GiftWorks Helps Nonprofit Weather the Economic Downturn June 11, 2009

We continue to collect amazing GiftWorks stories from our clients.  Here's a great one from Daniel Watson, CoFounder and Executive Director of the Restoration House of East Tennessee.  His words speak for themselves - enjoy!

"The Restoration House of East Tennessee formed in late 2006, and is a relatively young organization.  When my wife and I set out on this journey of forming The Restoration House to work with low-income single mothers in our community, we were very convinced of two things. Firstly, that our passion must fuel our mission, and secondly that failing to run an excellent “business” could certainly ruin our chances of succeeding in the first. 

 As newcomers to the nonprofit world, we had never given a lot of thought as to how organizations maintain ongoing healthy relationships with their supporters.  After researching and comparing several types of donor management systems, we found GiftWorks 2006 and downloaded a free trial.  Having developed a number of Microsoft Access database applications in the past, I was amazed by GiftWorks ease of use and powerful capability.  The program exceeded our expectations and met our needs, all while on a budget our fledgling organization could afford.  The program seamlessly integrated all the functions we needed and we were convinced it was going to help us move ahead of the curve in our new nonprofit management as we worked to maintain an excellent relationship with all of our donors.

The significant percentage of The Restoration House’s initial funding was received through a grant from a local foundation.  The awarded grant is a three year matching grant that decreases in size each year.  This grant continues to provide for the organization in two ways, with matching dollars to give incentive in attracting new donors, as well as the allowance of a three year span in which to grow our donor base.  Because Gift Works grants us such great capability in of our ability to manage our donor relationships, not only have we been able to match that grant each year in half the time required, we have also been able to grow the percentage of total funds given by individual donors by 20% each year.  As a result, at the end of our second fiscal year, with a budget of only $120,000, we were $55,000 in the black. We are amazed that after only two short years we have been able to grow 6 months of reserve funds leading into 2009.  As a side note, one of our former partnering organizations, serving families only one month longer than us, recently closed its doors due to a lack of reserve during this difficult economic year.  All this left us thankful for our ability to maintain a close relationship with the people whose generous hearts help us to continue to serve our city’s single mother families.

Having used GiftWorks 2006, 2008, Volunteers, Events, and now Online Donations, we cannot imagine operating without it, much of the vitality of our organization depends upon it!  Because we have several licenses, we are able to allow various people to focus on volunteers while others focus on donors, all while forming a seamless collaboration that is housed in the same easy to use, yet powerful system.

 The Restoration House, during a difficult economic year is not only doing well but is amazingly experiencing an increase in giving. We at TRH are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this fantastic growth is due to GiftWorks provision of a strong foundation with which to grow and manage our relationships with not only individual donors and volunteers, but also our partnering businesses, foundations and churches.

 Thank you for being a part of our team, Mission Research.  We look forward to many years together!"

-Daniel Watson, CoFounder and Executive Director, The Restoration House of East Tennessee