United Methodist Family Services
The mission statement at UMFS is: Touch a life. Create a future. With this in mind, UMFS has served families for more than a century by providing residential treatment, adoption, treatment foster care, in-home family services, wraparound services, therapeutic schooling, mentoring and more. In addition the UMFS’ Learning Institute offers educational opportunities for people in the human services field and or those who work with at-risk youth and families. UMFS has evolved into a thriving organization delivering services from nine locations and helping 6,000 individuals annually across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Highlights
- UMFS raised a record breaking 95K in 2008 as a direct result of the auction’s success.
- Using Online Payments to accept sponsorships and donations throughout the year helped UMFS maintain their base in an economically challenged time.
- For the first time since 2004, UMFS staff got to view the live auction due to increased organization from using the Greater Giving system.
Challenge
UMFS relies on their annual auction to raise the funds their organization depends on, but managing the event was a daunting task. After two years of using an Access spreadsheet to manage the auction details, the new coordinator, Bethanie Constant, knew it was time to make a change. Using Access wasn’t working on multiple levels. Most problematic was the need to perform repetitive data entry, which created extra work and slowed the planning and execution process. The grind of the overall process lowered staff morale, which led to a stressful environment at the auction.
Solution
It took Constant about a month of trying different software programs to select Greater Giving Event Software. Constant said, “Greater Giving was by far the best product – the main influencer in my decision was how efficient the software was.” Entering the data once made it possible to pull a variety of reports quickly. This was invaluable to Constant, who answers to the UMFS’ fundraising board, The Guardian Foundation, and needed to provide answers to fundraising status questions with short notice.
Another Greater Giving feature she liked was the level of detail…“right down to making the little labels for you. It’s unbelievable when you think about how much time that saves.” said Constant.
The simple change of pre-printing item labels enabled volunteers to pick up the right item for each bidder, saving a lot of time and headaches at the end of the evening. Another seemingly simple change with great impact was the use of pre-printed bid sheets with bid increments, something UMFS had never done before. Constant loves the professional image pre-printed bid sheets create, especially since they auction off 350 items condensed into 150 packages. Prior to using Greater Giving, there were stories about losing money due to incorrect math on the bid sheet increments. Even with the great UMFS auction staff, there was just no way to effectively keep track of items using the old system. Greater Giving Event Software and Auctionpay terminals changed that.
For the staff at UMFS, other critical software features include the ability to type in the item description and create a catalog and export all donors into a list. Constant joked that her administrative assistant would probably have quit if they didn’t use Greater Giving, since the assistant does most of the data entry leading up to the event.
Tips from UMFS
- Pre-print labels and bid sheets for a professional and organized look.
- Take advantage of the knowledge that Greater Giving Client Services provides.
- Offer Auction Booster packages at your event to increase revenue and generate a buzz about unique items.
Results
As a direct result of the auction’s success, UMFS raised a record-breaking $95K in 2008, an unexpected and welcome surprise in the face of a struggling economy.
By adding Greater Giving Event Software and Auctionpay terminals to the 2008 auction process, UMFS greatly reduced lines at registration and check-out. Even with 200 guests in attendance, there were never more than 3 people in the line at one time, and all but two guests pre-scanned their credit cards at registration, making their checkout at the end of the evening a breeze. In addition, due to the optimized processes made possible by their Greater Giving solution, the 2008 auction was the first time in the four-year history of the auction that UMFS staff got to observe the auction rather than working feverishly through it, fostering pride and satisfaction for the team, which was important to Constant.
Using Greater Giving Online Payments for pre-event registration put the attendee information directly into the Greater Giving Event Software, easing the workload on staff. UMFS also credits Online Payments with maintaining their donor base year round in an economically challenged time by providing an easy, online way to donate to UMFS.
Offering Auction Booster packages at their auction has created a new level of excitement among guests. There is now a buzz among donors about the UMFS’ auction offering unique things that cannot be obtained anywhere else. The ultimate compliment came when one of UMFS’ biggest individual donors took Constant aside and complimented her on how well the event has grown and changed over the years. In conjunction with Greater Giving, fundraising for UMFS can only get better, and as UMFS says, “Our history is rich but our potential is even greater.”
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