GiftWorks Story Winner: Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas July 30, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Our "Tell Us Your Story" contest surpassed our best expectations.  The entries were both voluminous and beautiful.  To hear first-hand how GiftWorks has helped nonprofit organizations become better and stronger is over-the-top gratifying.  We set out to change the world of fundraising software by offering the nonprofit sector an intuitive, well-designed fundraising software solution that is also easy-to-use and very fairly priced.  We're not resting on our laurels, but are glad to know that we're doing something right.

Selecting the winners of the contest was not easy - they were all outstanding.  In the end, we voted and the top four won prizes.  I will feature each of the winners here this week. Today, please meet one them, the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas.  The Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas "works to eliminate hunger by distributing food to people in need through a network of non-profit agencies and programs."  Each and every week the Food Bank feeds approximately 4,200 people.  Vicki Pillow, Director of Development, sent us her story:

GiftWorks has given the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas one of the most important benefits a non-profit organization can have…more time.  It is my pleasure to list the ways that GiftWorks has helped the mission of the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas.

•        The time spent trying to remember the exact way the donor was entered into the system, so that it could be found again, is now spent distributing more than 1.7 million pounds of food and grocery products through our agencies, including food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, non-profit daycare centers, senior citizen centers, and special care facilities.

•        The time spent pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to make our software work is now spent recruiting sponsors and volunteers for our Senior Pack Program, a food box program for elderly people living on fixed incomes.

•        The time spent running reports is now spent delivering the child friendly, nonperishable, easily-consumed, nutritious food for children at risk of hunger as part of our Backpack Program.

•        The time spent waiting for the software to complete a step (not unlike watching molasses run) is now spent on our commodity distribution system.  The Food Bank works with the USDA to distribute commodity foods to 11 counties in Northeast Arkansas.  In 2008, the Food Bank conducted 4 to 5 distributions at each of our 18 different sites, serving thousands of families each quarter. 

•        The time spent on the old mail merge system is now spent networking with community businesses and civic organizations to build partnerships with the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas.

•        The time spent memorizing codes, to be able to run the system, is now used to do research on available grants to build the capacity of our 84 non-profit agencies and programs.  GiftWorks is such an intuitive system, that I usually figure out what I need to do in a matter of minutes.   

•        The time spent rebooting the old system again and again is now spent working to eliminate hunger by distributing food to people in need through a network of non-profit agencies and programs.  This is the mission of the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas and GiftWorks has allowed us to achieve our mission in a more efficient manner. 

On behalf of the mission of the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas , we want to thank Mission Research for GiftWorks.  For us…it’s about time.   

Please visit the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas at http://www.foodbankofnea.org/.

Project YES (Youth Envisioning Social Change) July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

GiftWorks helps this organization reengage with lapsed donors.  In addition, the organization's Board of Directors is more involved in fundraising now that information on supporters is so easily accessed.

Project YES (Youth Envisioning Social change) is dedicated to creating leadership opportunities for diverse young people through the arts and service learning. Project YES provides three principle programs: the Youth Center, The Service Learning Partnership, and Art in the Community. Our free drop-in Youth Center provides a safe place where young people, ages 12-18, participate in daily, after-school and summer programming. The Service-Learning Partnership promotes academic success and civic engagement through art and service learning for young people ages 5-14. The Art in the Community Program promotes self-expression, collaboration and art appreciation through arts-based programming for youth ages 12-18. 58% of the youth we served are considered low-income.

Project YES recently re-located closer to the local high school and middle school, in order to accommodate rising numbers in Youth Center participants and a subsequent need for a larger space. However, like any nonprofit during these difficult economic times, we have struggled to maintain the funding necessary to continue providing our vital services to the community. An increase in rent and demand for our services left us scrambling to make ends meet, and as funding cuts were made we knew that we needed a new fundraising strategy to make us sustainable.

The obvious solution was to tap into our individual donors, and push for community support, rather than relying on foundation and government money. Unfortunately, the existing database was difficult to use and complex, resulting in corrupted data or no data at all. We had no way of easily re-connecting with our lapsed donors, or even identifying them to ask for their support during our time of need. 

Project YES began searching for a new database system: something easy to learn and use that would bring immediate results. However, everything available seemed too large, too complex, and much too expensive for our needs.

Now, thanks to GiftWorks, Project YES has been able to easily identify donors that have fallen off and re-engaged them through targeted appeals. Our Board of Directors has become more involved in donor solicitation, because we are able to provide them with quick, detailed information on supporters. Direct Mailings take less time, and our volunteers are happy because we can track their interests, skills and schedules. Project YES has set a goal to triple our individual giving in the next 5 years, and we are confident we will be able to meet this goal.

Economic times may still be difficult, but Project YES is in a much better position than we were only 6 months ago because of GiftWorks. We are grateful that Mission Research continues to help us meet OUR mission of serving disadvantaged youth by giving us the tools to connect supporters with our work!

 

Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, Texas July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

A one-person development office needed to move away from its "technically tedious" database system to one that could track records more effectively.  GiftWorks proved to be both easy-to-use, and essential to tracking and reporting.

My name is Vivian Vargas and I'm the Development Director for Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, Texas, Inc.  My department consists of one person, me!  I've been with Planned Parenthood for over nine years now, so I knew the problems the Development Department had, in terms of managing their donor list.  I also knew that I was going to spend the better part of six months doing my best to clean up, tighten and refine my list into the well-oiled machine it is today. 

One problem that needed to be tackled straight away was replacing the database system; it was quite antiquated and in desperate need of an overhaul. This, I knew without a doubt, needed to happen quickly! I first learned about GiftWorks from my colleagues at a Development Officer's Conference in Boston over two years ago.  After much searching and emails back and forth with other Planned Parenthood Development people; it became clear to me that I should give GiftWorks a try.  The worst possible outcome was that the user-friendly system would prove to be too useful and productive that I would fall in love with it.  That's all!

Well, I was right!  I returned to camp re-energized and anxious to finally organize my list the way it should be.  The process of importing/exporting was tedious but has proven to be quite useful.  The former database system our affiliate was using was called FileMaker Pro 5.  This horrid system of a database organizer was not only technically tedious; it was truly a waste of time.  It could not track records based on households.  It could not give me complete financial reports based on campaign or events.  And worst of all, it didn't give proper usage of its people. 

For example, I couldn't organize a record for a Mrs. Patty Brewster who is a board member and a $1,000 donor who likes to help out with the decorating committee for our annual events.  I couldn't even think of matching other donors with Mrs. Brewster's similar variables to make her volunteer/donor experience more rewarding.  On GiftWorks I can set up smart lists for people like Mrs. Brewster and add variables to a new or existing list.  I can also send a special appeal mailer or email to invite them to a decorating meeting to brainstorm ideas for the up-coming annual event.

This is why I refer GiftWorks to fellow colleagues all the time.  As a matter of fact, I referred GiftWorks to Leslie Holloway, a Marketing Assistant to the Director for Quinta Mazatlan Birding and Event Center.  She called me one day and inquired about our database system and if I could refer her to user-friendly software for her organization. 

Well, I sold her on GiftWorks and she's an avid user and promoter like me as well.  Thank you GiftWorks!  You truly helped to organize my life.

 

Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

This Habitat for Humanity office is new to GiftWorks, but is already benefiting from the software.  They credit the organizational improvement provided by GiftWorks with generating the largest attendance at an annual event.

After much frustration with our former donor database and months of research, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity (PPHFH) purchased GiftWorks in February of this year. Since the implementation of GiftWorks into our system, the everyday tasks of entering donations, thanking donors, tracking volunteer hours, and creating reports have been simplified and intuitive, an experience truly foreign in dealing with our former database. Daily, the staff at Pikes Peak Habitat is discovering a new function within GiftWorks which makes administrative tasks easier than ever thought possible.

In fact, an example of the ease and simplification GiftWorks has brought to the PPHFH office is the organization improvement it brought to our 7th annual fundraising event. Approximately 650 people were in attendance, our largest event yet. Preparation for our event, the Hike for Habitat, required us to keep track of early registrations, our volunteers' tasks, team names and members, and sponsorship levels, among other things. With GiftWorks' groups and Smart-lists, tracking the information for this year's fundraiser was painless and even fun. Now, as we look back on the event, we can easily access facts we will need to report on to our board and in grant applications. Thank you GiftWorks!

 

Piast Institute July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

A non-profit research organization creates "new and imaginative approaches" to fundraising with the ability to segment donors through GiftWorks. The SmartList feature of GiftWorks was essential in creating a profile of all major donors.

THE PIAST INSTITUTE AND GIFT WORKS:  A CREATIVE RELATIONSHIP

We began the Piast Institute as a non-profit research and community service organization seven years ago. We brought to the new organization with a great deal of professional experience, scholarly publications and public policy sophistication that continues to mark our work, but also only the most elementary understanding of the fund development side of the business of managing a non-profit.  We initially did all operations manually and wrote each letter of acknowledgement for gifts personally.  Our mailing and donor lists were equally primitive.  We realized after a year that we were spending as much time managing our fund development operation as we were doing the work of the Institute.  It got worse when we developed several different funds.

Then we discovered Gift Works during a capacity building seminar conducted by New Detroit, Inc.  After investigation we decided to give Gift Works a try.  It turned out to be a marvel.  Gift Works not only allowed us to bring our now spreading system under control, but it did much more than we had imagined.  Gift Works provided us with an ongoing tutorial on new and more sophisticated ways to approach the issues of fund development.  It turned out to be not just a system for organization and management of data but a catalyst for creative fund development.  The information we were able to glean about donors, patterns and rhythms of giving and responses to different kinds of appeals were a stimulus to creating new and imaginative approaches to our constituencies.  We now manage lists that include foreign and domestic donors and, among domestic donors, local and national lists.  Our funds also include supporters (often overlapping) of our Census Information Center, our European and North American University faculty exchanges, our social service programs, our cultural offerings and policy research.

We found the Smart List function an especially effective tool for our capital campaign. The heart of our campaign is a direct phone or personal appeal. We brainstormed characteristics based on income, location, past giving, responses to specific appeals or types of appeals and developed a smart list for each. Donors appeared on several lists.  At the end of the day by analyzing the different lists in relation to each significant donor we were able to develop a profile of all of our major donors. We are now using that information to craft the specific appeal to each. The first results are very promising. The data gives us a chance to engage each donor on a personal level with a focus on the things they found most attractive about our work.

We could not have survived and grown from two to ten people without Gift Works.  We and our Board are delighted with it.  Gift Works has been a good friend and a reliable guide over the years and we look forward to working with its new iterations in the future.

 

New Hope Clinic July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

A small medical and dental clinic cites timely follow-up as a vital outcome of using GiftWorks to manage multiple campaigns.

I don't know how New Hope Clinic, a free medical and dental clinic in Southport, North Carolina functioned without your GiftWorks program. We began entering data in October 2008 and were able to send out donor letters later that year. As a result of those donation request letters we received $2,085. A windfall for clinics totally dependent on grants and donations. Very little time and effort was involved. If we had to do this manually, it might never had gotten done.

We are able to define donations by campaigns. This is invaluable information when requesting matching funds for capital construction.

Our thank you letters are written and mailed upon receipt of the donation exceeding our two week or more timeframe in the past.  Tax credit letters can be sent with all the necessary information with just a click of a button. Such timely response adds to our reputation as a professional organization.

We are planning a fund raiser in October and now have an up to date donor and volunteer list. The donor list will be used to solicit donors and to track solicitors.

Again, I don't know how we functioned without this program. We are proud to share our story with you.

Murrysville Community Library Foundation July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

This library credits GiftWorks for making targeted solicitation possible.  In fact, the 2009 solicitation letter raised the highest amount in their 10-year history.

From Random Donations to Planned Donor Development

Thank you to GiftWorks for completely revolutionizing the way our Murrysville Community Library Foundation records donations and cultivates donors. Now instead of a random list of names, we have a data base comprised of individuals who genuinely care about our library and are eager support it.

Ten years ago the Murrysville Community Library Foundation (MCLF) was founded to build an endowment to support the Murrysville Community Library. An annual solicitation letter is sent to library card holders and community members. Prior to last September when we acquired GiftWorks, everyone received the same letter addressed to: "Dear Friend of the Murrysville Library" whether the donor gave five hundred dollars in the past or nothing. An acknowledgment was sent on a note card as proof of the donation for the IRS. Each donor's name was recorded on an Excel spread sheet and nothing was ever done with the list. Truthfully, it is amazing that people continued to give.

GiftWorks has changed our lives.  Now we have an accurate list of donors who care about the Murrysville Community Library and are willing to sustain it. With the GiftWorks software, we have expanded the MCLF beyond our Board of fifteen members to a membership of over six hundred donors who are committed and are willing to give to the library. We have multiple ways to communicate with them including mail, phone, or email. In addition, GiftWorks has enabled us to send personalized letters.  We can also choose whether to make our greeting formal or informal.  Each donor receives a personal "thank you" letter and GiftWorks tracks their donations and pledges.  We now have a donor history which affords us the opportunity to contact persons or groups and explore ways to encourage increased levels of giving. Individual and business "Smart Lists" are distributed at each meeting, so the Board can view all the names and heighten their awareness of those who support the mission of the Murrysville Community Library Foundation. 

This year, despite the drastic decline in our economy, the MCLF solicitation letter resulted in the highest dollar amount raised in our organization's ten year history. This exemplary software assists us in accurately tracking and cultivating our important donors.

MCLF has used GiftWorks for less than one year and our Board is convinced that only a few of the possibilities inherent in this exceptional software have been investigated.  We are so confident now in developing and growing our donor base that we are daring to raise enough dollars to remodel and expand our entire library. What could be better? Thank you, GiftWorks!

 

Middletown Area Senior Center July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

"Fundraising is the art of maintaining relationships, and GiftWorks makes that easy," says the volunteer fund director of this organization.

In 2005-07, the Middletown (Ohio) Senior Citizens Center conducted a fund drive and built a new, state-of-the-art facility.  But there was not an on-going campaign to support the facility.  As a recent retiree, I volunteered to help establish a development department to conduct an annual campaign.  In the past, as a college administrator, I had done fund raising, but I had never operated a software program.  Upon the recommendation of a professional, I purchased GiftWorks.  And I am glad I did!  I downloaded the manual and set up the program.  At every step I found it easy to use, and there was always support available from GiftWorks if I needed it.  After two or three weeks, we were up and running.

To make a long story short, we have been able to raise over $70,000 since I began in November, 2008, and I am very proud of that.  All of my records are neat, up to date, and easy to manage.  Fundraising is the art of maintaining relationships, and GiftWorks makes that easy.

The mission of the Middletown (Ohio) Area Senior Center is to serve maturing men and women by addressing those needs and interests that contribute to their continuing health, employment, and independence.  In the current economic atmosphere we need to help support our senior citizens, many of whom are quite vulnerable.  As it turned out, the increased need for home-delivered meals, transportation, in-home care and other programs operated by the Center have caused membership to triple in one year to 2300 members.  An increasing number of persons over 60 years of age has placed a heavy burden on services, and the Center needs to fund vital programs for the elderly.  An on-going annual campaign maintained and supported by our GiftWorks Program will help make that possible.  I have been more than happy to recommend GiftWorks to other organizations with which I am familiar.

 

Literacy Network of the Southern Berkshires July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

A staff of three part-timers is able to increase efficiencies with GiftWorks.  Read how the organization particularly appreciates QuickBooks integration.

Imagine a small nonprofit community service organization run by three part-time staffers with a growing client base and totally reliant on private donations for income. Now imagine trying to keep track of those donations using antiquated software that none of the current staff had been trained to use. Imagine ...  chaos, or close to it.

That was the situation facing the Literacy Network of the Southern Berkshires about six months ago. "We were buried under a totally corrupted system that no one really knew how to use and that was becoming less and less effective," says LitNet's executive director, Tricia Farley-Bouvier. "It was eating up time that should have been spent on serving our clients." As the name suggests, LitNet provides free, one-on-one tutoring to adults in reading, GED (general education diploma) preparation, English as a Second Language (ESOL), and citizenship preparation.

Deciding that it would more efficient to junk the old software and start over, Tricia and her staff began researching possible replacements, quickly settling on GiftWorks. Two factors were persuasive. One was the rave endorsements GiftWorks received from other nonprofits in the area who used the system. The other was its cost - a fraction of the other programs LitNet investigated.

Although the LitNet staff is still in the process of switching its old data to the new system, the staff is already thrilled with what GiftWorks enables them to do. For starters, GiftWorks interfaces with QuickBooks, which means data on donors and donations must be entered into the system just once. That not only saves time but also minimizes the chances of accounting errors.  GiftWorks also enables LitNet to easily generate mailing lists, thank you notes, appeal letters, and "to-do" lists. The staff is particularly impressed with the "Smart-list" feature, which allows a user to tailor lists to very specific needs and uses. Tricia says another feature, the "donor assignment category," was "a lifesaver in getting the annual appeal letters to Board members on time for personalizing.

LitNet has recently begun to use GiftWorks to allow supporters to donate online through the organization's website.  Other organizations have told us that this feature has increased overall giving. In addition, individual giving histories, easily maintained with the GiftWorks program, will help LitNet better target its funding appeals and approach its donors and potential donors in a professional manner

Learning how to use GiftWorks has been relatively painless. The staff trained online and has taken some of the more advanced webinars on specific topics. "Once you've absorbed the basic training, the system is quite intuitive," says administrative assistant Margaret Swann.

In sum, GiftWorks has been a huge time saver for the LitNet staff and therefore a big money saver. Money saved on administration is money that can be spent on clients," Tricia says. "We couldn't be more thrilled with our decision to switch to GiftWorks."

Library Foundation of Needham July 29, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

A proactive library proceeds toward its $2 million goal with the help of the dynamic features of GiftWorks.

How GiftWorks Fundraising Software has helped the Library Foundation of Needham achieve its mission. 

The Library Foundation of Needham had willing but weary volunteers exhausted by too many meetings and a steady stream of non-connected spreadsheets.   The Foundation is now revitalized after finding and starting to use GiftWorks, which will help us achieve our goals.

As a fundraising professional with a few previous careers, now temporarily retired, I became involved with the Library Foundation of Needham last year.  I didn't know they had GiftWorks.  The Library Foundation has a mission is to raise funds for the Needham Free Public Library.  Simply put, we give them money to provide programs and fund other needs not covered by the town budget.  We are also a proactive organization, one quarter of the way to our two million dollar endowment fund that will assure that those programs and other needs will be funded for future generations of Needham library patrons. 

We didn't use GiftWorks last year for any of our fundraising.  However, just the notion of possibilities it offers has produced a flurry of activity this year.  Since beating the drum about the benefits of a GiftWorks database, the organization has: 

·         Developed standards for data entry. 

·         Found a volunteer willing to clean up our database. 

·         Created an input format for all new spreadsheets to eventually make our lives easier.

·         Called a meeting of the Major Donor committee which generated a plan to build this group. 

·         Produced a goal of a first ever annual fund mailing for mid November, 2009 using GiftWorks. 

·         Are actively investigating network options so that all of us can become GiftWorks savvy. 

How has GiftWorks changed our organization? 

·         By bestowing Hope on our meeting and spreadsheet weary bodies. 

·         By giving us Hope that the steady stream of non-connected spreadsheets containing valuable but unlinked information will end. 

·         By helping us build a dynamic major donor group. 

·         By giving us the tools for a unified mailing and annual fund. 

·         By giving us Hope that we soon will be in a better place, united and networked together in our mission with GiftWorks leading the way towards bringing the Needham Community to a better place. 

What more could we ask of a software program?