Cambrian College students wanted a user-friendly online awards application system, and the Awards Department delivered.
Read this fantastic example of how Cambrian saved administrative time and increased student award applications by 30%, leveraging the Fuel to Learn System.
Your School’s Awards, Bursaries, & Scholarships Ceremony
is Right Around the Corner.
________________________________________
You`ve picked the venue, made arrangements with the caterers, narrowed your list of presenters, addressed your staffing needs, and now it`s time for the tedious task of sorting through applications. Your team begins by sorting through the stacks of paper applications, organizing by category, and then reading through each to find the most suitable recipients. This process can take up to several weeks of your staff`s valuable time – taking them away from other day-to-day tasks, leaving you frustrated with the process and wishing for the ceremony to come and go. You know something has to be done to optimize your process, but your system gets the job done; can you really afford to change?
You can, and we know how to help you!
Through discussions with Colleges and Universities, we have found a number of common issues similar to yours.
These award system issues include:
• High administrative costs - the majority of institutions we spoke with bring in extra staffing during awards season
• Environmentally unfriendly - more and more organizations are trying to stay as green as possible, however, paper applications are increasing your carbon footprint
• Low applicant numbers - the application process is manual, complicated, and it’s tough to get students motivated to follow through with the process
• Difficult for students to search appropriate awards - students are either unaware of the awards, or don’t have an efficient way to determine eligibility without reading through a list of awards
• Lack of communication between various stakeholders
• Labour intensive and time consuming process - data from paper applications must be entered manually into a database
• Updating awards information is complicated and time consuming - information is stored in a variety of places, and it is difficult for one person to keep track of the updates in all places
There is a Better Way: We Can Get You There
After compiling information from various sources and getting a better understanding of what Awards Departments need, RESolutionsTECH created a system, Fuel to Learn – Awards Management System, which addresses each of these issues.
Among the key benefits of the Fuel to Learn system is the ability to have all information stored in a central location. Many Colleges and Universities across North America have an Awards and Bursaries office that is littered with application forms, stacks of files for each award and scholarship, and a variety of computers with various data. Fuel to Learn provides a centralized database for all awards, scholarships and bursaries and allows for instant access to this information. Awards can be added, deleted and edited within seconds which eliminates the need to create new paper applications, reduces staffing demands and ultimately saves the organization money. A more streamlined system allows your valuable staff to focus efforts on other tasks and improves overall organizational efficiency.
The benefit of a centralized system is not only for the school but the students themselves. Many students may not be aware of the application process and may demand an online application instead of paper. Fuel to Learn allows students to apply online to any scholarship, bursary or award that is offered by the institution. The school has the option of providing categories that helps the applicant narrow down a search to apply for awards in their specific department or based on any number of search options provided by the school. Fuel to Learn is ‘student-friendly’, reducing application time by allowing students to create profiles that can be applied to multiple awards rather than submitting applications for each award. This feature provides an easy interface for the students and ultimately results in more submitted applications. Awards and scholarships have become a higher priority for students today; schools that provide an easy to use, accessible, and efficient awards management system will ultimately attract more students.
In addition to being user friendly for students, Fuel to Learn offers the opportunity for schools to increase exposure of their award offerings. Schools are able to promote specific awards for specific students in a more targeted way. For example, schools can integrate their awards into their marketing strategy and include specific awards on specific pages on their website. This could include promoting awards in various departments or adding athletic-focused awards on the Athletic Department homepage. Schools can provide relevant awards information to targeted groups easily and quickly.
________________________________________
A Success Story:
How Cambrian College Optimized their Awards Management System
Cambrian College in Sudbury Ontario have been working with the Fuel to Learn System for the last few years. Their Development Manager, Brian Soucie, remarks on how complicated Cambrian’s system had become prior to working with Fuel to Learn:
“Before implementing the Awards Management System, I wouldn’t have called what we were doing a ‘system’. We weren’t managing our awards in an efficient manner. We recognized there were flaws with our processes, and we looked to RESolutionsTECH to help us out.”
Cambrian’s former process involved paper applications, and students had to spend time reading through a list of awards on the school website to determine which awards they could apply for. On the administrative side, the awards department kept all their awards, donor, and recipient information in several different files; accessing, maintaining, and updating these records was complicated, and difficult for more than one person to manage. When the submission deadline came and all applications were in, staff would dedicate the next 4 weeks to data entry and application management.
After implementing Fuel to Learn, Cambrian can now say they have a system. Awards information can quickly be uploaded into the system, and students can easily search and apply for awards online. For the administrative staff, all the information is stored in a central location, making access and management simple and effective. With an easy export, the application information can be exported from the system, and imported into Cambrian’s database. Since implementing this system, Cambrian has saved time and money, and increased the number of applications by 30%.
Brian reflects on the new system that has been put in place:
“We can see the value in our use of Fuel to Learn, on a daily basis. This has made a positive difference to our processes every day. Our students have also thanked us for implementing this online application system. Students expect to have access to information through the web. We have a responsibility to our students to bring the latest and greatest technology and innovation, and we are proud to be able to do so with our awards program. Our old system was working, but we knew it could be greatly improved. We saw an opportunity to adapt, change, be responsive to students, and be proactive.”
See the whole success story at http://www.resolutionstech.com/Files/ftlpdf3.pdf
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Duplicated Data: A Distressing Dilemma!
You’re frazzled yet again. You have just received an e-mail from one of your organization’s most significant donors, asking why they keep receiving identical pieces of mail from you. This is not the first time this has happened, and you’re sick and tired of the embarrassment. You’re also extremely annoyed because no matter how many times you try to view a donor’s record in your database, you cannot seem to grasp the big picture of him/her. Consequently, it’s been difficult to effectively tailor your fundraising efforts and build better relationships.
If you have ever been responsible for managing a database, either presently or in the past, then chances are that the above scenarios sound all-too-familiar. Data duplication has likely plagued and prevented your organization from operating as efficiently as possible. In order to reach your maximum fundraising potential and build stronger relationships with your constituent base, your duplicate records need to be eliminated! RESolutionsTECH Inc. can help, but first, you should understand more about this pesky problem.
Duplicate records can be defined as either individuals or organizations that have multiple records in your database. Other instances of potential duplication include households, teams, gifts, event registrations, and educational relationships.
The lifecycle of duplicate data can begin in a few different ways. Duplication can occur when adding a single record or importing multiple records into your database. It can also transpire when adding records directly to a backend database, such as MS SQL. Furthermore, it is always possible for duplicate records to already exist in your database without you or your staff even being aware of them. There are also various sources that data duplication can stem from. Collecting data from online web forms, such as online giving or event registration, is one way that this can happen. Another is when data is maintained in multiple locations, like e-mail lists. If your organization maintains the same data in multiple locations (e.g. Online Event Registration System and Raiser’s Edge) or has inconsistent training methods then you are more likely to have duplicated records in your database as well.
To effectively eliminate duplicated records, they must first be identified, then confirmed and finally removed through merging.
Solutions
At this point, you may be asking yourself. “What can be done to prevent duplicated data from reoccurring in my database?” Thankfully, we are data experts and have a wide variety of solutions.
RESolutionsTECH Inc. works hard together with our clients to establish systems which encourage data to be as current as possible. An example of this would be automated e-mails asking constituents to update their own records in your database. We also believe that organizations should increase the safeguards against incorrect data entry in order to create a standardized and consistent end result, like postal and zip codes. Organizations should utilize different levels of duplicate identification criteria. For example, first-level criteria could be Unique Identification Numbers, Date of Birth, SIN/SSN, E-mail, Postal/Zip Code, Unique Username/Password and second-level could be First Name, Last Name, Nicknames, Address Lines, Old Addresses. Making use of nicknames is very effective in handling abbreviated versions of the data. For example, “Rob” could be used instead of “Robert”, “Sue” instead of “Susan”, and so on.
Increased training to all staff members is important to maintain data entry standards based on defined and documented processes. Without proper training, your staff may not know how to conduct searches to see if certain records already exist in the database. We suggest that you provide data entry confirmation prompts that ask people, when inputting data, to verify correct spelling of the information they are providing. A last name of “Carter” could mistakenly be spelled out as “Crter” in a web form, without proper verification. To avoid confusion, your organization could prevent alternate addresses from being used by the same person, unless they are properly defined as such. Someone registering for an event could use his/her business address and then later, when giving a gift online, could alternately provide his/her home address.
Fuzzy identification is extremely beneficial in locating different levels of duplicate matching criteria. With fuzzy identification, duplicates will be identified where there was a typo, misspelled word, or something similar. In other words, you do not have to match criteria up word for word or letter by letter. “Rob” and “Robin” in the First Name field of a database would return a match, but if you were only utilizing identical field matches, this would not be the case.
Constituent records in databases should be assigned unique identification numbers (IDs) that can be shared between multiple databases. Your organization should also track the sources of all data so you can be aware of the fact that, for example, a constituent’s address was submitted using a web form, an e-mail, the telephone, etc. It is a good idea to maintain a log of all changes that are made to each constituent’s record. This provides you with an audit trail of who changed which data, when this change took place, and what was changed.
Your organization should define the master of each data element (e.g. Donor Management System, Student Information System, Patient Information System, etc). An example of a data element would be the Gift Amount where it is important to know in which database to manually change or adjust the amount if needed. Raiser’s Edge or the Donor Management System you are using is typically the master of this data element. This is important to be aware of because the master of data controls any changes required. Manual data entry adjustments should not typically be made in non-master locations but rather updated automatically or through an import process. This process enforces a single point of entry and ensures all shared data is in synch.
Address Accuracy processing, which RESolutionsTECH Inc. can perform for you however often you need, will provide cleanups to standardize addresses, find national change of addresses, identify individual and household duplicates, and confirm or add new phone numbers. Other de-duplication tools such as Excel, Access, scripts, Fuzzy Dupes, AbleBits, and duplicate identification reporting (e.g. Raiser’s Edge Duplicate Information Reporting) should be considered for use. Furthermore, it is beneficial to implement the use of duplicate merge utilities such as Blackbaud plug-ins, third-party duplicate merge utilities, SalesForce Application Exchange add-ins, etc.
Client Stories
With the help of RESolutionsTECH Inc., the following organizations have all benefitted tremendously, in different ways, from our assistance in eliminating and preventing data duplication.
Ovarian Cancer Canada utilizes an online tool to collect event registration fees and gifts from donors. They make regular transfers to their Raiser’s Edge database. The main concern here was that constituents were getting entered as duplicate records into the database when data was moved from their online system to Raiser’s Edge. To correct the process with all future donations and event registrations, we standardized addresses and identified individual and household duplicates. We then used a tool called My Data Mover to transform the data, confirm duplicate matches, and import data into Raiser’s Edge. In this process, it was the option of eyeballing identified duplicates to confirm and making use of first and second level duplicate criteria that made this process so successful. For all past duplicates created, RESolutionsTECH Inc. consolidated all of their data, from several different locations, into one central and fully-integrated Raiser’s Edge database. According to Abby Heidebrecht, the Donor Relations Coordinator at Ovarian Cancer Canada, “We struggled for a year with our database before we found Robin who came in, cleaned up the database and set it straight.”
At St. Lawrence College, graduate data is moved from the Student Information System to their Raiser’s Edge database a few times per year. In this situation, RESolutionsTECH Inc. helped determine that the Student Information System is the master of data in terms of who graduated and which program they graduated from. Therefore, the Alumni Information System should always synchronize to match the Student Information System for graduates and educational relationships. If duplicates are identified in Raiser’s Edge, this means the duplication exists in the Student Information System, where they are then brought to the attention of those who are managing the Student Information System to clean-up. Then, those clean-ups trickle down to the Raiser’s Edge database, the non-master. This ensures a single point of entry and maintenance for this type of data and provides accurate reporting from both databases.
Alliance for the Great Lakes utilizes multiple databases with their main one being Raiser’s Edge. In certain situations, such as this one, we find it worthwhile to actually bring duplicates into the database first, where the plan is to then handle duplicate clean-up within Raiser’s Edge. We do this to ensure we have a complete history of all the data before the merging begins. This permits us to have an audit trail, as well, which provides a clear picture of how the duplicated data was handled. We also made sure that Alliance for the Great Lakes had a system implemented to ensure the proper master of data was kept as such. The bottom line for any client is that their needs and requirements are met first where we at RESolutionsTECH can come in at any point and clean things up. We continue to work with Alliance for the Great Lakes to continue to improve the process.
Buy-A-Net is a fairly new user of Raiser’s Edge and relies heavily on volunteer staff to maintain their database. They recently came to us asking why there appears to be many duplicate records in the database when they review the output results of their Query. This is a common problem that we see at many organizations that can be prevented with proper training. The reality here is that Buy-A-Net didn’t have any duplicates at all. The same records were coming up multiple times due to outputting data in Query rather than focusing on output in an Export based on a Query. In a Query, it is best practice to only output a unique identifier such as Constituent ID or Import ID and then sort on that field. You will quickly be able to scan the results to ensure no duplication in your result.
How RESolutionsTECH Inc. Can Help You Succeed
It is absolutely paramount to the success of your organization that steps are taken to merge, eliminate and prevent the duplication of data from reoccurring. When you remove duplicates in your database, it sends a strong message to donors and other constituents that their money is greatly appreciated, and is being spent wisely. If duplicates are not removed, then money will continue to be wasted from actions such as mistakenly sending out identical pieces of mail to the same household more than once. This is completely avoidable. All stakeholders will have access to reporting with a higher level of accuracy if your duplicates are kept under control. As well, an audit trail will give your staff members and stakeholders more confidence in your data. With controlled duplication, fundraising efforts are far more effective. Constituents in your database will each have concise, single records which allow you to grasp the big picture of his or her relationship with your organization. This makes it much easier to determine if people are appropriate prospects for your fundraising campaigns. Finally, less data entry will be required internally if duplicate prevention procedures are implemented. Consequently, your organization will save substantial amounts of time and energy.
In conclusion, with a little help from the database professionals at RESolutionsTECH Inc., your organization will be spared the embarrassment, stress, hassle, time and massive costs associated with duplicated records in your database. Your fundraising efforts will increase in effectiveness and stronger relationships will be built with your constituent base. It is absolutely infeasible to operate as efficiently as possible without eliminating and preventing data duplication. You deserve to be happy, stress-free, and of course, successful! So, do your entire staff a favour and give us a call, toll-free, at 1-866-776-5414, or send us an e-mail at RPorter@RESolutionsTECH.com, to talk about all the steps you can take to help your organization move forward. Trust us, your data will thank you. :)
If you have ever been responsible for managing a database, either presently or in the past, then chances are that the above scenarios sound all-too-familiar. Data duplication has likely plagued and prevented your organization from operating as efficiently as possible. In order to reach your maximum fundraising potential and build stronger relationships with your constituent base, your duplicate records need to be eliminated! RESolutionsTECH Inc. can help, but first, you should understand more about this pesky problem.
Duplicate records can be defined as either individuals or organizations that have multiple records in your database. Other instances of potential duplication include households, teams, gifts, event registrations, and educational relationships.
The lifecycle of duplicate data can begin in a few different ways. Duplication can occur when adding a single record or importing multiple records into your database. It can also transpire when adding records directly to a backend database, such as MS SQL. Furthermore, it is always possible for duplicate records to already exist in your database without you or your staff even being aware of them. There are also various sources that data duplication can stem from. Collecting data from online web forms, such as online giving or event registration, is one way that this can happen. Another is when data is maintained in multiple locations, like e-mail lists. If your organization maintains the same data in multiple locations (e.g. Online Event Registration System and Raiser’s Edge) or has inconsistent training methods then you are more likely to have duplicated records in your database as well.
To effectively eliminate duplicated records, they must first be identified, then confirmed and finally removed through merging.
Solutions
At this point, you may be asking yourself. “What can be done to prevent duplicated data from reoccurring in my database?” Thankfully, we are data experts and have a wide variety of solutions.
RESolutionsTECH Inc. works hard together with our clients to establish systems which encourage data to be as current as possible. An example of this would be automated e-mails asking constituents to update their own records in your database. We also believe that organizations should increase the safeguards against incorrect data entry in order to create a standardized and consistent end result, like postal and zip codes. Organizations should utilize different levels of duplicate identification criteria. For example, first-level criteria could be Unique Identification Numbers, Date of Birth, SIN/SSN, E-mail, Postal/Zip Code, Unique Username/Password and second-level could be First Name, Last Name, Nicknames, Address Lines, Old Addresses. Making use of nicknames is very effective in handling abbreviated versions of the data. For example, “Rob” could be used instead of “Robert”, “Sue” instead of “Susan”, and so on.
Increased training to all staff members is important to maintain data entry standards based on defined and documented processes. Without proper training, your staff may not know how to conduct searches to see if certain records already exist in the database. We suggest that you provide data entry confirmation prompts that ask people, when inputting data, to verify correct spelling of the information they are providing. A last name of “Carter” could mistakenly be spelled out as “Crter” in a web form, without proper verification. To avoid confusion, your organization could prevent alternate addresses from being used by the same person, unless they are properly defined as such. Someone registering for an event could use his/her business address and then later, when giving a gift online, could alternately provide his/her home address.
Fuzzy identification is extremely beneficial in locating different levels of duplicate matching criteria. With fuzzy identification, duplicates will be identified where there was a typo, misspelled word, or something similar. In other words, you do not have to match criteria up word for word or letter by letter. “Rob” and “Robin” in the First Name field of a database would return a match, but if you were only utilizing identical field matches, this would not be the case.
Constituent records in databases should be assigned unique identification numbers (IDs) that can be shared between multiple databases. Your organization should also track the sources of all data so you can be aware of the fact that, for example, a constituent’s address was submitted using a web form, an e-mail, the telephone, etc. It is a good idea to maintain a log of all changes that are made to each constituent’s record. This provides you with an audit trail of who changed which data, when this change took place, and what was changed.
Your organization should define the master of each data element (e.g. Donor Management System, Student Information System, Patient Information System, etc). An example of a data element would be the Gift Amount where it is important to know in which database to manually change or adjust the amount if needed. Raiser’s Edge or the Donor Management System you are using is typically the master of this data element. This is important to be aware of because the master of data controls any changes required. Manual data entry adjustments should not typically be made in non-master locations but rather updated automatically or through an import process. This process enforces a single point of entry and ensures all shared data is in synch.
Address Accuracy processing, which RESolutionsTECH Inc. can perform for you however often you need, will provide cleanups to standardize addresses, find national change of addresses, identify individual and household duplicates, and confirm or add new phone numbers. Other de-duplication tools such as Excel, Access, scripts, Fuzzy Dupes, AbleBits, and duplicate identification reporting (e.g. Raiser’s Edge Duplicate Information Reporting) should be considered for use. Furthermore, it is beneficial to implement the use of duplicate merge utilities such as Blackbaud plug-ins, third-party duplicate merge utilities, SalesForce Application Exchange add-ins, etc.
Client Stories
With the help of RESolutionsTECH Inc., the following organizations have all benefitted tremendously, in different ways, from our assistance in eliminating and preventing data duplication.
Ovarian Cancer Canada utilizes an online tool to collect event registration fees and gifts from donors. They make regular transfers to their Raiser’s Edge database. The main concern here was that constituents were getting entered as duplicate records into the database when data was moved from their online system to Raiser’s Edge. To correct the process with all future donations and event registrations, we standardized addresses and identified individual and household duplicates. We then used a tool called My Data Mover to transform the data, confirm duplicate matches, and import data into Raiser’s Edge. In this process, it was the option of eyeballing identified duplicates to confirm and making use of first and second level duplicate criteria that made this process so successful. For all past duplicates created, RESolutionsTECH Inc. consolidated all of their data, from several different locations, into one central and fully-integrated Raiser’s Edge database. According to Abby Heidebrecht, the Donor Relations Coordinator at Ovarian Cancer Canada, “We struggled for a year with our database before we found Robin who came in, cleaned up the database and set it straight.”
At St. Lawrence College, graduate data is moved from the Student Information System to their Raiser’s Edge database a few times per year. In this situation, RESolutionsTECH Inc. helped determine that the Student Information System is the master of data in terms of who graduated and which program they graduated from. Therefore, the Alumni Information System should always synchronize to match the Student Information System for graduates and educational relationships. If duplicates are identified in Raiser’s Edge, this means the duplication exists in the Student Information System, where they are then brought to the attention of those who are managing the Student Information System to clean-up. Then, those clean-ups trickle down to the Raiser’s Edge database, the non-master. This ensures a single point of entry and maintenance for this type of data and provides accurate reporting from both databases.
Alliance for the Great Lakes utilizes multiple databases with their main one being Raiser’s Edge. In certain situations, such as this one, we find it worthwhile to actually bring duplicates into the database first, where the plan is to then handle duplicate clean-up within Raiser’s Edge. We do this to ensure we have a complete history of all the data before the merging begins. This permits us to have an audit trail, as well, which provides a clear picture of how the duplicated data was handled. We also made sure that Alliance for the Great Lakes had a system implemented to ensure the proper master of data was kept as such. The bottom line for any client is that their needs and requirements are met first where we at RESolutionsTECH can come in at any point and clean things up. We continue to work with Alliance for the Great Lakes to continue to improve the process.
Buy-A-Net is a fairly new user of Raiser’s Edge and relies heavily on volunteer staff to maintain their database. They recently came to us asking why there appears to be many duplicate records in the database when they review the output results of their Query. This is a common problem that we see at many organizations that can be prevented with proper training. The reality here is that Buy-A-Net didn’t have any duplicates at all. The same records were coming up multiple times due to outputting data in Query rather than focusing on output in an Export based on a Query. In a Query, it is best practice to only output a unique identifier such as Constituent ID or Import ID and then sort on that field. You will quickly be able to scan the results to ensure no duplication in your result.
How RESolutionsTECH Inc. Can Help You Succeed
It is absolutely paramount to the success of your organization that steps are taken to merge, eliminate and prevent the duplication of data from reoccurring. When you remove duplicates in your database, it sends a strong message to donors and other constituents that their money is greatly appreciated, and is being spent wisely. If duplicates are not removed, then money will continue to be wasted from actions such as mistakenly sending out identical pieces of mail to the same household more than once. This is completely avoidable. All stakeholders will have access to reporting with a higher level of accuracy if your duplicates are kept under control. As well, an audit trail will give your staff members and stakeholders more confidence in your data. With controlled duplication, fundraising efforts are far more effective. Constituents in your database will each have concise, single records which allow you to grasp the big picture of his or her relationship with your organization. This makes it much easier to determine if people are appropriate prospects for your fundraising campaigns. Finally, less data entry will be required internally if duplicate prevention procedures are implemented. Consequently, your organization will save substantial amounts of time and energy.
In conclusion, with a little help from the database professionals at RESolutionsTECH Inc., your organization will be spared the embarrassment, stress, hassle, time and massive costs associated with duplicated records in your database. Your fundraising efforts will increase in effectiveness and stronger relationships will be built with your constituent base. It is absolutely infeasible to operate as efficiently as possible without eliminating and preventing data duplication. You deserve to be happy, stress-free, and of course, successful! So, do your entire staff a favour and give us a call, toll-free, at 1-866-776-5414, or send us an e-mail at RPorter@RESolutionsTECH.com, to talk about all the steps you can take to help your organization move forward. Trust us, your data will thank you. :)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Importance of Benchmarking - Even With Twitter Counts
Recently, Twitter announced that they were cleaning out spammers and addressing data inconsistencies. What does this mean for you, the Twitter user? You might see a significant drop in your following and followers numbers. Did your Twitter follower count take a hit from this clean-up or would you even notice?
A regular practice that we like to suggest at RESolutionsTECH is the importance of benchmarking your data. Benchmarking your data is the key to measuring changes in your database over time. It is a great representation of the good, the bad, and the plain out ugly things that may be happening with your data. Examples of typical benchmarks are the number of constituents, number of constituents with valid address, number with phone number, number with employment information, number with email addresses, etc. Some newer benchmarks that some organizations are measuring are Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Contacts, etc.
You may or may not know how this Twitter clean-up has affected you. What is important here is that when looking at all the data you are maintaining that you know when things change, why did they change, how does it affect you, is it positive or negative.
I would love to know if you are benchmarking the data of your organization. What are your measures? How has it made a difference for you?
A regular practice that we like to suggest at RESolutionsTECH is the importance of benchmarking your data. Benchmarking your data is the key to measuring changes in your database over time. It is a great representation of the good, the bad, and the plain out ugly things that may be happening with your data. Examples of typical benchmarks are the number of constituents, number of constituents with valid address, number with phone number, number with employment information, number with email addresses, etc. Some newer benchmarks that some organizations are measuring are Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Contacts, etc.
You may or may not know how this Twitter clean-up has affected you. What is important here is that when looking at all the data you are maintaining that you know when things change, why did they change, how does it affect you, is it positive or negative.
I would love to know if you are benchmarking the data of your organization. What are your measures? How has it made a difference for you?
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The WOW! of online fundraising!
http://www.uncoverthecure.org/index.html
https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=36192&LangPref=en-CA
http://www.winnerswalkofhope.ca/index_national.htm
http://www.louiseporter.ca/
https://www.greatlakes.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=942
Here are a few examples of where organizations are fundraising online. What do you like about each? What don't you like? When I ask this question the reply is usually more focussed around the look and feel to the site and not how it functions or whether it will assist you in raising more money. The 5 most important areas you want to look at when you are choosing an online fundraising solution are:
1) Peer-to-Peer
Think of yourself receiving an email. Let's say you receive an email from an organization you barely know or who you have never heard from and then a second email from your best friend. Which email are you more likely to open first? If both asked you to support a cause, which would you be more inclined to support? Peer-to-peer and viral fundraising solutions increase donations because friends give to friends and not always to organizations they don't know.
2) Time
I constantly here from fundraiser's that they wish they had more time to be out asking for money. Your fundraising solution needs to be doing this for you in terms of getting your "ask" out to a much wider audience without using any more of your time. This allows you to focus more time on things such as your major giving program and stewarding your generous donors. Online solutions should also automate the process of processing payments, receipting, and acknowledging new donors. The best solutions prevent you from having to worry about moving the data into your donor database and do some clean-up of data along the way.
3) Customize
Branding is critical. Your giving pages need to have a similar look to your other web presence. They need to WOW your website visitors to encourage them to spread the word and get your message out. Good online solutions allow you to quickly and easily make these customizations yourself without having any technical skill.
4) Reporting
In todays highly competitive fundraising market, you need to have real time click of the button accurate reporting that tells you exactly what is happening or not happening. You need to be able to access this reporting where ever you are. This allows you to better manage your campaign and make adjustments when needed.
5) Cost
I often here from organizations that some of the fundraising solutions on the market are too expensive. I agree. It is important to note that there should be more focus placed on return on investment rather than just the up front cost. A solution that allows you to raise a lot more money may be worth spending a little more on.
I encourage you to look at the annual issue of Advancing Philanthropy from AFP to see all the online fundraising solutions available to you. They compare all the functionality of each solution nicely. I recommend you speak to users of the solutions you are looking at moving forward with and request detailed domonstrations of the software and their support.
Have a fantastic day! Happy fundraising!!!
https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=36192&LangPref=en-CA
http://www.winnerswalkofhope.ca/index_national.htm
http://www.louiseporter.ca/
https://www.greatlakes.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=942
Here are a few examples of where organizations are fundraising online. What do you like about each? What don't you like? When I ask this question the reply is usually more focussed around the look and feel to the site and not how it functions or whether it will assist you in raising more money. The 5 most important areas you want to look at when you are choosing an online fundraising solution are:
1) Peer-to-Peer
Think of yourself receiving an email. Let's say you receive an email from an organization you barely know or who you have never heard from and then a second email from your best friend. Which email are you more likely to open first? If both asked you to support a cause, which would you be more inclined to support? Peer-to-peer and viral fundraising solutions increase donations because friends give to friends and not always to organizations they don't know.
2) Time
I constantly here from fundraiser's that they wish they had more time to be out asking for money. Your fundraising solution needs to be doing this for you in terms of getting your "ask" out to a much wider audience without using any more of your time. This allows you to focus more time on things such as your major giving program and stewarding your generous donors. Online solutions should also automate the process of processing payments, receipting, and acknowledging new donors. The best solutions prevent you from having to worry about moving the data into your donor database and do some clean-up of data along the way.
3) Customize
Branding is critical. Your giving pages need to have a similar look to your other web presence. They need to WOW your website visitors to encourage them to spread the word and get your message out. Good online solutions allow you to quickly and easily make these customizations yourself without having any technical skill.
4) Reporting
In todays highly competitive fundraising market, you need to have real time click of the button accurate reporting that tells you exactly what is happening or not happening. You need to be able to access this reporting where ever you are. This allows you to better manage your campaign and make adjustments when needed.
5) Cost
I often here from organizations that some of the fundraising solutions on the market are too expensive. I agree. It is important to note that there should be more focus placed on return on investment rather than just the up front cost. A solution that allows you to raise a lot more money may be worth spending a little more on.
I encourage you to look at the annual issue of Advancing Philanthropy from AFP to see all the online fundraising solutions available to you. They compare all the functionality of each solution nicely. I recommend you speak to users of the solutions you are looking at moving forward with and request detailed domonstrations of the software and their support.
Have a fantastic day! Happy fundraising!!!
Why did I start this blog?
Good morning!!!
My name is Robin Porter and I am the Founder, President, and CEO of RESolutionsTECH Inc. I started the company back in May 2004 after getting many requests from not-for-profits, colleges, and universities asking how to clean-up their data and make better use of technology. These organizations knew that technology could make a difference and that they could be doing things better. The problem was that they were being over charged by consultants and their internal IT support seemed to say "No" far more than "Yes" when they were asked if something could be done to improve upon their use of technology. I formed the company and began assisting organizations right away by providing affordable solutions and sharing my attitude that anything is possible with technology. Today we have grown to a team of highly experienced consultants and specialists as well as having many complimentary partnerships that share our philosophy. We at RESolutionsTECH are committed to assisting charities, colleges, and universities use technology to improve constituent relationships, raise more money, and reduce costs.
I have started this blog in order to offer free advice on how your organization can begin benefiting from expanded use of technology. I will try to comment regularly on new technologies and how they could make a difference to your organization. I will be happy to share case studies and reviews sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of solutions out there. My hope is that this blog will help you embrace technology as part of your fundraising and constituent relationship building activities.
I welcome your feedback. Please feel free to email me directly at rporter@resolutionstech.com to ask me anything, anything at all.
Have a great day!
Robin Porter
My name is Robin Porter and I am the Founder, President, and CEO of RESolutionsTECH Inc. I started the company back in May 2004 after getting many requests from not-for-profits, colleges, and universities asking how to clean-up their data and make better use of technology. These organizations knew that technology could make a difference and that they could be doing things better. The problem was that they were being over charged by consultants and their internal IT support seemed to say "No" far more than "Yes" when they were asked if something could be done to improve upon their use of technology. I formed the company and began assisting organizations right away by providing affordable solutions and sharing my attitude that anything is possible with technology. Today we have grown to a team of highly experienced consultants and specialists as well as having many complimentary partnerships that share our philosophy. We at RESolutionsTECH are committed to assisting charities, colleges, and universities use technology to improve constituent relationships, raise more money, and reduce costs.
I have started this blog in order to offer free advice on how your organization can begin benefiting from expanded use of technology. I will try to comment regularly on new technologies and how they could make a difference to your organization. I will be happy to share case studies and reviews sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of solutions out there. My hope is that this blog will help you embrace technology as part of your fundraising and constituent relationship building activities.
I welcome your feedback. Please feel free to email me directly at rporter@resolutionstech.com to ask me anything, anything at all.
Have a great day!
Robin Porter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments