Learning about your donor database is good for your health

Hawksbill Crag, Arkansas photo by Jonathan Smith of FundRaiser

When you think about the things that you are proud of achieving in your organization last year, what do they include? Take a moment to ponder before you read on.

After the start of the New Year, one of the things I enjoyed most was hearing from some of our customers about the things they were proud of having achieved in 2012. That got me thinking how good it feels to achieve something and to hear how people you care about have done so, too. Then I started wondering what staff members here at FundRaiser are proud of achieving.

The answers cover a lot of territory. Two things they have in common though; every achievement required learning new things; and people felt good about whatever they had done.  Feeling good ('subjective well-being') has been substantially linked to better health, so it stands to reason that when you learn something new, or want to generally strengthen the health and morale at your organization, a powerful way to achieve that is to give yourself and staff the opportunity to stretch and learn.

Feeling proud because of learning something new

Creating a supportive environment to learn is something that goes bone-deep at FundRaiser. Learning is supported both for our customers and our staff members. Larry Weaver, lead trainer here at FundRaiser put this entire idea into one sentence, "I have pride over the last 10+years in having been instrumental in teaching hundreds of people working for hundreds of non-profit organizations how to use FundRaiser in ways to further their cause."

Here's a brief overview of the things FundRaiser staff members are proud of having acheived:

Autumn Shirley, CEO, Sales & Marketing Director: Last year, with much help from Josh, I completely redesigned our main website and released it in June.

Joshua Shirley, CFO, Technical Development Manager: I'm proud of the work I've done reorganizing and improving efficiency of procedures.

Gene Weinbeck, Founder, Lead Programmer: This year I learned a new programming language for an environment that was also new to me.  I’ve been programming for 30 years. Making the transition from DOS to Windows in the 1990’s was really difficult for me. It was like going from speaking English to writing music in an Asian style, a double transition. Learning to program in PHP for the internet was a similar challenge, but noticeably easier this time. I’d like to think it’s because my brain neurology is looser and more flexible, but it’s probably more a matter of the difference between the Windows and internet environments not being all that dissimilar  At any rate, I’m pleased that I was able to make the transition.

James Ware, Lead Sales Representative: I'm proud that  I am more able to help people with the questions they have. I am usually the first person to answer the phone when people call our general number. I learned to handle more of the general questions that people call in about. That way, I can take care of people right when they first call. I don’t need to go to tech support or finances. I like it because people are happy at how easy it is to get an answer and they let me know that.

Joe Salrin, Conversions Manager: Last year, I compiled the entire FundRaiser source code into the latest version of Delphi. This is something we need to create a good platform for the next phase of development. In other words, because FundRaiser has been in active use for 30 years, changes have been added a piece at a time over those years by several different programmers. During those years, different tools have been available and different programmers had different styles. What I did was get everything to be consistent across the board.

Jonathan Smith, Lead Support Technician: I'm proud that I am more able to help people get the custom data they need from FundRaiser. Most data that a customer needs is avaliable to them easily through a built-in report, but sometimes they need data combinations that there is no report for and that they can't pull together themselves in a grouping. I have learned how to write SQL scripts that will get that data out for them.

Nick Haring, Support Technician: (Nick Haring just joined the staff in December of 2012): I'm happy to be able to help Jonathan out more on the support questions that come in on the phone. I really don't like it if there are people waiting to hear back from us, so that motivates me.

Sasha Daucus, Social Media Director:  I'm proud to have learned more about social media so that I am better at sharing information that is both useful and fun for people interested in FundRaiser.

I'd love to know what you are proud to have achieved this year in your nonprofit work. Send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or share it on the FundRaiser facebook page.

To learn something new about using your FundRaiser Software,

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