Donor Databases: Three Nonprofits Tell Their Stories

Like many nonprofits, your organization's budget may depend heavily on the generosity of donors you meet online or at in-person fundraising events. And while attracting a large group of loyal funders is the ideal scenario for just about any nonprofit, all of those names, numbers, and addresses might eventually end up buried in a disorganized spreadsheet, making them difficult to access.

To better manage information about their donors, many nonprofits have turned to specialized software applications that organize fundraising data. Commonly known as donor databases, these programs are specifically designed to store information about an organization's donors; some also include features for generating fundraising reports or tracking members. And most can be installed on individual desktop computers or deployed across a network so that a large number of staffers can use it.

If your organization is considering investing in a donor database — or even just wondering whether fundraising software is worth your time and money — other nonprofits can be an excellent source of knowledge. Organizations that have gone through the process of researching, purchasing, and implementing donor databases can not only give you advice on how to proceed, but can also offer tips on snags that you might encounter.

To help you make a more informed decision, TechSoup asked nonprofit technology consultant and TechSoup fundraising-forum host Robert Weiner to tell us about a few donor-database projects he either worked on or was familiar with. Below, you'll hear about three nonprofits of different sizes that have successfully set up donor databases under varying circumstances. While it's still crucial to conduct your own research by talking to a consultant or requesting product demos, these real-world accounts offer your nonprofit a unique, important perspective on choosing and implementing a fundraising application.

Legal-Aid Organization Likes Its User-Friendly Database

The Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County — a small nonprofit that provides free legal assistance to the Northern California county's low-income residents — was dissatisfied with storing information about its donors in a Microsoft Access database. According to Marcie Storch, the organization's Director of Development, the Access database created problems because the program was not designed specifically for fundraisers.

In search of a more specialized software solution, the Legal Aid Society enlisted the help of Weiner after reading about his work in a magazine article. Weiner recommended several programs that would fit the Legal Aid Society's needs and budget, instructed them to request product demos, then provided them with a list of questions for potential vendors.

According to Storch, the Legal Aid Society eventually settled on Mission Research's GiftWorks, largely due to its user-friendly approach and reasonable price. (GiftWorks is available to qualified nonprofits for $35 on TechSoup Stock.) Since implementing GiftWorks in the fall of 2005, Storch said that the organization has been very satisfied with the program, pointing to its dependable tech support and online classes as big pluses.

The Legal Aid Society's staffers have also found GiftWorks extremely easy to use; Storch remarked that none of the three people who regularly use the program have encountered major problems, despite the fact that they may not have high-level technical skills. "No one's like a techie-guru kind of person," she said. "The biggest endorsement I can possibly give [GiftWorks] is that I can use this thing."

The software was also very painless to install and configure on individual desktop computers, according to Zac Mutrux, an independent technology consultant who helped the Legal Aid Society set up the copy of GiftWorks it purchased from TechSoup Stock. Mutrux, who once worked for CompuMentor, TechSoup's parent organization, noted that the Legal Aid Society did not encounter any problems in the course of getting GiftWorks up and running, calling the whole process "dead simple."

Implementing the GiftWorks software has not only made the Legal Aid Society's fundraising efforts more efficient, but also more polished in appearance. "I'm able to create reports and generate lists," said Storch, "and it has enhanced my ability to look like a fundraising professional with the board by giving them information about our development efforts."

Storch recommends that other nonprofits considering purchasing a donor database first speak with a consultant to get a feel for the vendor landscape. She also speaks particularly highly of Weiner's consulting services; nonprofits based in the San Francisco Bay Area can contact him by visiting his Web site.

Environmental-Protection Organization Uses Powerful Program

Located in Marin County California, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) has been working to preserve the county's farmlands since 1980. Although MALT obtains much of its revenue through membership dues, the organization also depends on donations it raises via its three fundraising programs.

"Fundraising is key to our ability to continue our operations and to support our mission of protecting farmland in Marin County," said Laura Patterson, MALT's Membership and Database Manager.

Prior to the summer of 2006, MALT had been managing its fundraising efforts using an older version of DonorPerfect that the manufacturer no longer supported. The organization considered simply upgrading to a newer version of DonorPerfect but instead decided to take a closer look at all of its options. According to Patterson, MALT not only wanted a program that would suit its current and future needs but also one that could store information about all of its constituents — including current and prospective donors; members; and event attendees.

Like the Legal Aid Society, MALT turned to Weiner for advice on evaluating the donor database landscape. After interviewing the organization's staff members to find out what their needs were, Weiner suggested MALT closely examine three donor databases, including the newest version of DonorPerfect. The organization then set up product demos with the three vendors, using a list of questions prepared by Weiner to ensure it properly evaluated its prospects.

After careful consideration, MALT settled on The Raiser's Edge by Blackbaud, choosing to purchase individual desktop licenses instead of the server-side Enterprise edition. Although The Raiser's Edge cost more than the other two programs MALT reviewed, the organization was confident that the application's robust feature set best suited its needs.

"It was worth the price," said Patterson, "because none of the other [programs] came close in being able to track all of our staff needs, like managing our volunteer program and helping us analyze prospects for our capital campaign. Our new Raiser's Edge database is much more powerful and can tell us so more about our members."

After installing the software on a server, MALT needed help porting its data over to The Raiser's Edge in a compressed time frame. Though Weiner explained that such a conversion could take up to nine months, MALT wanted to expedite the process before its busy fall mailing season began. To help it complete the data-conversion project in three months, MALT hired consultant Bill Connors, a former Blackbaud employee who specializes in The Raiser's Edge.

According to Patterson, Connors' decision to work on the data-conversion project at MALT's headquarters helped further speed up the time-consuming job. "Since he was here on-site," she said, "we were able to grapple back and forth as to where the best place for our DonorPerect data would be in The Raiser's Edge."

Besides assisting with the data conversion, Connors also spent two days training some of MALT's staff members on the particular sections of the application that pertained to their jobs. Patterson says that she conducts ongoing Raiser's Edge training with the organization's staff and that she plans to take a special Blackbaud class to learn about some of the application's advanced features.

Patterson suggests that nonprofits undertaking a complex data-conversion project seriously consider hiring a knowledgeable consultant, even though contractors can be expensive. She recalled an experience at another organization, where a staff programmer who was unfamiliar with The Raiser's Edge was in charge of converting the data. As a result, the database was not optimized for peak performance, and the staff had trouble using it.

"The organization thought it was saving money by having an in-house staff member do the conversion," Patterson said, "but it ended up costing them more in the end, because of the extra staff time and resources that were needed on a day-to-day basis."

Although MALT has only had The Raiser's Edge up and running for a couple of months, the nonprofit has thus far been very satisfied with the application. "We are still in the process of integrating and cleaning up data," explained Patterson, "but are using it in the meantime with great results."

AIDS Foundation Adopts Customizable Solution

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation ( SFAF) — a larger nonprofit dedicated to helping those living with the disease and preventing its spread — relies heavily on donations, which comprise about 70 percent of its budget. Prior to 2004, the organization used a number of different tools to store information about its donors, including a Microsoft Access database, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and a commercial constituency relationship management (CRM) application.

According to Jonathan Jump, SFAF's Director of Donor Services, storing fundraising data in multiple places was not only cumbersome, it didn't give the organization a clear picture of who its donors were and how much money they were contributing. To consolidate this important information, the organization began researching donor databases, focusing on those that could be customized to meet its specific needs.

"That was one of our criteria," said Jump, "because we are so event-heavy that none of the off-the-shelf databases had all the functionality that we needed to do participant fundraising kind of events."

Eventually, SFAF decided on DonorPefect Online, a server-side fundraising database with a Web-based interface. Jump explained that at the time, DonorPerfect Online was one of the few such products on the market with an open, customizable back-end. As a bonus, the SFAF had a relationship with a local organization that also used a modified version of DonorPerfect Online; SFAF was able to repurpose some of these custom fundraising-event features, saving itself extra work.

When it came time to install DonorPerfect Online on its own servers and tweak the application, SFAF received help from several different sources, including DonorPerfect representatives, an independent consultant, and the organization's own programmers. Jump estimates that the entire implementation process took between 9 and 13 months and that customizing the software was about 70 percent of the work.

One of the major challenges SFAF faced when consolidating all of its donor data into one application was locating duplication among the thousands of records. "It was a huge amount of de-duplication," Jump said. "From a project like that where you've got lots of different silos of information, de-duping ends up being one of the biggest obstacles." SFAF staffers have performed several rounds of de-duplication since 2004, and the organization continues to tidy up the database in the course of its regular activities.

Currently, about 30 of SFAF's 80-plus staff members regularly use DonorPerfect Online, including those from different departments. To make training its staffers easier, SFAF has designed its own instructional materials geared toward specific jobs. For instance, those who enter new donation records receive a data entry–focused training program, while managers who must print reports and filter records undergo their own training. Jump estimates that, on average, training a new staff member to use DonorPerfect Online takes three full business days.

Besides creating its own specialized training materials, SFAF has also used in-house staffers for the majority of DonorPerfect Online tech-support duties, largely due to the modifications it has made to the software. "We've gotten to the point where we bought a Volkswagen and turned it into a Cadillac," Jump said, "and so it's really difficult to go back to the manufacturer and try to take advantage of their upgrades and changes." To help ease the workload on its IT staff, SFAF also employs a contractor to fulfill some tech-support tasks.

In retrospect, Jump believes that SFAF may have initially made too many customizations to the software, noting that making modifications to the database leads to periodic downtime. He also recommends that other nonprofits considering a donor database consider deploying revisions in a few different phases, rather than trying to stuff too many changes into the initial rollout.

Although SFAF spent a lot of time implementing and customizing DonorPefect Online, the organization believes that that effort has paid off in the long run.

"Being able to be as smart as we can today about our donors feels really crucial," Jump stated, "especially in such a competitive market for the donor dollar. It has been a great service to both us and our donors to have all the information in one place."