RLI July 24, 2009

This organization uses GiftWorks custom fields to track specific variables that help them target their appeals.  Best of all, they recognize that GiftWorks enables them to focus on their mission.

Since RLI started using GiftWorks Fundraising Software from its inception, it is not possible to say how it has changed our organization. It has made our organization function efficiently from the very beginning. We can also say with confidence that our use of GiftWorks has grown as we have grown. The software has so many flexibilities and we are discovering new uses as we grow. In 3 years, we grew from 336 donors to almost 700 donors. Initially we used the software simply to track our donor base and to handle correspondence including receipts. Now we have started to use it to direct correspondence and mailings to different groups of donors that we have identified using some of the optional fields. We also make maximum use of the SmartLists to send mail and to provide us with the reports we need. We like the fact that we can export data from GiftWorks to other software programs such as Excel spreadsheets.

For the past two years, RLI has held a golf tournament to raise funds. GiftWorks has allowed us to add a donation custom field to identify those people who have given to support a player. This allows us to easily see how much money was raised through the tournament and to compare how much was raised each year. We also added a custom field to our donor base to identify those who have played in the tournament so we can direct mailings to them or make contact with them as needed.

The best feature of GiftWorks is that it allows us to concentrate time and effort on our main mission rather than on administrative details of meeting all the requirements that we must meet as a non-profit organization. Tasks such as tracking donations, providing annual receipts to donors, and providing information to the Board of Directors becomes a secondary task rather than one that requires a lot of time and effort on the part of our limited staff. It allows us to focus a majority of our time on our mission. When we added a volunteer to our staff to handle administrative matters, learning the software was a relatively simple task. Help is readily available for each task by clicking the Help tab or by referring to the on-line Donor Guide.

We look forward to continuing to use GiftWorks in our organization and know that, as we grow, it will grow with us.