I am so glad that spring is finally here! After a long, cold, gray winter, it has been a long time coming!
Having all of the windows open at work really jump-starts my annual spring cleaning. This year, I'm not just going after the dust bunnies - I've also been reorganizing my desk, my calendar, and my databases, and making sure that everything is updated and in tip-top shape for a busy year. Updating my software and contacts always seems to take a back burner to answering the phones, responding to email, sending out invoices, and putting out fires...and I suspect that a lot of our FundRaiser customers are experiencing the same challenges. But it's amazing how much more efficiently I can work with a clean desk, an updated calendar, and the newest fixes for all my different software applications! I've noticed, for example, that I can really walk into the office, sit down, and get started with my day, instead of spending 15 minutes sorting through all the notes and paperwork scattered around my desk. When I log in to our CRM software, I can see all the calls I need to make today right on my homepage, instead of them being buried in page 3, behind all the calls I was supposed to make yesterday or last week. I also updated it to the newest version recently, which took care of a pesky bug that was causing all of my scheduled tasks to appear an hour earlier than they were scheduled for, and gave me several new options for building reports. Updating my browser to the newest version of Firefox also solved some problems I was having with unexplained slowdowns and bad page loads.
At FundRaiser, we have also been putting out regular updates for Select and Professional that address the same types of things, and help the software run more smoothly and efficiently. The latest version is 4.50j, and includes some helpful fixes for updating the Donor Portal, setting up name defaults using Households, and making the start-up process after updating significantly faster. In addition to all of the fixes, we've also added some new features to FundRaiser, including, to name a few, the ability to integrate with GiftTool (for online event registrations, pledge-a-thons, and more), Households, integration with Wintix 5, updates to the Membership Module, and more.
Let's take a closer look at Households, one of the most significant additions to FundRaiser. In the past, our customers have told us that they sometimes struggle with getting their letters out, becuase they often need to send separate correspondence to different members of the same household. For example, maybe you have a donor record for a family, in which the wife is a board member for your organization, the husband is a donor, and the children volunteer - in the past, it was difficult to be able to see individual activities separately, and even harder to send different letters to each family member. Households was developed to solve that problem, and we think you'll love it!
If it has been a while since you've updated FundRaiser, now might be a good time to add that to your spring to-do list. You'll be surprised at how much more efficient you can be with some of the new featurers!