Choosing Fundraising Software

Most nonprofits try to make due with general purpose business software like Excel, Microsoft Access, FileMaker Pro or QuickBooks to keep track of mailing lists and donations. These are good software products, but they aren't designed to provide numerous critical features necessary for successful fundraising. It's no surprise that organizations that start out with such programs soon encounter significant problems.

If your nonprofit is struggling with the wrong software tools, you are missing out on the two key benefits of professional fundraising software - raising more money and saving your valuable time.

Why use fundraising software? Because you will raise more money. It's that simple. In a recent analysis, over 1,000 organizations that used a leading fundraising software solution reported an average fundraising increase of 21% in their very first year! Compare that with 4% growth for the average US nonprofit, reported by Giving USA in June 2007.

By automating time-consuming tasks, such as entering a record and gift once and having it automatically acknowledged, posted to your ledger and sent to your accounting software, you can save immeasurable hours - to say nothing of avoiding costly errors and omissions.

No matter the gift type or method of donation, good fundraising software provides a fast and accurate process for entering, recognizing and managing every gift and pledge.

There are many unique types of gifts that nonprofits must handle such as Pledges, Soft Credits, Restricted Gifts, Matching Gifts, In-Kind Donations, Split Gifts, and Memberships. General purpose accounting software typically doesn't provide a simple way to properly record & process these types of gifts. Even common tasks like processing credit card transactions may involve specialized aspects, such as the need to securely store credit card data for monthly pledges or facilitating online donations which don't easily fit into commercial "shopping cart" models. Even posting check payments requires an efficient method of not only entering the data but tracking information such as solicitation method, which is needed for analyzing your results and later when you need to cultivate your donors again.

Fundraising CRM Software specifically designed for nonprofit fundraising and constituent relationship
management will help your nonprofit:

• Provide a unified tool and view for everyone in your organization.
  
• Improve all interactions with constituents
  
• Facilitate better reporting to guide your decision making and share with your board.
  
• Thus - Saving time and allowing your organization to raise more money.

To read the complete article click here: Why Fundraising Software?

If you found this article informative, check out these other useful nonprofit technology articles:

Creating a Successful Preauthorized Giving Program:
Learn how to implement recurring gifts program and maximize your return from existing donors.

Demystifying NonProfit Credit Card Processing:
Cut through the confusing terms and many rates and understand how credit card processing can make it easier for your nonprofit to collect more funds, more quickly.

The Hidden Cost of Remote Access to Installed Software
Using desktop virtualization software or network access tools may seem like a way to extend the life or your current software or make up for shortcomings of a new package, but there are more costs than meet the eye. Learn more.

DonorPerfect Fundraising Software is an industry leading nonprofit CRM system that has been helping nonprofits raise more capital for their missions for over 20 years.

Check out the DonorPerfect Blog for up-to-date news about DonorPerfect Fundraising Software and the nonprofit technology industry.
Or visit The SofterWare NonProfit Blog to learn valuable tips, tricks and general best practices that can help improve your fundraising efforts.

If you've ever done a team fundraising event or tried to run one yourself, you'll know that managing all of the fundraisers, sponsors and teams can be challenging. Learn about some of the new tools available to help the process via The Donor Pages Blog