Flexibility in fundraising software: new capabilities make life easier for administrators

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, April, 2001 by Robert Moskowitz

Until recently, fundraising and planned giving software was aimed primarily at automating the individual tasks involved. This included everything from planning specific gift strategies and fundraising events, to maintaining a database of alumni and friends for tracking gifts and pledges and sending acknowledgements.

All this was helpful, yet essentially limited in scope.

That's why it is so exciting to see fundraising software move in new directions. One change is a new emphasis on Web-based capabilities.

"To become desktop independent--and to support today's wide range of end-users, including donors--vendors are offering software products that are easily accessible via the Web," said Michael A. Reopell, director of advancement information systems at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. "Most of the major players have already made dents in this area, but I see more room to grow."

By leveraging the Web, today's software not only runs on a desktop or laptop, but also becomes equally accessible from any Web-enabled computer--even one in the donor's home or office. This helps two ways: by permitting more flexible use of the software, and by supporting much easier and tighter integration of an institution's natural community. Williams College, for example, can serve up a customized menu of reports to each alumnus, specifically tailored to his or her interests and needs. This means that class agents who perform fundraising services on behalf of the college can easily stay informed about the institution's real time progress toward its goals.

David Carey of SCT Corporation, a producer of fundraising software, said software providers are responding to the higher service expectations of potential donors, such as alumni, who want to be able to "interact with their alma mater, anytime, anywhere."

SCT's Banner Web for Alumni was the first Web application integrated to the back end alumni database to create a seamless experience for users. And just a year ago the company introduced a Web application for the development officer, providing them with 24 hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, remote access.

Carey said that the demand from schools for software with Web-based capabilities is growing as fundraising becomes more critical to their survival and as they search for new avenues to reach donors.

"With the low inflation they can't grow tuition revenues anymore," he said. "Those days are gone."

Increased Effectiveness

But even more important, today's fundraising software can dramatically increase fundraising effectiveness by moving the power of automation beyond operations into management.

"I see a trend toward software that is truly multi-purpose," said Charlie Hunsaker, president of R I Arlington, a Malvern, Penns., consultant on fundraising systems for development offices and nonprofit organizations. "This management and oversight component is creating real value in new software."

Modern fundraising software tracks both the day-to-day activities of people in the field, and the summarization of those activities. Therefore, the software helps not only the people doing the solicitations, but those who are planning, reviewing, and controlling such activities.

"It's not just an annoyance for the major gift fundraiser to enter information into the system," said Hunsaker. "They're getting reminders of the next step in follow-up, while management can see trends and patterns, which donors are being more generous, and thus, where fundraisers can concentrate their efforts to be more effective." In short, today's software allows better evaluation of the effectiveness of fundraising all across the board such as mailings, personal solicitations, and phon-a-thon calls.

Functionality

Fundraising software is beginning to play much the same role as the newly emerging customer relations management systems that are revolutionizing the business world.

There are essentially two categories of fundraising software: "development" or "advancement," and "major gifts." In each of these categories, all the software essentially the same tasks (although some systems may be divided into several functional modules). But, they don't all work the same way. That's why Hunsaker believes it's no longer critical to develop a detailed set of requirements for vendors to meet. "More often than not," he said, "they all can meet your functional requirements. So you end up with a set of matrices that have an `X' mark under all the features for all the vendors." A better approach, Hunsaker believes, is to develop a series of specific "demonstration scenarios," each of which explains exactly how you want to do something with the software. When you let the various vendors show you how they do these tasks, you get a much better sense of which software is right for your institution.

Interactive Illustrations

Once contact, development, and planned giving activities all had to be managed and conducted by hand. Fortunately for the chronically overworked and overstressed, as well as the mathematically challenged, computers and specialized software have changed all that. "Twenty years ago we did all these calculations by hand, and it took forever," said Thomas J. Kolda, Ph.D., CFRE, and director of college advancement and university planned giving at the University of Wisconsin -- Whitewater.