Managing Constituents Shouldn't be Hard

Constituent and gift data is the lifeblood of a nonprofit organization, but often neglected. A fundraising system can fully describe a constituent for you - if only someone could help you use your system more effectively.

Our Fundraising System Managers can improve your organization's management of data by taking on responsibility for:

• Gift Entry
• Gift Importing (online fundraising tools, caging and cashiering, etc.)
• New Constituent Entry
• Biographical and Address Data Updates
• Duplicate Management

dotOrg helps you paint a more complete constituent picture. Often, it's the smallest changes to managing your constituent information that transforms how you leverage information.

We help you tell tell your organization's story.

Communicating with constituents is a critical component of any fundraising system. You need to be able to distill the right story, to the right people, in a timely manner. Unfortunately, organizations frequently find this to be a time-consuming, frustrating and manual process.

dotOrg's Fundraising System Managers will make communicating with your constituents efficient, accurate and automated including:

• Generating acknowledgement letters and receipts.
• Creating lists for newsletters, event invitations, and other mailings.
• Working with your direct marketing vendor to pull appropriate lists for direct mail, online campaigns, and
• Reporting and analysis.
• Exporting email and other data for use in outside online fundraising applications.

Story-telling is indeed an art. Don't let your system get in the way of your own masterpiece.

A fundraising system without solid reporting and analysis is like having a car without wheels - you can sit in it - but it isn't going to take you anywhere.

If you are going to spend the time to enter data appropriately, you should be able to get it out - in a meaningful way. Our fundraising system managers have experience with the canned reports, custom reports, pivot tables, queries, exports and dashboards of your system. They know which tool to use, how to use it, and when. Among the kinds of reporting tools they can assist with:

• Setting up reports: so you can tell your story in a more concrete way.
• Configuring dashboards: for those who don't want to wait for a report - they want information in real-time (and who doesn't?)
• Creating linked excel spreadsheets and pivot tables: to extend your system's analytical capabilities.
• Creating and maintaining custom reports .

Stop wondering why you spend so much money on your fundraising system: When you change the paradigm from it just being a database to a business intelligence tool, the database costs won't seem as onerous.

Yawn.

No, seriously, while this is not the most glamorous, riveting, or interesting part of your database, it is vitally important.

Configuring your system, setting up user security and performing ongoing maintenance is the backbone of a successful system. It ensures that your system performs as it is supposed to and that users have access to what they need to do their jobs. Our staff helps you:

• Setup security: Configure groups and administer user logins and passwords.
• Conduct regular maintenance: using tools for conducting global changes, code table cleanup, etc.
• Configure your system: Regularly reviewing and updating configuration settings.

Really, there is nothing exciting to say about this stuff - we just know it's a critical part of successfully managing a fundraising system.

What would a Fundraising System Manager do for us?

This really runs the gamut and (again) depends on your needs. The buttons to the left show, broadly, what a Fundraising System Manager can do. We'll work with your organization to refine how Fundraising System Management supports your organization.

How Much Does This Service Cost?

This really varies – depending on such factors as the size and complexity of your organization, how much and what kind of help you want. It is important to note that while this service (obviously) costs money, that cost can be balanced both against the cost of having an employee on staff or having an existing staff member devoting time to database management that could be spent raising money or otherwise serving constituents well. Moreover, because of our experience level, you will get more for your money from us then you often would hiring on your own.

How Can I Trust You to Have Access to Our Sensitive Fundraising Information?

Great question. We have been working with clients' confidential information for years and years. We get how important this is. Each of our Fundraising System Managers has had references checked as well as been subject to criminal background checks .

Where Will My Fundraising System Manager Do Their Work?

Again, this varies. Depending on where your organization is located they can work onsite, remote or some combination of the two. We believe that most services can be provided remotely but it will be important for your Manager to interface with you on a regular basis.

How Will My Fundraising System Manager Access Our System Offsite?

If you don’t have this capability in-house, we can help you identify how to make your system available remotely.

Will I have one Fundraising System Manager or will I be passed around to whomever is available when I need help?

You will be assigned to a Manager who is responsible for helping you. The goal of Fundraising System Management is to develop deep relationships with your organization so that we understand what you do and how you do it.

Addtionally, we create solid internal documentation so when another Fundraising System Manager needs to step in, it's a quick process.