For those of you who haven’t spent much time on the phone with me while unraveling one of the many mysteries FundRaiser may present us, I’m an old-fashioned girl. I cook most everything from scratch, make cheese, and sew some of my own clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I like electricity and indoor plumbing as much as the next girl, but I feel strongly that technology should be a helper, not the sole reason for doing something.
I live in Arizona (not Missouri, where our home office is located) and sparks are not normally welcome at this time of year, due to dry conditions and fire hazards that, each year, cost millions of dollars in loss of habitat and homes. So when our CEO, Autumn Shirley, told me about a new product we’re releasing, called “Spark”, with a tag-line of “Start something big”, my first thoughts were of some rather large wildfires that we’ve had here in the West.Well, I came to grips with my regionalized knee-jerk reactions, and took a look at this new arrival, and now I see what all the hoopla is about.
Many FundRaiser users are with organizations that have modest database needs, and a tight budget. That is, after all, why we released FundRaiser Basic (www.fundraiserbasic.com), originally: to have an “entry-level” offering that would help small nonprofits grow to a level that allows them to step up to FundRaiser Select or Professional (www.fundraisersoftware.com) when Basic’s abilities are no longer enough. And it’s that same thinking that prompted us to a modular approach, allowing customers to start with Select, for instance, and add modules for functionality as needed (like Pledge, Membership, and Volunteer management modules).
Over the years, one of the problems we found with that approach was that the cost of even Select was too much more than that of Basic. It was just too big a step for growing organizations to make all at once. And, for some, even Select has more functionality than necessary, like too many codes, too many data fields, too many options, etc.
This past weekend I volunteered to play guitar as a part of the Earth Day activities at Oracle State Park, where my wife, Nanette, volunteers on a regular basis. The park is about to close for the summer, since the state is not providing funds any more, but a group has formed, called Friends of Oracle State Park, to coordinate volunteer efforts and raise monies to keep up the trails and structures and all that's required even for a small (4,000 acres) park. I was happy to spend an hour doing something I love to help folks maintain what they (and my wife) love, and it's something I'd readily do again. I must admit that, for someone who works almost solely with non-profits, I don't give of my time as much as some others, but, then again, I'm rarely asked. This little glimpse of myself is offered in order to illustrate some uses for FundRaiser, of course.
From the little personal information in the previous paragraph, one could reasonably assign several category codes to my name record in their FundRaiser database. Remember that category codes are used, for the most part, as non-gift-related aspects of a person's life. This means that codes with descriptions such as "guitar player", or "music interest", or others, might be created and assigned, in order to have the ability at a later date to pull names of people with similar interests. And, although it doesn't mean that I'll play at your event if asked, it does mean that you'll have the facts you need to pull a list of people you want to ask to volunteer services or talents when the time comes.
Life Radio Ministries needed to update their donor management software. "We were using something that had served us well enough over the years, but it was becoming extremely expensive to maintain, as well as being outdated. We decided to look for something that was more reasonably priced and which had stayed up with technology," says Joe Emert, General Manager of Life Radio Ministries.He was looking for features that allow him to create a personal, 'high touch' connection with donors...Read more ...
