FundRaiser Blog

Most organizations deal with a range of donors and sometimes clients who may be interested in different things from your organization. A nonprofit healthcare clinic, for example, may have physicians and staff (even if they are all volunteers), patients, friends and family of patients, as well as those who simply wish to sponsor free or affordable healthcare.

Each group will respond differently to appeals. For example, patients may wish to “pay back” some of the care that was received. Friends and family may give so that those they care about continue to receive care, and sponsors may want to know how many people their dollars helped.

Nearly every day on the calendar, and certainly every month, has an Awareness Day attached to it. For example, did you know that not only is May Zombie Awareness month, but also Fibromyalgia and CF/ME Awareness month? Depending on the work your nonprofit does, awareness days, such as those related to families, children, or certain illnesses, can be excellent fundraising opportunities.

Not only is it important for organizations to use awareness days in their fundraising, but also to be able to track where those donors and gifts come from. FundRaiser Software will allow you to do so.

On this Giving Tuesday you may receive donations through PayPal, an online payment service, and wonder how you can code them in your FundRaiser Software. When entering gifts, either through importing a spreadsheet or entering them manually, the mode code is used to designate in what form the gift was received. Adding a code for PayPal will allow you to note that those gifts came in through that service.

To create a new mode code go to View > Codes to open the Codes Maintenance Window. Click on Add. Type in the code and a description. In this case, both of them can be "PayPal". Click on Save. This will add a new mode code for PayPal gifts.