Happy New Year
Happy New Year to non profit organisations across Australia!
FundraisingForce wishes all of you a very productive new financial year!
NFP
It’s New Year’s Eve
What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?
Don’t you hate that question? You always feel obligated to do something and some of us might want to stay home on the craziest night of the year!
Asking you what you are doing on New Year’s Eve may seem as premature as asking what you got your partner for Christmas or their birthday. However, today is New Year’s Eve. Well, at least for the financial year in Australia.
So, what do you plan to do? I plan to make some year-end charitable donations to my favourite charities. And, you should too. There is a tax benefit to giving an additional gift or a first-time gift to a charity on this day. Non-profit organisations depend on our support to wrap up a strong financial year and to continue their terrific programs. It’s up to you and I to not let those charities down and to do our part at fiscal year end. Log onto the charitable Websites or call the charities now! Midnight 30 June is fast approaching!
End of Financial Year – Raiser’s Edge and NetCommunity Training Sale
Looking to train your staff in The Raiser’s Edge and/or Blackbaud NetCommunity? Do you have some leftover budget you’d like to invest, but you are unsure of training dates? Looking for a great discount, but you don’t want to sacrifice on product or service?
We hear you! FundraisingForce has a solution for you.
Book your training with FundraisingForce by 30 June and receive 40% off! Even better, we have a combined 50 years of non-profit experience and over 25 years combined experience on The Raiser’s Edge and NetCommunity! With FundraisingForce, you work with consultants who know your business, know the product, and understand your pain points and how to solve them.
Contact us today to learn more and to book this special offer in these final days of the financial year.
GivingTuesday – a growing success
FundraisingForce has written about #GivingTuesday prior and promoted #Giving Tuesday within Australia over the last couple of years. We see #GivingTuesday as an opportunity for Asia-Pacific organisations to jump on the bandwagon of an already successful marketing campaign. For us, it’s a no brainer.
It seems the campaign is growing in terms of success each year. This was recently highlighted in a Huffington Post article written by Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud.
According to the article, Blackbaud released a #GivingTuesday Trends report and it is the most in-depth analysis of online giving trends since the event first began. The report covers #GivingTuesday data from more than 4,300 nonprofit organisations representing $55.6 million in online fundraising since 2012.
Here are some key findings from the Blackbaud #GivingTuesday Trends report.
- #GivingTuesday has had double-digit year-over-year growth in online donations since 2012.
- Large nonprofits have received the most donations on #GivingTuesday but this trend is shifting.
- Faith-based nonprofits now receive the largest percentage of #GivingTuesday online donations.
- Online average gift amounts exceed100 for most nonprofits on #GivingTuesday.
- About 17 percent of online donation form views on #GivingTuesday 2014 were on a mobile device.
What’s stopping your organisation from joining #GivingTuesday and becoming part of the successful movement? You ought to action the following before 15 July:
- Sign up to participate in #GivingTuesday this December.
- Create a business plan full of action items detailing your organisation’s goals and objectives in participating in #GivingTuesday.
- Work toward accomplishing the action plan over the next four months to ensure a successful first year as part of #GivingTuesday.
#GivingTuesday is 1 December. Why delay the above action items? There’s no time better than right now to start.
Confirm, edit and enhance – MS Queensland follows best practice
I’ve written before about the need for Nonprofit organisation staff to confirm, edit, and enhance (CEE) whenever in possession of any supporter’s data record. I’ve suggested staff out to confirm contact details, edit anything erroneous, and enhance anything that is missing.
In a mail out received from MS Queensland last week, I received a piece offering me the chance to win two Apple watches if I take the time to update my contact record. This is a creative way for people to see the importance MS Queensland place on its data and, also, a nice way to incentivise me to participate in their effort to CEE.
Congrats to MS Queensland!
St Patrick’s Cathedral offers donation capability in-house
When I visited Washington DC recently, I wrote about the lack of donation solicitation throughout the various Smithsonian Institutions. My experience in New York City was quite the opposite.
The 9/11 Memorial sought memberships and donations throughout the museum. St Patrick’s Cathedral sought donations throughout the church. St Patrick’s solicited donations upon entry to the church, as well as at various stations. I was most impressed with my ability to give a donation online right in the cathedral.
Anniversary idea
Is your organisation celebrating an anniversary?
Check out this email I received from Uber (perhaps you received one, too?).
The email connects me to Uber’s 5 year anniversary by pointing out the months since I joined Uber, the number of times I have ridden Uber, and the city I have most frequently used Uber. It also offers me an opportunity to share this information with friends!
Clever idea. Perhaps your organisation might adapt it to mark a milestone anniversary? You could simply tie the date the donor first supported your organisation, how many times they have supported your organisation, and how much their lifetime giving.
It is ideas like these, whether from the non-profit or for-profit sectors we can adapt to suit our own needs. This is one I thought worthy of sharing!
Finding the ‘perfect’ CRM is only half the battle for your non-profit organisation
Has your non-profit acquired a new constituent relationship management (CRM) or supporter relationship management (SRM)? Did the process seem difficult? I hate to tell you, but that was the easy part. Now comes the hard part – implementing the CRM/SRM.
Most organisations do not realise they will need to review their business processes inside and out. Why? Some processes will need to be reshaped simply because they will not “fit” inside the new CRM/SRM. Other processes are antiquated and need a “remodel”. And, others have not even been invented yet within your organisation.
Most CRM/SRM suppliers will work with organisations to implement the new software in a sequential order, such as:
- Security
- Data conversion
- Supporter management
- Gift management
- Event management
- Other
It is best practice for organisations to develop a policies and procedures document in parallel with any
CRM/SRM implementation. The supplier may provide some documentation, which you will enhance for this added purpose. The policies and procedures document should be a living document, which you will make available to your end users in electronic format. This is a document you will maintain moving forward. The manual should never be “put on a shelf” and left unattended. Instead, your subject matter experts should keep the policies and procedures manual up to date any time a new procedure is developed or an existing procedure is enhanced. It is like cleaning a room in your home. Once it is clean it is easier to keep it clean than it is to start from scratch again.
Implementing a new CRM/SRM does not happen overnight and, in fact, the process from start to finish takes months. The length of time the process takes depends on a number of factors:
- How well organised is your organisation going into the process?
- How well developed and established are your existing processes?
- How clean is your data?
Is your organisation in a transitional or maintenance frame of mind?
The CRM/SRM implementation is ripe with opportunity. Use the process as a renaissance for your organisation. Do not leave any stone unturned. Push the process, the supplier, and your team to truly transform your organisation.
Purchasing a CRM/SRM may be the single largest investment your organisation makes. Maximise the investment by doing it right.
Professional development opportunities galore
We live in a country where fundraisers do not lack professional development opportunities.
The Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA) Education program offers a host of courses. The 2015 semester II brochure just arrived in our letterboxes and is rich with new courses, as well as well the standard FIA courses – Fundraising Essentials, Certificate in Fundraising and Diploma in Fundraising. New course offerings include Data Analytics for the Empowered Fundraiser, Digital Storytelling for Fundraisers, Fundraising Change Leadership, and I Gave at the Office – Workplace Giving Masterclass.
The FIA courses are taught by dynamic, experienced, and diverse fundraising professionals such as Kathy John/RobeJohn, Shanelle Newton Clapham/Parachute Digital, Nigel Harris/Mater Foundation and Peter Dalton/fundraisingfutures, and Bonny Bayne and Rachael Beckett/Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). These talented professionals offer a wealth of experience as part of the content they deliver throughout the semester.
Register for these courses today. FIA is able to offer these courses in cities across Australia if we support our professional fundraising organisation.
A stack of mail in the United States
I have not lived with my parents since 1983. I last lived with them in the US state of Wisconsin before I went away to university. My parents now live in New Mexico and have since ~1987. I visit them twice a year since moving to Australia – usually in May and December.
Each time I have visited them over the last 7 years, my mother has told me that I have “mail waiting” for me. It started with a piece or two, but it amounted to more that 20 pieces of mail this month.
The interesting part of the May mail stack is there were only two pieces of mail from charity. Those pieces came from a conservation group and they were premium packs – address labels! If I want to, I could send lots of letters out with my parents return address! The remainder of the mail was for mobile phone offers (3 pieces), catalogues for clothing (3 pieces), replacement windows (3 pieces), life insurance (5 pieces), and blank cheques from my United Airlines credit card encouraging me to transfer balances from other cards (6 pieces).
You might suggest 20 pieces of mail in ~4 months is not a lot. You are right. Nonetheless, 20 pieces at an address I never lived, in a state I have only spent short holidays in, is quite puzzling.
You must be logged in to post a comment.