Perhaps as you’re wrapping up another year of fundraising you’ve noticed your database isn’t quite as automated as you would like, the fees on your donation apps are not ideal, or maybe your donor contact efforts could be more targeted. In short, you’ve been thinking of getting or upgrading your fundraising software.
You may have even looked online at a few options (and found this blog!). But there are so many apps and feature lists to sort through, each one promising the moon. It can be hard to make a simple choice and you’ve got a lot to do. You want simple, practical, and affordable.
So, in the spirit of simple, we’ve come up with three easy steps to help you figure out what online fundraising tools, software, apps, platforms, or widgets will help you streamline your fundraising efforts and empower your nonprofit to soar even higher.
Table of Contents
1) Know what features you need
If you do a lot of crowdfunding, you probably have no interest in an online auction app, right? Likewise, if you do a lot of email marketing, you want to make sure the fundraising tool has email marketing built in as a feature. This seems obvious, but if you don’t know what features are helpful, you won’t know what specifics to look for in a fundraising tool.
So, we recommend doing a comprehensive needs survey. Get together with your team and find out what is and isn’t helpful right now. In general, you want to know two specific things. First, where is your current software excelling and where could it be improved? Second, what processes are your team members doing now and how could those be improved?
Here are a few questions to get you started answering those questions:
- How does your nonprofit interact and manage its base (your volunteers, donors, and potential donors)?
- What fields of information do you need to capture from your base?
- How accessible do you need that data? Where do you store it?
- How big is your base now? What is your reasonable expectation for its expansion in the next 5-10 years?
- What functions do you require for online fundraising, marketing, advocacy and grassroots organization, peer-to-peer or crowdfunding, both now and in the near future?
- How can a software save your nonprofit time? What functions are you doing now that could be automated? (Email reminders, automatic data upload, reporting, etc.)
2) Determine your constraints
There is no question that budget is an important consideration in any software upgrade. Thinking about the budget now before you look at the options on the market will keep you from getting enchanted by overpriced features your organization doesn’t need right now.
Pull out your year-to-year revenue growth for the past three to five years and assess what you have available for a new software expansion or purchase.
What did you spend previously, and were you getting your money’s worth?
Money isn’t the only budget constraint we’d recommend considering. Your organization’s time is just as limited--if not even more precious. Before looking at tools and options, take a moment to think about your migration timeline.
December might be a great time to think about switching software while you’re seeing the limitations of your current tools (or lack of them). In practice, it might be the most difficult time to reach your year-end fundraising goals and successfully pull off an organization-wide migration to a new software or tool.
We recommend you pull out your nonprofit’s fiscal calendar and look for the easiest time for your staff to focus on learning a new fundraising software system or to integrate an additional fundraising app.
3) Testing tools for fitness
Now that we’ve identified what your organization needs and the best time of year to make any changes, we need to narrow down the choices to what will fit those needs. There are any number of options with anything from single-function fundraising apps to fully built online fundraising platforms with all the bells and whistles. Here are our four recommendations.
How big do you need to go?
Your comprehensive needs survey helped you determine what’s working for you and what features would be helpful going forward. From this, you can gauge if you need to supplement your current process with a small fundraising app to fill a gap, or if you need to replace what you’re doing with a whole new platform.
For example: Perhaps you are enjoying using Salesforce as your CRM and email automation tool, but you find your current donation software is charging you high fees and offers limited customization. You don’t really want to jump to a new platform since your team feels really comfortable with all the reporting and database features they get from Salesforce and your available timetable for phasing in a new software feature is small.
In this case, incorporating the Soapbox Engage Donations app would be a great solution for your team! The interface is smaller and quicker to learn than an entire donation software platform. The app integrates with your current emailing process and database tool. And the Donations app not only accepts a variety of payments but also has donors take on the fees for you! Everyone wins!
Can this tool meet your nonprofit’s size?
We also talked in your needs survey about reasonable expectations for your future base. When we refer to a “base,” we mean anyone your organization wants to contact or stay connected with in the future. This could include volunteers, donors, potential donors, sponsorship candidates, lapsed donors, corporate partners, and many other groups. You’ll want to think about the future size of this base, especially if you’re thinking about upgrading your database.
Software is often sold in plan tiers and size caps. If you’re looking to expand to a certain number of members in the next five years (and you’re not looking to upgrade your systems again in that same time), you’ll want a plan tier that you can grow into, or an app that lets you expand as needed.
However, when looking at the options you want to think about not only what the base price is, but whether the additional features offered in upgraded tiers are worth the increased price. You don’t want to overbuy!
What flexibility does this tool offer you?
While we’re on the topic of additional features, don’t be so quick to write off features you’re not using right now as unnecessary.
In fact, now might be a good time to consider how the features of a given tool will expand your marketing and your nonprofit’s mission.
Does this tool offer your nonprofit new opportunities for future event hosting, online fundraising, or advocacy? Is this tool optimized for mobile users? Can you customize the tool to your website and brand? You may not be using a specific method of online fundraising or donor engagement in your cause right now, but it might be your next big success!
How well does this tool perform?
The last thing you want is to make an organization-wide commitment to adopt a new software and it crashes on you. Or worse, it can’t do the important functions you really need.
You’ll want to pay attention to the testimonials and reviews for the software tool. Recent testimonials will warn you about an app or platform’s ability to function and the reliability of its latest update.
Pay attention to who’s reviewing the software, too. Has this tool been tried by nonprofits before? There are a number of marketing and database software packages out there, and not all of them are optimized for your needs.
Beyond reliability, you want to think about use. Is this tool easy for your staff to learn? Will it be user-friendly for your donors? Watch a few demos and review videos on how to use key functions. If there are too many steps or a complicated interface, no matter how useful the tool is, your team may struggle to implement it.
Finally, when it comes time to implement your software of choice, you want a friendly hand helping your team through any hiccups you might have (and when technology is involved, there are sure to be a few bumps and hiccups along the way). Check the reviews on the company’s support team and representatives. Are the contact representatives easy to reach, or slow to respond? It’s helpful to do this research now before you have any unforeseen problems.
Your organization needs a reliable, powerful software system that will get you both the donations and administration to help your team do what you do best--change the world!
With Soapbox Engage’s wide variety of apps helping you do everything from donations and event management, to petition organization and customized strategies, you can focus more on completing your mission and less on the boring administrative stuff. Check out our demos, read testimonials, or give us a call any time to find out more about how we can serve you so you can serve your mission.
Here are three more resources to help you build your nonprofit fundraising tools.
- Microsoft Teams Deep-Dive for Nonprofits: We know there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution for helping far-flung fundraising teams stay connected and collaborating effectively in a virtual setting. However, our tech experts spent time learning all the ins-and-outs of Microsoft Teams to identify the best features for fundraisers and development professionals. Check out this blog to learn all about it!
- Building Your Nonprofit Development Department: Many nonprofits find themselves shopping for new fundraising tools at the same time they’re growing their development department. This blog includes 5 useful tips to help you assess your current development department needs so you can expand your team in all the right ways!
- 40+ Virtual Fundraising Ideas [Updated Fall 2020]: We’re constantly on the prowl for the latest tried-and-tested fundraising strategies. Our goal is to help you find the right fundraising methods to add to your calendar. This list of fundraising ideas is packed with creative, fun, and outside-the-box virtual fundraising ideas for nonprofits of every shape and size!
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