When you set out to learn any new software, it’s like learning to dance where the steps seem familiar, and yet new at the same time. As I begin my second week at FundRaiser Software, I find that the dance becomes more familiar and I can really appreciate the nuances of the program.
One of the things that first impressed me about FundRaiser’s software program was its versatility. My background in nonprofits is with small organizations—really small. For a while back in the 90’s, I worked with our local cage bird club to do rescue for aviary birds like finches and canaries. Eventually we educated those in the area about the smaller birds and the local club was able to pick up the work of finding new homes for any birds in need. It was a me-myself-and-I operation, with help from a few friends. Even for a nonprofit as small as we were back then, I think FundRaiser’s membership function would have been very helpful. That would have been so much easier than the Excel spreadsheets I was using to track renewals and to print labels for the newsletter mailings.
As I begin to seriously work with the software, I’m discovering the intuitive flow to the information to be a very nice feature. It makes learning relatively easy. I’ll admit that at first I was a bit daunted. There’s a lot of information in FundRaiser; nonprofits can track a vast amount of data on their donors and prospects. For those who may feel as I did, don’t worry. With FundRaiser, your organization can use what you need and the different editions work well for that.
I’m looking forward to diving deeper into the program as I learn more about its various features and support. So far, I have to say that I am enjoying the process and it is fun to think about the various ways that a nonprofit can really use the program.
Something I found helpful this week: When printing out multiple reports, you can mark the box for “lock for session” and it will save your date range for as long as FundRaiser is open.