Successful solicitation depends on the story you present even more than the perceived appeal of the cause. The following are text excerpts from end of the year solicitations from two charities.
Across America, volunteerism remains a strong, basic value within our nation's diverse culture. More and more corporations are requiring their employees to give of themselves, and these professionals are eager to do so. In fact, according to the Corporation for National Community Service, about 64.3 million Americans, or 26.8 percent of the adult population gave 7.9 billion hours of volunteer service worth $171 billion in 2011. As voluntarism thrives, along with that growth comes increased complexity in terms of finding ways to organize volunteers and match them with corresponding, relevant volunteer positions.
The core of fundraising is about sharing your message. Technology enables nonprofits to reach more people with their message than ever before. Cloud computing, mobile devices, social media and other technologies not only continue to make our work easier, they are transforming the way we raise funds.
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Non-profits of all sizes rely on a good fundraising package to help them maintain relationships with their donors, plan events and track donations. Whether the software is deployed in house or available in the cloud, the most important thing is functionality and usability.
CiviCRM is constituent relationship management (CRM) software that is aimed specifically toward nonprofits and civic-sector organizations. It is used world-wide by many high-profile clients, such as the New York senate and Amnesty International. The software is free, web-based, and open-source.
CitizenCRM is a donor management web app, purpose built with the intention of being able to serve as much as 95% of small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations. The product scales to the size of the database to provide services to smaller organizations that would often only be available to much larger ones. The company is extremely focused on connections, saying: “We connect your CRM data to your third party apps’ data, we connect your organization to your donors’ social networks, we connect everyone in your organization to the data the need; anytime, anywhere.”
DonorCommunity is billed as "the first comprehensive, powerful, affordable and easy to use online fundraising and advocacy solution designed expressly for small to mid-sized NPOs." Its fully integrated suite of cloud computing applications enables clients to communicate and interact with stakeholders utilizing the customer relationship management, online marketing, and social networking technologies that have become commonplace in the for-profit world.
FastFund Online by Araize is an SaaS-based application that handles a wide variety of tasks for nonprofit organizations by seamlessly integrating nonprofit accounting, fund raising (CRM,) and payroll. The FastFund Accounting module is a true nonprofit accounting system designed to handle the unique requirements of nonprofit organizations, including FASB-116 compliant reports, multiple fund tracking, program and project accounting, budgeting, and customizable financial statements.
Planning is the key to a successful auction and ReadySetAuction's auction management software solution provides all the tools necessary to ensure your event is a success. There are several modules and add-ons available, so any size organization can host profitable event.
Technology plays an important role for non-profits. Yet, replacing old outdated technology isn't always possible for non-profits. In an effort to change that npCloud, a service of Tech Impact, offers non-profits a way to have current technology at affordable prices.
A non-profit puts a lot of effort into developing a fundraising event and the only way the event will succeed is if people attend the event. One way to ensure a large turnout for your next fundraising event is to use an online tool such as EventBrite.
People are using their mobile devices for everything from quick searches and reading novels to interacting with their favorite charity, but what if the organization doesn't have a website optimized for use on mobile devices? Well, not having a mobile website can lead to frustration on the users' part, which could lead to the organization losing a potential volunteer or donation.
All-in-one payment solutions provider BluePay is partnering with AccuFund, the award-winning software solutions provider for nonprofits and government organizations. Through this new partnership, clients of AccuFund’s user-friendly fundraising product, AccuFund CRM, are now able to capture internal processing and external donations securely through BluePay, while being fully supported on the Salesforce platform.
Indiana-based Updentity is proving to be a key element in the success of community foundations and nonprofits alike. Updentity has compiled and actively maintains more than 12 years of nationwide data on hundreds of millions of individuals and businesses. Utilizing online resources and third-party sources, this contact and demographic information is regularly refreshed.
Fundly, the world's largest crowdfunding-for-good platform, today announced that Bloomerang, the revolutionary customer relationship management (CRM) software focused on nonprofit donor retention and loyalty, has entered a partnership to integrate their assets and expertise.
Sage Nonprofit Solutions’ latest update of Sage 100 Fund Accounting, released today, delivers mobile access for key tasks, allowing nonprofits and governmental agencies anytime, anywhere access. With the upgrade, organizations faced with financial constraints can be more agile in the way they work whether they are on the road or need increased automation in the workplace.
CharityVote, a new Facebook app, lets companies involve their employees and customers in their charitable giving decisions, reports 83 Degrees Media. Companies using the app determine pick five charities and decided upon a donation amount, then their Facebook fans vote on which charity should receive the money, with each receiving a portion of the donations.
While providing health care to pregnant women in Ghana in 2010, the Grameen Foundation decided there was a better way to communicate health information to poor patients in remote areas, reports The Washington Post. So, the non-profit designed software to send out voice and text messages to the patients.
According to the New York Times, more than a dozen British institutions have signed up for the National Funding Scheme’s Donate program. The program uses digital technology to attract contributions.
Nonprofit Technology News talks with Jay Love of Avectra about their Nonprofit Constituent Relationship Management application. Key features include 30 best of breed modules and better data utilization to increase fundraising.
About the Author: Kurt Martin is a Founder and Group Publisher of Progressive Media Group (PMG) and the Publisher of Nonprofit Technology News. During his 4 years as Publisher of The NonProfit Times, he grew the imprint from a single newspaper to a community of websites, online job boards, email newsletters and digital editions of the print editions. Prior to taking the role of Publisher he was the East Coast Sales Manager for Broad Daylight, Inc. a knowledgebase company. He also held management roles in advertising and ciruclation sales at American Banker/Bond Buyer (Thomson), Faulkner & Grey (Thomson) and SourceMedia (Investcorp.) Kurt graduated from Montclair State University with a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration. |