Guide
Timeline for Nonprofit Year-End Fundraising
- Digital communications & marketing
- Fundraising ideas
- Nonprofits
- Guided Fundraising
A fundraising constituent relationship management (CRM) software solution is an essential tool for maximizing your nonprofit organization’s fundraising efforts. With this powerful technology, you can manage your donor database, engage supporters, and run successful fundraising campaigns all from one central location. But first, you have to find a solution that aligns with your nonprofit’s budget, goals, and fundraising needs.
This guide will walk through five must-have features to look for in a fundraising CRM and provide essential background information about these software solutions.
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A fundraising CRM is a digital platform that stores your donor data. It helps you compile important information about individual donors which you can use to tailor fundraising campaigns, personalize communications, and streamline operations.
Fundraising CRM software eases the administrative burdens of campaign planning, saving your organization time and energy. From gathering donor data to automating outreach, it helps your nonprofit:
Plus, with a reliable and secure place to store information, you can make better-informed decisions about other initiatives, such as your marketing and event planning efforts.
To be effective, your fundraising CRM software should automatically capture the information you need to craft and refine your fundraising strategy. In addition to data collection, here are a few other essential features to look for:
With your fundraising CRM software, you can automatically create donor profiles for supporters who contribute to or interact with your nonprofit organization. Customize these profiles to include relevant information based on your goals, such as contact information, interests, and engagement history.
Ensure that your technology allows you to save the following information to your donor profiles:
Donor profiles take the guesswork out of your fundraising campaigns, helping to guide your strategy so that you can maximize results while minimizing effort.
For example, if you’re hosting a silent auction event, you can search through your CRM software to find donors who are local business owners and request auction items from them. Then, if your donors are segmented by area, you can reach out to nearby supporters with targeted invitations.
When your online fundraising tools are integrated with your fundraising CRM, you can automate more administrative tasks to ease your workload.
Ensure your fundraising CRM enables you to facilitate:
Additionally, your CRM should have built-in communication tools that allow you to create custom automated thank-you messages so donors receive acknowledgement right away whenever they interact with your nonprofit.
When you set out to raise money through direct mail, start with a general fundraising letter template. This template should include information like the amount you want your donor to give, the campaign the donation will go towards, and other details specific to each recipient. Then, rely on your fundraising CRM to:
Leveraging a direct mail outreach tool makes stewardship simple. It eliminates the need to write out each individual's information and allows you to send personalized messages in seconds.
Your fundraising CRM is more than a simple database. Not only does it store donor data, but it can also track information about their contributions to help you understand how they support your campaign.
Find a fundraising CRM that tracks information from individual donations, such as:
In addition to your donations, you should also track your pledge campaigns. When you track promised gifts in your fundraising CRM, you can set up automatic reminders to send to those who pledged but may have forgotten about their gift. That way, your valuable pledges won’t fall by the wayside.
Look for a fundraising CRM that provides you with more than just a simple spreadsheet. Rather, it should have a performance dashboard with visuals and analytics that allow you to easily see trends in your fundraising campaigns.
Filter your reports to view relevant fundraising campaign information like:
Use custom reporting to discover insights into your donors’ giving motivations. For example, you might notice you receive a significant amount of donations through one channel, but have a low retention rate. Information like this can help you focus your strategy and make targeted improvements to your online fundraising.
With these essential features in mind, you can choose the fundraising CRM software best suited to meet your organization’s needs. Just remember to make the selection a collective effort with your team. When everyone is on the same page, you can implement the software more easily and be on your way to better fundraising!
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