With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas and the end of the year right around the corner, now is a great time for both reflection and forward thinking. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the ways that I am grateful for FundRaiser Software and the huge FundRaiser Family that comes with it – I’ve been here for more than fifteen years and have had the great honor to work with some of the most amazing co-workers and customers during this time. I’ve seen the company, the software, and the customers grow and change so much over the years that it’s hard to believe that we had such humble beginnings!
When I began working here, we did not have a central office and were one of the pioneers of the remote workforce movement. I worked from a home office with a (very touchy) satellite internet connection and used our FundRaiser DOS program to keep track of leads, customers, and notes. We had just released our first Windows version and were working to convert customers from DOS to Windows, as well as onboard new customers. We didn’t have much competition back then, either – we were one of about three vendors creating donor management software at that time.
During my time here, we have celebrated some huge milestones. We went from DOS to Windows; began offering QuickBooks Integration; created our Volunteer Management component; released the Donor Portal for online donations; developed a Campaign Management Console, Households, Relationships, and Secure Spare Fields for FundRaiser Professional; began offering Hosted and Online versions for customers that desired online access; and created a whole new intermediate program called FundRaiser Spark, just to name a few. As a small privately-owned company based in rural Missouri, I am immensely proud of what we have managed to achieve over the years.
Looking forward, we have some really exciting developments on the horizon, too! If you read our newsletter regularly, you probably know that we are working on a completely new interface design for FundRaiser – and the more I see of it, the more I love it. It is cleaner, more intuitive, more customizable, and generally easier to use. It also features a new calendar that will integrate with the Task List and the Staff Tickles and will be viewable by the whole team. It has all new icons that are much more modern and recognizable. You’ll find more graphical dashboards and an all new Profile view. The process for adding or editing donors or gifts has been simplified significantly… I could go on and on, but the point is that it is going to be a BIG DEAL!
We are also working to update our API so that we can more easily integrate with other tools that our customers are using, like Constant Contact. As I type this out, I can hear some of your voices in my head – many of you have wished for this for a long time and we can’t even tell you how pleased we are to be near to being able to offer integration with Constant Contact. We are also redesigning our Donor Portal to make it easier to launch, give it a faster response time, and a much cleaner interface than the existing platform. This is another big one – the difference between the old and new versions is pretty thrilling (if you’re in to that kind of thing like we are).
All in all, 2019 is going to be a very exciting year for the FundRaiser Family and Team! Look for more information and news on the upcoming releases in the first Quarter – and be sure to keep your Annual Maintenance Plans current so you can take advantage of these exciting updates when they’re available.
Thank you for being part of our extended FundRaiser Family, we all wish you a safe and warm holiday season and a Happy New Year.
To learn more about the upcoming version of FundRaiser Software, please feel free to contact me, Autumn Shirley, a call at 800-880-3454 ext. 302 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or take a look at the Roadmap on our website.