Year-End Reports: Beyond LYBUNT January 5, 2012 By Ewlacasse

GiftWorks Certified Consultant Sally Funk offers some insights into making your year-end reports work for you.  Based in Colorado Springs (CO), Sally is Donor Systems Specialist with McConkey-Johnston International, a fundraising and marketing consulting firm for nonprofit organizations.

You’ve finished entering gifts for 2011. Now’s a great time to run “big picture” reports to help you plan better and work smarter in 2012.

But which reports?

Remember, the main purpose of any report is to answer a question. With that in mind, what questions are the most important to ask – and answer – about your fundraising efforts last year?

The first thing that comes to mind is usually something like “How did we do last year?” or other performance-related questions. Basically, you need to know: “Did we work the plan?” and, “Did the plan work?” This translates into a number of comparison reports: actual to goal, this mailing vs. that mailing, this year vs. last year, etc. Use your Appeal and Campaign reports to get this information, but you’ll also need to gather data like expense and number mailed/invited to get the clearest picture.

The next question should be, “Did it make a difference?” Did your efforts to acquire new donors actually bring donors in the door? Are your continuing donors increasing, both in numbers and in giving amounts?

Think of the different steps donors can take with your organization. How many signed up last year? How many gave their first gift (and how much)? How many continued giving from 2010 to 2011? How many lapsed? How many lapsed donors came back on board? Of your continuing donors, how many gave more – or less?

You can use Smartlists to create these reports, and then you can compare growth – or lack of it – to your efforts last year. Here’s a sure way to focus your efforts for the year ahead.

 

Don’t Send the Same Thank-You Letter Twice! October 25, 2011 By Ewlacasse

Yes, yes, you have your Thank You Letter(s) in your Letter Library!  But there is no greater turnoff to a repeat donor than receiving what seems to be a “cookie cutter” acknowledgement letter. It’s the beginning of the “disconnect” you want to avoid!

And, yes, yes, finding new ways to express your gratitude and let donors know the good works their support provides is a recurring challenge.  And yet, wouldn’t you yourself feel warmer and more appreciated if a thank-you letter you received made you sit up and take a fresh look at the organization you support!

Here are some thought starters to get you going on thank-you letters that don’t put people to sleep:

Don’t start with “Thank you for your gift”; find something more exciting such as:  “Thirty children had a warm meal tonight….” 

Don’t let the tax-receipt function of your letter overshadow your sincere appreciation!

Focus on “you”—the donor; not we—the staff.

Express thanks for the donor and his/her support, not the $$$ gift.

Try one of these topics for the paragraph showing the success made possible by the donor’s gift:

      Relate to the ask, but in a more specific way. “Ten men and four women at the shelter on Christmas Eve experienced…”

      Give a progress report on your new project, or an update on an ongoing project.  “Just last week the concrete was poured…”

      Highlight fresh facts or statistics related to the gift.  “Our society has just been recognized by the United Way for serving 946….”

      Quote or tell the story of a few who have benefited from the support.  “Sally Jones (or anonymous  anonymous if appropriate) and her three children can enroll…”  “It feels so good for me to know that you will help my husband find a job…”

      Enclose photos or a drawing made by a client.

      Name some specifics about the future your agency and the donor are creating.

      Give a historical perspective on the progress being made, and mention the donor’s history of support.

Next to your appeal letter, your acknowledgement letter is second most important letter you write. It should be prompt, sound fresh, and make the recipient happy about the support the gift has shown. It should be signed by a real person; it might even have a personal handwritten note at the bottom.  After all, this letter paves the way for your next approach to the donor!

 

 

 

 

GiftWorks’ Features Enhance Efforts for CoDevelopment Canada June 1, 2011 By Ewlacasse

“Right now, we’re testing a Mother’s Day appeal, and we can watch the results coming in daily,” Jen Kirk, Director of Development at CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev), reports as one of her favorite things about GiftWorks.  Beyond just maintaining the database, Jen finds that many of the features of GiftWorks give her important information that she needs, and with clarity.

When they are designing a campaign, they consider fundraising industry standards, what their campaigns usually generate, and set an expected rate of return for the new effort.  They can then evaluate the rate of return as it happens using the tools built into GiftWorks.

“Reports and Smart Lists functions make it easy for us to compare giving patterns with previous years and keep on top of any donors who, unexpectedly, do not respond,” Jen adds.  “Another advantage of GiftWorks is that it automatically uploads information to a donor’s file—when a mailing is sent, or a newsletter, or a receipt--giving us consistency in recordkeeping without having to go back and update donor files.”

CoDevelopment Canada is a not-for-profit that works for social change in Latin America and in Canada.  Since 1985, CoDev has been improving the lives of women, workers, and communities by linking groups in Canada with organizations in Latin America working for social justice.  Some of the global issues they tackle are protecting workers’ rights, improving public education, strengthening grassroots initiatives, and promoting fair trade. You can learn more about their work at www.codev.org

When you donate to CoDev,  you become a part of a group of caring individuals and organizations committed to global justice. CoDev is a membership based organization and has a monthly giving program called ‘Partners in Solidarity.’ In 2005, the CoDev Endowment Fund was launched in celebration of 20 years of building sustainable and equitable global development. A gift to the Endowment Fund, held at Vancity Foundation, plants the seeds for global justice and ensures a long-term legacy of growth for CoDev.

“Giftworks saves us time and gives us many options right at our fingertips so that we can steward our donors better,” Jen Kirk concludes.

GiftWorks users meeting up in Kentuckiana November 9, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

by Meg E. Cox

The GiftWorks user group on LinkedIn is a fabulous resource. But have you ever wished you could meet with other GiftWorks users in person to ask questions and share solutions?

If you live in the Louisville, Kentucky, area (Kentuckiana to locals), now's your chance. On December 8, 2010, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, the Center for Nonprofit Excellence is inviting GiftWorks users to the first meeting of a local user group.

The meet-up is the brainchild of Merv Antonio, director of learning at the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, and Joe Johnson, one of the principles at Non-Profit Partners LLC. CNPE has been offering a class on what to look for in a donor management system, and Merv saw that once people have made their choice, they often want to get together with other users to share information and expertise. So he talked to Joe, whose firm has long offered groups for users of various technology products, but had not yet offered one for GiftWorks users.

Participants will learn about GiftWorks best practices and how their record keeping in GiftWorks can dovetail with other operations.

Joe recommends GiftWorks to nonprofits that need fundraising software and are already using QuickBooks. He says that he is a "firm believer in having fundraising software integrate with the accounting system, and GiftWorks works wonderfully with QuickBooks." Also, "GiftWorks has a light footprint. It doesn't require a lot of technical set-up and sophistication, and it's logical and intuitive"—so it's perfect for nonprofits that don't have technology experts on staff.

At the December 8 meeting, which Joe will facilitate, participants will learn about GiftWorks best practices and will discuss how their record keeping in GiftWorks can dovetail with other operations. For example, Joe explains, with GiftWorks a nonprofit can generate a first-time-donor report and give it to board members, who can make thank-you calls to new donors. During their phone calls, the board members can learn details about the new donors' interest in the organization, then pass that information back to development staff for entry into GiftWorks.

Participants in the December 8 meeting will also decide how often they would like to meet and what they would like to accomplish at their meetings. In Joe's experience, user groups usually want to use their meeting time to learn about a feature of the software or to work through a specific problem with which a number of the members have been struggling.

Joe hopes that this group will be one of several. He invites people in central Kentucky, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, who are interested in getting a group started to contact him at jjohnson@n-ppi.com. He'd also be happy to give guidance to people who would like to start user groups elsewhere.

If you're registering online for the December 8 GiftWorks user group meeting, take a moment to look at CNPE's learning calendar, where you'll see workshops on managing social media, measuring program outcomes, using QuickBooks, and much more.

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Meg E. Cox is a freelance writer and editor in Chicago.

The GiftWorks YouTube channel November 8, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

By Mary Pat Donnellon

Our videos may not be the funniest on YouTube, but they just might be the most useful! One of our basic philosophies here at GiftWorks is that our software should be easy to learn and easy to use. That's why we make as much information as possible available to you for free.

Take a moment to check out the YouTube GiftWorks channel at www.youtube.com/missionresearch. You will see that our instructional videos cover many topics—from getting your data into GiftWorks to posting your donations from GiftWorks to QuickBooks.

Here is an overview of what you will find on the GiftWorks channel:

Importing your data into GiftWorks: Our playlist of 14 videos tells you everything you need to know about getting your data into GiftWorks.

GiftWorks and QuickBooks: Check out this series on setting up your GiftWorks/QuickBooks integration.

GiftWorks 2011: Curious about the latest and greatest features in GiftWorks 2011? There’s no better place to see them all in action!

GiftWorks 10-minute overview: If you’re short on time but long on curiosity, this video will show you the basics quickly.

Other topics include:  GiftWorks Anywhere, GiftWorks mailing types, GiftWorks SmartLists, upgrading, Volunteers, and Events.

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Mary Pat Donnellon is the CEO of Mission Research, maker of GiftWorks fundraising software.

5 Free GiftWorks Resources You Need to Know About August 27, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

GiftWorks is easy to learn and easy to use, but as with any software, you will undoubtedly have some questions along the way. We want to make sure you know about some of the free resources available to help you get the most out of GiftWorks.

1. Read the guides! We have excellent guides that walk you through GiftWorks donor management, campaign management, QuickBooks integration, and more. They are well-written and include lots of examples and screen shots.
2. Watch the videos! We have created a YouTube channel so you can see demos of different GiftWorks features and functions. One of the most popular series of videos is the Data Importing series. Everyone needs to start by getting their data into GiftWorks, and these videos can help you understand how to do this very efficiently.
3. Take a tour! Ellen Mowrer hosts two live GiftWorks webinars each week. We also have free overviews of data importing (watch the YouTube videos first, then sign up), and of processes for managing online donations, events, and volunteers. Sometimes just watching the software in action and hearing other organizations’ questions during a webinar can help you get ideas on how to make GiftWorks super effective for you.
4. Join the User Group! All GiftWorks customers and consultants are welcome to join our lively User Group on LinkedIn. Simply create a free LinkedIn account if you don't already have one, search for the GiftWorks User Group, and request to join. You will see robust conversations on all kinds of topics. You can ask your own questions and learn from your peers and from experts around the world.
5. Email support! If you can’t find your answer using one of these other resources, you can always email us. Email support for GiftWorks is free, and we’ll get back to you within one business day.

Of course, we offer additional options for those who want to be able to call and talk to support at any time or would like to take our GiftWorks University courses (see www.giftworksconnect.com/support). We want to make sure everyone gets the help they need to be successful with GiftWorks!

Managing Members with GiftWorks August 26, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

by Karen Schaller

Have you been successfully using GiftWorks to manage data related to your prospects, donors, and volunteers, but wishing you could do more to track and cultivate your members?

The most obvious approach to membership within GiftWorks has been to use the member-since and renewal-date fields, assign a group code to indicate membership, and use a custom field to record the level of membership. However, these donor-based fields don’t link the membership details to donations, and so don’t support retention of membership history or analysis of membership activity. Group codes can’t be output into a report, and because donor custom fields are attached to the person, they can be used for only one piece of information and therefore are not effective at retaining membership details over time.

Read on to move beyond the obvious and explore the possibilities of using membership donations to record and work with member levels, changes in member activity, gifted and life memberships, and concurrent memberships.

Storing membership details in donations

Donation custom fields can track membership history and provide analysis of activity because each donation custom field exists in every gift and can hold information unique to each gift. Therefore, only one of your limited donation custom fields is used to track membership levels over time. The same holds true for any donation custom field, so a total of four custom fields could store all membership details and history. And you can record concurrent memberships simply by adding another membership gift.

Examples using Donation Custom Fields: For gifted memberships, the monetary gift would be entered in the donor’s record with the member level indicating “Gifted to.” Another donation custom field holds the name of the person who is receiving the gifted membership. The membership level of “Gifted to” allows you to exclude this donor if you do not want them in a member list, or if you want to retrieve them separately to send them a different type of solicitation or reminder notice than you would for someone who purchased their own membership.

With GiftWorks 2010, you can create gifted and lifetime memberships by adding a zero-dollar donation directly in the gifted or lifetime member’s record and recording the details in the custom fields.

The example below shows the detail within a zero-dollar donation placed in a lifetime member’s record. The custom field for level would indicate “Lifetime,” and this designation could be used to include these members in or exclude them from SmartLists. A dated campaign code could represent the year they were given lifetime membership.

For all membership gifts, dated campaign and appeal codes further define your membership details and provide for more effective filtering and sorting in SmartLists and reports.

Analyzing membership data

When membership detail is in the gifts, you can analyze your member activity right along with gift amounts, campaigns, and appeals. You can filter SmartLists on the basis of any gift detail, including donation custom fields, and the gift detail can be included in the output—the printed or exported list.

Donation reports filtered on campaign or appeal, or based on a SmartList, can also include the gift details, as shown in the examples below.

Donation History by Campaign report—grouped by campaign:

Donation History by Campaign report—grouped by donor (member):

This report could also be grouped by appeal or by any of the donation custom fields.

Letters

When all membership details reside with gifts, the thank-you letter templates can include merge fields for these details. You can generate membership renewal letters by sending a donation-based SmartList to the mail center. With a list based on gifts—the membership details are from previous membership gifts—you are able to access the donation letter templates. This gives you the opportunity to include any of the past gift or membership details along with the current renewal date. With the membership details recorded with separate gifts, you can generate letters for separate, concurrent memberships within one record.

There are limitations with this strategy. When the membership information is stored within gifts, it is not easily viewed in the donor record. Unless you open a gift, you can’t see whether the person is a member, and at what level. Determining membership activity is also more difficult during gift entry.

Combining options to achieve your goal

Each option for membership management in GiftWorks has particular strengths and weaknesses, as detailed in the chart below.

When these options are used in combination, however, new possibilities emerge. One possibility would be to use gifts plus detailed group codes like 2010 Patron, 2011 Supporter, and 2011 Life Member. This strategy would require you to add only a group code after entering all membership details in the donation, and it would provide a visual history along with the analysis available through the gift method.

No single option within GiftWorks can do everything, but if you creatively combine options, you can achieve data management goals that once seemed out of reach.

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Karen Schaller, fundraising database consultant, has nearly a decade of experience helping nonprofits utilize fundraising software. Karen works with organizations to learn their database needs and evaluate their current software use. She helps them handle new information, merge and update old sources, and most importantly make data accessible, analyzable, and profitable. As a service to nonprofits in the community, Karen presents workshops with the Maine Association of Nonprofits. For more information, visit www.karenschaller.com.

GiftWorks 2011 Coming in September July 28, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

The team is proud to announce the newest version of GiftWorks - GiftWorks 2011 - coming this September.  Each year, we evaluate all the feedback and requests from our vast user community, recommendations from our consultant advisors and other experts, and trends in the nonprofit sector to determine the improvements and new features to be included.

Here are just some of the enhancements included in GiftWorks 2011:  The ability to attach files and documents to donor records; enhanced receipting including simplified year-end receipting, Canadian receipting and more, more custom fields in both number and type (numeric and currency);  a new duplicate donor finder tool, enhanced pledge management, the ability to search Notes and use in Smartlist criteria.

All customers enrolled in our popular SmartPlan or who are using GiftWorks Anywhere will get GiftWorks 2011 automatically (at no cost) in September.  For everyone else, we are making it easy to get current with GiftWorks so your organization can take advantage of all the time-saving and fund-raising features we have added over the years.  Please email sales@giftworksconnect.com for more information!

GiftWorks Web Collect a Hit with Colorado Foundation July 26, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

by Ellie LaCasse

Corinne O’Flynn wanted GiftWorks Web Collect even before it was released. “Once we saw the ease with which GiftWorks Online Donations was able to capture data, it was an instant wish that we could capture data online outside of an appeal for donations.”

Corinne is the founder of the Rowan Tree Foundation (Parker, CO), whose mission is helping families heal after the death of a child.

Rowan Tree’s website receives 160,000 hits each month. And though the organization’s events are local to Colorado, the foundation provides support and outreach worldwide. Only “about 65% of our website visitors are from the U.S. Most people find us via Google,” Corinne reports. “There is so little active support for those grieving the loss of a child across the globe that those who find us stay connected no matter what the distance.”

Each year Rowan Tree holds several memorial events enabling families to commemorate their child. One of them is an annual summertime Butterfly Release. Both attendees and nonattendees can register to have their child’s name read aloud and listed in the event program. Rowan Tree is using Web Collect to take and fulfill orders for personalized keepsakes made from photos taken at this year’s Butterfly Release.

"Fewer fingers involved, fewer mistakes."

Corinne created an online form with Web Collect to capture important personalized data and contact details. She then integrates this data seamlessly into her GiftWorks database. If the information collected includes monetary gifts, Corinne uses GiftWorks Online Donations to process the gifts. She is able to check and manage Web Collect, Online Donations, and GiftWorks Data Protect all from a single dashboard. “Fewer fingers involved, fewer mistakes,” Corinne quips.

After this event and others, Rowan Tree mails event programs, keepsakes, or other items to participants. “Having all the data on hand to do this automatically is great!”

Corinne has ambitious plans for future use of Web Collect, and she’s in conversation with GiftWorks developers, helping identify the most desirable new functions. As her next project, she hopes to develop a survey of 5–10 questions, use Web Collect to bring the responses into GiftWorks, then use that data to build a new awareness program.

“At Rowan Tree Foundation, we hope to help change the way child loss is addressed so parents have access to compassionate care that respects the humanity of their child, the gravity of the loss, and the lifelong impact that the loss of a child has on the family,” Corinne concludes. “To accomplish this goal, we need to have accurate information in our database so that we can treat each family with the utmost compassion.”

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Ellie LaCasse, a friend of GiftWorks, is officially retired from fundraising but is forever a community volunteer.

The GiftWorks User Group: What's in It for Me? June 8, 2010 By Mary Pat Donnellon

by Ellie LaCasse

Karen Schaller is enthusiastic about the GiftWorks User Group. A fundraising database consultant, she has discovered that participating in the group on LinkedIn can be like going to a conference: you can "take the opportunity to talk with your fellow fundraisers, uncover new heights to aspire to, explore possibilities that others have already worked out (no need to reinvent the wheel!), and find solutions to issues you haven't conquered," Karen explains.

Duke Speer of CorTech, which brings the strategic use of technology to fundraising professionals, is also a regular participant in User Group discussions. “The most interesting exchanges occur when a user raises a question and seven or eight others chime in with their ideas, experiences, disasters, connections," Duke says. "Everyone emerges with more insight, better strategic background, and refreshed enthusiasm--ready to take fundraising to the next level.”

The GiftWorks User Group on LinkedIn, open exclusively to GiftWorks customers, consultant partners, and staff, is now more than 1,500 members strong. It's a place where you can converse 24-7 about what’s working for you in GiftWorks and what’s not. Many use the group to find a quick answer to a technical problem that’s blocking their immediate progress. Others check in frequently and thrive on interactions and discussions that interest them. They get a sense of where others in the nonprofit world are focusing their time and where they are headed.

"Everyone emerges with more insight, better strategic background, and refreshed enthusiasm"

Many of us got our start in fundraising when someone gave us a little time to help us begin; the GiftWorks User Group is a place where we can pay that investment forward by sharing what we've learned with those who are not as far along the path. When many of us participate in this open and generous way, fundraising in general benefits from the dynamics of a healthy nonprofit community.

Despite the huge variety of missions represented in the group, all GiftWorks users share the same need to maximize the power of their database as the best tool for making their fundraising efficient and effective.

The User Group on LinkedIn complements the GiftWorks user manual and tech support services, Karen explains. It does more than tell you how to do something; "it can offer the best way, based on others' experiences." The group offers "an open line to others who may be using their GiftWorks database in ways you haven't even dreamed of yet."

And "the beauty about user groups,” says Karen, “is that access is limited to members who have been verified, so you know you’re among other professionals who share the same goals and challenges.”

Want to jump on the LinkedIn bandwagon? Sign up to join Karen Schaller, Duke Speer, and GiftWorks business development director Ellen Mowrer for a virtual lunch on Tuesday, June 15, from noon to 1:30 Eastern time. They will share tips and tricks on participating in the GiftWorks User Group, present a review of many of the questions and answers that appear there, and provide an opportunity to present your questions to the experts in real time.

Ellie LaCasse, a friend of GiftWorks, is officially retired from fundraising but is forever a community volunteer.