This frequently includes ticket ordering forms and an event home website.
Peer-to-peer fundraising: P2P (peer-to-peer) fundraising lets your stakeholders take the initiative and generate money on your Nonprofit’s behalf.
Best Software For Fundraising Activities
Affnetz Fundraising Campaign Management
Affnetz Fundraising Campaign Management integrates all your campaign activities into one system – ensuring you have accurate and actionable data to win the campaign! No more relying on paper to manage your fundraising campaign or bouncing between standalone systems cutting and pasting information from disparate software to Word or PowerPoint! Take control and win your fundraising campaign with Affnetz.
Affnetz Fundraising Campaign Management integrates the activities and information you need to win the campaign. This module provides a one-stop-shop for your team, by managing the following activities:
Donor Engagement -- Capture campaign donations as well as critical donor engagement activities. This enables your Nonprofit to fine-tune the fundraising campaign to grow donations and dramatically increase donor engagement and involvement with your campaign.
Board Engagement-- Board involvement is critical to your fundraising campaign. With Affnetz you’ll have a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all board involvement in your fundraising campaign. The online portal keeps board members organized and engaged by providing storage for documents and reports, and all communications can be generated and are captured in the portal. This helps maximize each board member’s time and contributions to the fundraising campaign, as they no longer must search their email box and hope they have the most current campaign materials. They also have access to accurate and timely information to fulfill their responsibilities.
Fundraising Volunteer Engagement-- Fundraising volunteer engagement and retention are critical to the success of your Nonprofit’s fundraising campaign. Affnetz provides you with a centralized approach to engage and manage a robust campaign cabinet as well as other fundraising volunteers involved with your fundraising campaign. The online campaign volunteer portal provides access to the latest documents and reports. Fundraising volunteers will no longer have to search their email inbox to (hopefully) find the latest version of a document – it will be in the online portal. And, they can choose between the two-page case for support or the four- or eight-page versions, and know they have the latest versions. This reduces staff time responding to document requests as well.
Campaign Reports-- Many Nonprofits rely on fundraising campaign reports that require cobbling data together from numerous standalone software programs. Then the results are usually pasted into Excel or similar tools for more manipulation of the data. Affnetz reporting integrates 13 other Affnetz modules, providing a turnkey solution for report generation.
Your staff and volunteers need fundraising campaign data when they need it. Affnetz provides automated report generation and distribution for just-in-time reporting. Simply create your report, then schedule delivery at specific intervals to yourself and / or relevant stakeholders. No more pulling reports at the last minute – or even after-the-fact. Your reports can be scheduled for delivery via email and by posting reports to the online portals for everyone involved in your fundraising campaign.
Simply create the report, add recipients, and automate delivery. This is a huge help to fundraising volunteers who no longer have to wonder about recent donations. They’ll know right away when donations are logged in the system. This keeps them updated and engaged, and often prompts stewardship as volunteers reach out to recent donors to thank them for their gifts. This also eliminates any awkward encounters with fundraising volunteers and recent donors where the volunteer isn’t sure whether to thank the person for their recent gift, or encourage them to donate.
Task Management – Automate and manage all campaign tasks in simple steps.
Assign a task to staff, board members, fundraising volunteers, or anyone involved in your campaign
Assign a time period or a specific date for completion
Categorize the task by type of activity (phone meeting, face-to-face meeting, etc.)
Update tasks in Affnetz Task Management based on progress (or lack there-of). Everyone involved with your fundraising campaign can have access to the tasks, and you can also make tasks private to have your own personal to-do list, which helps everyone keep track of their activity and progress.
Take control and win your fundraising campaign with Affnetz.
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective fundraising software is a game-changer for Nonprofits, offering features like personalized donation pages, streamlined communication, and automated task management. This technology modernizes operations, boosts donor engagement, and optimizes campaign management. Among the options, Affnetz Fundraising Campaign Management is a standout, integrating all campaign activities, donor engagement, and reporting in a single platform. Embracing such software is essential in today’s digital landscape, helping nonprofits enhance their impact and achieve their missions more efficiently.
Author
Mike is a recognized expert, thought leader, advisor and speaker in the Nonprofit world. Over the past four decades, Mike served as an Executive Director, COO, see more
