Cloud-based donor management software or Online Donor Management Software is primarily f`or storing donors’ data, soliciting donor funding for the Non-Profit Organization’s (NPO’s) causes, automating communication, organizing volunteers, collecting and tracking funds, etc. Cloud-based donor management software is also used for wealth screening and creating email marketing campaigns.
Non-Profit Organizations utilize online donor management software to simplify their daily operations and make donations hassle-free for their consistent pool of existing and potential new donors. This article will elucidate some of the requirements and benefits of donor management software.
Benefits of Online Donor Management Software
Identification of Trends in Donor Behavior:
Identifying trends in donation is a crucial task that is required to perform by any Donor management software (DMS) tool. DMS usually has a dashboard that provides a snapshot of donor activities. It provides analysis according to various criteria such as the payment success of fundraisers, etc. DMS also helps to understand if there are any sudden unexplained drops in the monetary value of contributions by specific donors.
These donors can then get identified and engaged in helping to understand the reasons behind their reduced contributions and relieve their concerns. And the best part is the entire working and data storage is in the cloud. In the cloud, the data get stored securely. It gives you and your donors complete flexibility for retrieving and punching in data of any kind from anywhere.
Organizing Donor Data:
Before you begin to strategize the operations of the non-profit, you need some raw data to work with. The basic data points like donor contact details, contributions, and when they were made are captured easily and presented as reports by the DMS. Data like when was the communication received by potential donors and their response, if any, and the number of your fundraisers attended by them will always be available in a handy form with various analytical reports.
Segmentation: Grouping Donors Based On Common Characteristics:
Donor segmentation categorizes your donors into groups based on common characteristics and is an important strategy for non-profits. It allows you to target your outreach better, raise more donations, and build long-term relationships with donors.
Segmenting your donors is crucial because it allows you to focus your messaging on the exact audiences that are most likely to respond—in other words, it allows you to communicate and fundraise more effectively. Intelligent segmentation can help your business save time and money while positively generating fundraising results.
The Personalization Advantage
Fundraising professionals interact with a wide range of people. It’s easy to get lost in the details, but making a donor feel forgotten is never good. When your interactions with donors get documented, they become more than just a number. Checking your records to refresh your memory can help you make your relationships more human and less transactional.
Assume you are a recurring donor to a charity. Consider how you’d react if you received a fundraising letter with “It was great to see you at the Gala, hope you had a wonderful time on your vacation!” scribbled in the margin. Personalization, beyond doubt, makes people feel valued.
Keeping good records can also assist you in honoring your donors’ preferences. If someone specifies that they don’t open emails, prefer to donate online, or wish to be solicited once a year, maintaining meticulous records will ensure that everyone in the organization respects their preferences.
Smooth Integrations:
Some fundraising systems integrate with third-party applications smoothly. Whether it is Paypal, Facebook, Twitter, Quickbook, or any other third-party tool, it integrates smoothly with them. If your organization uses accounting software or any other software tool critical to your operations, consider how those applications will interact with the fundraising systems you evaluate.
Assist In Follow-up
You just received a response from a potential donor but happen to be swamped with work today. If you do not respond to them quickly enough, you may lose their donation. Your cloud-based DMS can keep you up to date on who needs to hear back from you or a fellow staff member as soon as possible through notifications and alerts.
Furthermore, the DMS allows you to schedule responses; automated follow-up tasks relieve the pressure from you to always be available to respond. The relationships you cultivate with your constituents pay dividends in the long run, so do everything you can to nurture and engage those relationships with the help of donation management software.
Tracking and Managing Multiple Events
Have you planned a slew of events for your non-profit’s calendar? Not only can you rely on your DMS to successfully create these events, but if you get busy, you can also use the DMS tools to track each event. From sending reminders and event schedules to help increase event attendance to enabling event registration, tracking the attendees and those who decline the request, processing and issuing tickets, among other duties.
Your DMS package will help keep everything organized to avoid embarrassing gaffes.
Conclusion:
We can easily conclude that a cloud-based donor management software (DMS) is a must for non-profits as it enhances your donation management, yielding to a higher collection. Excellent reporting and analysis provide you with great help by saving time and valuable insights.
It allows your organization to develop and maintain relationships with donors keep track of fundraisers, among other things. You can ease your entire staff into the new changes without major hiccups by drawing a concrete plan for implementing the new software solution.
Cloud gives your team and donors from across the world complete flexibility. You have to invest minimally in hardware as the cloud stores it and maintains it. With Online DMS or Cloud functioning, it becomes all the more advantageous.
Whether you are a Non Profit or a Church, or a Charity organization, a DMS eases your life and increases your potential and capacity to reap more donations.
