Fundraising software reviews can give you practical insights about the various features and capabilities of the system. They are essential in making any fundraising, donor or charity activities a huge success. Learn them here in this article.
Nonprofits and Their Challenges in Fundraising Campaigns
Raising funds for charitable purposes is a noble act and we can assume that people would not hesitate to support it. Yet, however purposeful fundraising campaigns are, they are not immune to challenges and may still encounter setbacks along the way. There may also be limiting factors that delay success on the desired date. Operating and facilitating a fundraising campaign is much like running a company, only that it is not aimed at yielding profits. Instead, it raises funds for a stronger, humanity-centered purpose, in most cases.
Much like with a business, a fundraising campaign needs to lay a strong groundwork to be able to accomplish the tasks surrounding its operations. You need donors, a donor system, activity organizers, accounting, audit and a solid marketing system. The actual fundraising events would also need organizers to make sure that sponsor participation is maximized.
Now that the internet is undeniably making donor campaign processes more efficient, we see more avenues online that we can take advantage of. Here are some of the pressing challenges that fundraisers encounter in facilitating online donor campaigns:
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Continuous supply of ingenuity and creativity
Most nonprofits have teams of volunteers working on each endeavor. Volunteer work, in a sense, means non-profiting. Leading its team will challenge you to get creative and imaginative when it comes to the fundraising activity and the assigning of responsibilities to the members. You can compensate the pay by making it a learning and fulfilling experience for everybody.
Gladly, technology can help your team come up with innovative ways of executing fundraising campaigns. The internet is full of ideas for it, and you can actually take advantage of the social media to know your target sponsors and promote campaign awareness.
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Delegation
Traditional fundraising events are tedious work in the beginning and all through the end. Since you are dealing with volunteers in most cases, it is hard to delegate responsibilities and expect a 100 percent cooperation and accomplishment all the time. There is also a challenge when it comes to time and availability, making it difficult to set a date when everybody can willingly participate.
Gladly, technology can help transpire collaborative work even without face-to-face meetings. Constant and open communication helps achieve mutual goals with success. Delegation can be made depending on each other’s strengths, and the system will provide the accountability factor your team needs.
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Motivation
Perhaps the most difficult part in fundraising campaigns is the management of people with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of motivation. Charities are sometimes met with skeptics and harsh people who might push away your sponsorship letters. Some of the volunteers might get affected personally, and it is challenging to maintain an atmosphere of purpose and joy at the same time.
Fundraising campaigns call for exceptional leadership. With mutual goal setting, each member will have a sense of accountability on his or her responsibility. Without monetary profit or reward, you can compensate for constant acknowledgment. Media exposure and government appreciation will also help in increasing motivation among the group. A regular interaction with your beneficiaries can also give enough motivation for everybody.
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Ineffective relationship-building
Sponsorship is the lifeblood of any fundraising campaign. An inefficiency on this aspect, however, may defy the purpose of the cause. Communication is the key to the success of any kind of relationship and this holds true for fundraising and charity campaigns. Relationship building is an essential skill that can help foster trust and communal responsibility. When effective, it compels more sponsors to participate and support the advocacy consistently.
Through the help of internet exposure, technology, and software tools, you can bring out a powerhouse team of sponsors and partners who can help you achieve your goals. You can send out constant updates about the progress of the campaign through emails. You may also hold regular or annual social events where sponsors and beneficiaries can meet and build personal relationships themselves. Without emotions and experience attached to it, a charity event or campaign may not be successful.
What Can We Learn From Successful Fundraising Campaigns
Remember the viral fundraising campaign the ALS ice bucket challenge? This awareness and fundraising campaign is by far one of the most successful ones in the line-up. An individual should be pouring a bucket full of ice and water over his or her head, which mimics the feeling of the person affected by the disease. He shall then make donations to the ALS foundation which will use the donations to fund the research for a cure and to help those who afflicted by the disease. He is to encourage or challenge other people by naming them specifically to continue passing on the awareness.
The social media played a significant role in raising more awareness by enabling participants to share their videos doing it. And because it garnered enough media attention, the celebrities participated, making the campaign viral. According to the Alsa.org, the campaign garnered 115 million dollars in the span of 8 weeks. 77 million dollars from it was used to fund the research for treatments and cure while the rest were used to help patients all over the world.
The crowdfunding and fundraising website GoFundMe also raises the bar for spreading awareness over fundraising campaigns online. Through this portal, people can post their personal advocacies and fundraising endeavors to solicit help in the online community. It also fulfills the three basic components of a successful fundraising campaign: reach, engagement, and motivation.
People all over the world can access and support the fundraising campaigns in GoFundMe no matter where they are. This fulfills the “reach” aspect. Engagement points out to the number of online users who are potential contributors and sponsors. Motivation comes from a vast online community that can send messages of encouragement and express their support both financially and emotionally.
How Software Technology Can Help Empower Fundraising Campaigns?
The internet and the digital technology are indispensable elements of fundraising campaigns. And like other technology-based solutions, it is first and foremost capable of giving out cost-benefits and improving the efficiency of processes.
Apart from that, a fundraising software for nonprofit organization is also able to bring a systematic and orderly execution of tasks surrounding the campaigns. It is also effective in collaborative work for a seamless workflow. With the help of the internet, fundraising systems are also made cheaper and simpler to operate. Because of this, many charity organizations will have access to technology without worrying about the upfront capital costs.
A number of advantages surrounding the use of fundraising software are as follows:
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Intuitive interface
The API of software for fundraising is generally easy to use and built with intuitive features. This withholds the need to house additional IT support which can put a strain on a nonprofit organization’s budget. It also enables your team to use the software with ease and to continue to follow up on donors and sponsors with ease.
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Trainings
Video and web support allow the fundraising software vendor to conduct training for your employees efficiently. This way, it is faster to implement the system and take advantage of its full benefits.
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Integration capability with other existing systems
While there is no all-in-one solution with fundraising software, it can still be integrated with important campaign systems like document management system and accounting software. It can also effectively integrate with an e-mail system and manage outgoing sponsorship letters and monthly newsletters containing updates, and the sending out of reports to concerned major sponsors and organization beneficiaries.
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Fundraising organization website interfacing
This way, all correspondences and inquiries made through the website can be captured, consolidated and processed in a centralized system. This unites all existing campaign collaterals and captures the data they contribute for better analysis and metrics measurement. A comprehensive data gathering system can yield reports that are valuable in smarter decision-making and in maintaining the organization’s integrity
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Improved communication and relationship building system
One of the important features of a fundraising software for small non-profits is having an automated system that can take care of repetitive tasks such as sending out email newsletters and document capturing. It is essential in making the staff stay productive with their tasks. It is also an effective complement to customer relationship management software for empowering your relationship building system. This way, the staff can focus on core functions of the fundraising campaigns.
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Analytics and metrics
Data mining is an outstanding feature of almost all business-related software. It holds the keys to the better execution of processes and at the same time, provides performance feedback that can help improve the next campaigns. With analytics, the system’s dashboard can help you analyze the KPIs in real-time, distinguish opportunities and take advantage of them right away.
Let CrowdReviews.com provide you with a more elaborate overview of how a fundraising software can specifically help your fundraising campaigns reach viral and continued success. With its list of fundraising software reviews from actual clients, you can be guaranteed of practical and first-hand discussion of benefits and features you should be looking out for.
Keith Moore
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