FundRaiser Blog

When you decide to move into a more advanced FundRaiser program, it usually means that your organization is in a time of positive change: your organization is growing and having enough success that you can no longer make due with the limitations of your previous software. You make the jump to a more powerful program, open it up and then try to get as comfortable as you used to be with the old software.

I had that kind of positive confusion on my mind when I went over to the FundRaiser Tech Support department and asked Jonathan what would be his ‘best advice’ for organizations who were having 'software growing pains.' He had some great suggestions, but overall it boiled down to this simple piece of advice:

If you have a Mac computer and are looking for a donor management system, you probably already know that there very few donor management programs written specifically for Mac computers. So what do you do-- just go with the one of the few Mac options out there? That's fine if one of those programs offers exactly the features you want, but given the huge array of donor management programs for Windows users, you might feel a little resentful about being limited in that way.

Good news-- even as a Mac user there are two ways to have nearly as many options in donor management software as Windows users have:

When Siena/Francis House began to grow, it also found the need to change how it was using FundRaiser. For one thing, with more staff members simultaneously using the software, FundRaiser was slowing down. For another, more users meant more need to coordinate work within the database.

Siena/Francis House is Nebraska’s largest shelter serving homeless men, women, and children, and growing quickly. In the past seven years, “we’ve grown from 86 to 222 beds for the men guests. Within 2 months of building the new men’s shelter, we were laying down mats for overflow. Depending on the weather, we now house as many as 300 to 350 men, women and children guests a night and serve 900 meals a day. We’re expanding our women’s shelter soon to double the number of women we can help,” says Marge Harman, Information Technology Administrator for the organization.

Today I was looking through my emails and I noticed that I have quite a few from customers who want me to update their contact information for billing  purposes in our database. I’m happy to do this, of course, but I also wanted to  point out a way that you, as a FundRaiser customer, can control your own contact information.  Accessing this information through our Customer Portal is just for you!

You can log in, set up multiple users, view free training videos, review help technical support help documents and interact with other users and the FundRaiser staff through the Support Forum.  Make sure you contact our Technical Support staff to obtain your username or you can reset your password on your own from the login page.

Today I was looking through my emails and I noticed that I have quite a few from customers who want me to update their contact information for billing  purposes in our database. I’m happy to do this, of course, but I also wanted to  point out a way that you, as a FundRaiser customer, can control your own contact information.  Accessing this information through our Customer Portal is just for you!

You can log in, set up multiple users, view free training videos, review help technical support help documents and interact with other users and the FundRaiser staff through the Support Forum.  Make sure you contact our Technical Support staff to obtain your username or you can reset your password on your own from the login page.

It was exciting and rewarding to visit the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention for 2011. Autumn and I met so many people who are continuing to increase their reach on the world and were looking for a way to keep the relationships with their contacts intact. We are happy to announce two new FundRaiser Basic users, Revelation Ministries and Faith Radio. Our new FundRaiser Online user is Focus on Life radio. We hope in the years to come their efforts are maximized and personal.

The Volunteer features of the Donor Portal integrate volunteering scheduling features on your website with your desktop version of FundRaiser.  

If you are a current FundRaiser user and are interested in being a beta tester for Volunteer features of the Donor Portal, let us know. Beta testing is starting  soon. Now is your chance to give input into development as well as test and use the new features.

Contact Autumn Shirley at 800-880-3454 ext 302