GiftWorks Anywhere a Perfect Solution for ABCNJ April 30, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Anthony, our marketing intern, and I recently had the chance chat with Reverend Dr. Lee Spitzer of the
American Baptist Church of New Jersey (or the ABCNJ, for short). The spiritual leader of the community, Rev. Spitzer also was faced with the task of adapting the churches’ fundraising strategy to the ever-changing world.

ABCNJ seeks to organize the ministries and activities in its region to promote faithful and healthy churches, pastors and leaders, ministries and staff. Rev. Spitzer guides the 286 churches led by a total of 320 pastors as the Executive Minister and Senior Regional Pastor.

In selecting fundraising software, one of their requirements was the ability to access the fundraising information from multiple locations via a secure Internet connection. ABCNJ operates from two offices; and its staff spends much of their time working from home. The staff uses both Macs and PCs.

After taking fundraising courses and mulling through the endless possibilities of what software he should pick, Rev. Spitzer decided to go with his NYU professor's recommendation: GiftWorks (his professor is fundraising guru Ruthellen Rubin, CFRE). GiftWorks Anywhere was the best option for ABCNJ, as GiftWorks Anywhere offers the same easy-to-use, easy-to-understand software as GiftWorks—just accessible from anywhere.

“Our traditional way of funding was to receive donations directly through churches, but as society has changed, we now rely on individual donations. That’s why we chose GiftWorks.”

“This was a big decision. Once you buy into a software package, you’re stuck, especially after you train your staff. We were using QuickBooks to track all of our giving data, and GiftWorks caught my eye since it can integrate with QuickBooks. My staff and I are always on the go, so we knew that in-house software just wouldn’t cut it; GiftWorks Anywhere has been an efficient, safe and easy-to-use program!”

Rev. Spitzer’s and his organization’s GiftWorks Anywhere experience has been extremely positive. He appreciates that GiftWorks can take complex functions and make them simple, which is just what he tries to do in his sermons!  Seems easy, but it’s really challenging to accomplish well.

GiftWorks Nonprofit of the Month, Healthcare Ministries April 22, 2010 By Steve Fafel

Using Volunteer HealthCare Professionals to Reach the World’s Hurting People

While healthcare issues continue to stew in Washington, grassroots organizations continue striving to provide medical care for those in need. One of these organizations is GiftWorks April Nonprofit of the Month: HealthCare Ministries.

HealthCare Ministries currently has medical outreach teams all over the world, from Haiti to Ecuador, and even as far as impoverished Asian and Eurasian countries. Due to the recent tragedy in Haiti, HealthCare Ministries has had teams back-to-back in Port-au-Prince throughout March, and will continue to do so during the upcoming months. Their clinics are typically comprised of six areas: medical, dental, optical, pharmacy, health teaching and spiritual counseling; they also have special teams just for health teaching and disaster relief.


HealthCare Ministries is a Christian-based medical evangelism organization. Founded in 1984 by Dr. Paul Williams of Lakeland, FL with the Assemblies of God World Missions, their primary focus was to use medical missions as a tool of evangelism. The organization is now based in Springfield, MO.

HealthCare Ministries has been using GiftWorks since 2007; accounting coordinator Holly Cain said that since then, they have enjoyed several benefits.

“We have been able to combine our database of donors and volunteers, compared to before when we had to keep two separate databases. GiftWorks is a much simpler program than our previous one. Previously only two people in the office were able to pull queries, causing information back up. Now, the majority of our staff is on GiftWorks, and can pull the information they need for the project they are working on. Our projects are accomplished more efficiently.”

The organization has recently upgraded to GiftWorks 2010, a move which, according to Holly, has “helped us cut down on the number of duplicates and made our database more manageable.”

HealthCare Ministries also utilizes the GiftWorks Volunteers add-in.

“When creating our list of volunteers for an event, we need to see every contact phone
number they have. Being able to have one report with all the information we need on it has been a big help. We no longer have to add information to the report, leaving less room for error and making us more efficient.”

September 22-24, they are hosting their annual Medical Evangelism Forum which networks churches who are sending their own medical evangelism teams around the world. There is also a pre-forum session September 20-21 that is specific to an RN's role in international medical evangelism. 

HealthCare Ministries can always use the donations, assistance, or prayers of the community. To find out more, go to www.healthcareministries.org.

Organization out of Chaos April 22, 2010 By Steve Fafel

Teresa Baker, Director of Development for St. Augustine Catholic High School in Tucson, AZ, tells her story like this:

“When I came to St. Augustine three years ago, I inherited an office filled with boxes and stacks of paper.  As a highly organized person, I thought I would faint!  I couldn’t imagine how the development office functioned without strict management of information, especially related to donor history.  It took two entire weeks for me to plow through all the boxes, organize the files, papers and then re-organize again to have all paperwork together by donor.

“Little did I know that this was just the beginning!  Although the school had been opened for 3 years, because of a series of unfortunate events, the development office lacked infrastructure and organization.  Disgruntled donors were calling, obviously upset that they had never received recognition or a tax donation letter/receipt. My immediate goal was to find a donor software system that was affordable!  I was up against three huge factors:  the school didn’t have any money for software; the part-time development assistant didn’t have advanced computer skills; and I needed to get things organized in a hurry because I had countless other challenges to tackle.

“The donor software system had to be user-friendly, with simple and logical processes. It needed to grow with our organization, yet provide features that were standard in the more expensive systems like Raiser’s Edge®.”  Most importantly, it had to be something a small, non-profit could afford.  After two days of research online, I discovered GiftWorks.  It was made to order!  Because it was affordable, I was able to secure a donor to sponsor the purchase and 40 hours of manpower to input donor history and data from paper files.

“Today we have over 2500 donors in our system and recently added the GiftWorks Online Donations feature to our website.  GiftWorks is on two computers in the development office and we have plans to add it to finance department later in the year.  The system is so organized and easy to use, that even a volunteer with little exposure to the program, can successfully navigate GiftWorks without hours of training.

“GiftWorks has been blessing for St. Augustine Catholic High School!  It enabled us to organize chaos in managing our donors.  So much so, that this year (my 3rd year), I was successful in soliciting over $5M from one donor!  This is what GiftWorks is all about---making things easy for the office to operate smoothly!”

GiftWorks Makeover April 14, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

In the next few weeks, you will hopefully notice evidence of a GiftWorks makeover! We are updating our look to best reflect who we are: Energetic, Committed, Knowledable, Caring, Friendly and Open folks dedicated to serving the nonprofit sector with simple, powerful fundraising software.

The first place you will see the new GiftWorks style is in this blog and in our soon-to-be-published eNewsletter. Next, you'll see a new website (www.giftworksconnect.com). Our current website (www.missionresearch.com) will still be available for the time being too.

By the time you read this, the new look may already be in effect here (white, with multi-color ribbons). If not, check back in the next day or so and share your impressions!

Notes from NTEN April 11, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Steve and I returned from NTEN in Atlanta yesterday and today we join Karen and Ellen at AFP International in Baltimore.  It's always good to be out and meeting clients, consultants, future customers and friends.  Here I will share some tidbits from NTEN and will follow up with AFP notes in a couple of days.

Attending the Nonprofit Technology Network (www.nten.org) conference is a great way to get and stay up-to-speed on technology trends and best practices - specifically relating to nonprofits.  The crowd tends to be young and tech savvy and the whole event is really energetic and uplifting.  We were delighted to meet GiftWorks friends and veteran nonprofit gurus there too (especially Ruthellen Rubin, Robert Weiner and Kathy Alme).   If there's any way you can make it work, a trip to next year's conference in Washington, DC would be a great investment!

Over lunch, Ruthellen shared some trends she is seeing in the field that were reinforced at NTEN.  First, she loves being surrounded by people younger than herself and she makes it a point to do this.  It keeps her fresh, engaged and alert for what's coming next.  She also happily notes that fundraising is hip for Gen X and Gen Y.  These generations want meaningful work, are tech savvy and not afraid to leverage technology for the benefit of a cause they believe in.  There really is an opportunity for all nonprofits to attract young, smart people as volunteers or employees for this purpose.  She also learned statistics at one of the sessions showing that most young people don't have checkbooks (all debit cards and online banking) or home phones (all mobile phones).  So, as you seek to include 20 somethings or even 30 somethings in your annual appeal, you are wise to consider how they give - they probably won't be returning a check in an envelope! 

There is more to share, but I'm out of time now...

Did anyone else attend NTEN?  What did you learn?

The Role of Special Events in Fundraising April 6, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

In my days as a fundraiser, I admit that the special events wore me down.  I learned the hard way that while an event may have seemed easy or had the potential to net "alot," the sheer amount of work in leading teams of volunteers, attending to every detail, and ensuring an event worthy of my organization, made the event extremely costly in other ways (exhaustion of staff and volunteers, opportunity cost of working the event instead of other activities, to name a few).

I also noticed that many times organizations that are hesitant or cautious or nervous about directly asking their community for financial support would substitute a fundraising event which "seems" to be a less direct way of gaining community support.  Too often, these events are weak substitutes for core activities - a strong annual campaign and constant cultivation of donors and potential donors.

On the other hand, special events can be smashingly successful.  They can bring communities together and draw attention to an important mission.  They can raise lots of dollars and bring new interest and excitement to an organization.  They provide opportunities for public outreach and awareness, and provide a cultivation opportunity for current and future donors.

So, how do you know which side your special event falls?  Join the GiftWorks team on April 27 from 3 - 4:15 p.m. to find out!  That is the topic of our upcoming free webinar "In Defense of Events: Measuring Success Beyond the Bottom Line," presented by expert Nancy Dunleavy, CEO of Dunleavy & Associates in Philadelphia.  Nancy will lead participants through a series of questions that will help you determine if your special event should be discontinued, modified, or sustained.  Register here:  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/222206576. 

Do share your thoughts on special events.  Do you have a method for deciding whether it's prudent to hold one or not?  Do you have measurements for success? How do you decide?