Every time your nonprofit organization interacts with a donor is an opportunity to learn something useful: why they donate, when they donate, how much they donate. You need the best fundraising software to track and categorize those interactions—then analyze the data for those important insights.

Retain Donors with Fundraising Tracking Software

The opportunity cost of finding a new donor is much higher than retaining one. Existing donors tend to give more than new donors, making the best ROI—so it’s critical to keep them around as long as possible. Get to know your donor base well and use that information to engage with them in a meaningful way, and they’ll reward you with years of support.

Happy, Inspired Donors Donate More

Charity fundraising software logs every contribution to help you build a comprehensive persona for each donor—which in turn can try to predict their behavior.

Do they give at certain times of year, so you can better time your asks? What sorts of asks does this donor respond to most? And the question that we never want to ask—why do donors choose not to return or contribute again, and how can you avoid the same mistake in the future?

Use fundraising software to discover what type of marketing works best on your donors. Record where they came from (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to make their contribution, and what type of message earned a positive response. Once you understand what they want and how they feel about your messaging, you can better serve their needs and interests. And better donor communication means more fundraising.

Rescue Withdrawn Donors Before They Leave

Nonprofit fundraising software can also track disinterested donors who may need re-engagement. Do you have a longtime donor who hasn’t given recently? Get a list of regular donors and when they last contributed from your fundraising campaign software and catch a donor before they leave so you can step in!

Now you have the opportunity to reach out and re-establish your relationship. Maybe this donor needs a note of appreciation, or a little personal touch to remind them how much your nonprofit needs their support. Focus on the importance of the mission and address any recent organizational changes that may have caused the rift.

These check-ins can also provide hints about what messaging and marketing resonates with donors, and what might drive them away.

Expand Your Donor Base

While a long-time donor makes for larger lifetime contributions overall, new donors are also vital to growing your nonprofit organization’s reach and pursuing your mission. New donors can become lifetime donors with the right set of recruitment tools, data analytics, and a genuine connection with your nonprofit organization.

Your marketing team can test out new recruitment ideas and monitor the results with instant notifications from your web-based fundraising software. How many donations did this email campaign net? How many of those donors came back for the second email campaign? 

Transform your shot-in-the-dark donor recruitment strategy into a tried-and-true sales pitch that keeps donors coming back. With the right nurturing, you can transform the donor who gives a small, one-time donation into a lifelong supporter.

Transition to Fundraising Event Software

Most nonprofit organizations also hold some type of large annual fundraising event, which is one of the best places to attract new donors—sponsor guests, spouses, friends and family.

Many nonprofit fundraising software packages include some type of auction event management tool. To make the most of your annual fundraiser, use a comprehensive package that can bring new contacts from event night into your year-round fundraising campaign initiatives.

The greatest power of fundraising software is its ability to test and track the power of individual campaign initiatives. It should also be able to analyze your nonprofit’s successes, collaborate with live events, and integrate with critical social media and email marketing tools.

Ready, Set, Campaign

Plan the individual stages of your capital campaign—which dates you plan to send mailings, hit milestones, and increase the urgency of your ask as you get closer to the deadline or the end of the year. Use online fundraising software to prepare all your mailings, donation pages, and more before launching a campaign widely.

Whenever possible, secure major gifts ahead of time to inspire giving with the rest of your supporter base.

Test and Develop Effective Campaign Strategies

Campaign fundraising is a powerful tool, but it requires planning, creativity, and endurance. Consider university fundraising software that tracks a call for donations to their student financial aid fund as part of a two-year campaign. Their target audience is university alumni.

Throughout such a long campaign, the university development team will have plenty of opportunities to try different outreach approaches. But two years is a long time—what do you do if campaign starts to slow down or slump? That’s where analytics from fundraising tracking software comes in: it reveals what has worked in the past, so you can do it again with a fresh spin

Whatever the university learns from their fundraising software about their alumni donors can be applied to future initiatives, like building a new library or hiring new faculty. Measuring donor response across different campaigns provides greater insight into which initiatives resonate with the supporter base and garner the most attention.

Matching Gifts

Matching gifts are an incredible fundraising tool when utilized—but not all employees know that their employer offers matching gifts for charitable donations. 

Fundraising software can include questions about matching gifts on your donation pages to encourage donors to research their own employer for matching gift eligibility. It can also provide them with quick tools for submitting their matching gift requests, maximizing your nonprofit fundraising potential.

Now more than ever, nonprofit organizations need collaborative tools that enable working from anywhere, at any time—without breaking the bank. 
Likewise, charitable donors want the ability to engage with the causes they care about without leaving the house, making web-based fundraising software the future of nonprofit management.

Web-based Fundraising Software Makes Donating Easy

With all of your fundraising activities online, it’s easier than ever for donors from around the world to find you and make their pledges— on their own schedule . And new supporters are much more likely to donate if they can contribute quickly through a simple online form.

Engage a New Donor, Secure a Lifetime Donor

Don’t let your new donor forget about you as soon as they’ve completed their donation! Be sure to thank them for contributing, and clearly outline the tangible effect their donation will have on the cause. Initial donations from new donors are often a test to see how your nonprofit organization will respond. Ace it!

Cloud-based fundraising software platforms make it easier than ever to reach out to your donors. Follow up in a few weeks with a progress update: Where are you now since their donation? And what work still needs to be done? 

Let your donor backstage into why ongoing contributions are essential to achieving the mission they clearly believe in.

Collaborate from Anywhere with Cloud-Based Fundraising Software

It’s more important now than ever for nonprofit staff and volunteers to be able to do important fundraising work away from the office. Many companies that offer fundraising software for nonprofit organizations have entirely migrated their platforms online, so all nonprofit data is stored in the cloud.

It’s safer for your data, too. The days of complicated spreadsheets hosted on shared drives are over. No more accidentally deleting an important file, or forgetting the proper formatting, when your web-based software hosts your fundraising campaign for you.

While you’re on the quest for an affordable fundraising software platform, here are some recommended features to add to your comparison chart:

- Packages that include cloud-based or web-based fundraising software, so staff and volunteers can work at the same time from home and avoid in-person interaction.

- Fundraising event software that can also manage annual events like auctions and galas, while keeping all your donor data in one place.

- Integration with credit card payments to monitor contributions, send out automated receipts, and most importantly, keep your donors’ personal information secure.

Fundraising Software with Credit Card Payment Integration

At the end of the day, the most important part to nonprofit fundraising is the donation itself. How do you collect those lifeblood contributions safely and securely online? 

Your nonprofit needs to maintain the trust of your donors when handling their personal information—so you need a built-in credit card processing system with PCI certification.

The best online fundraising software isn’t limited to just stewarding your donor data—but preferably it can handle all sides of the fundraising equation, including the payments themselves.

Managing Recurring Donations

Recurring donations are the ideal type of contribution: over the lifetime of a donor relationship, a recurring donation can add up to far more than any given one-time donation.

But handling recurring donations by hand is complicated and time-consuming. What if you had fundraising software that could handle those recurring payments automatically?

Pairing with Fundraising Event Software

Capital campaigns sometimes lead into live auction events (or virtual auctions), and vice versa. And you’ll need fundraising software that can handle both.

What if you began campaign to fund an addition to a school or start a new initiative, that built up to a big gala event? Choosing a package that includes fundraising event software makes this as easy as a few clicks—ticket sales, donations, auction sales, and everything else. 

Events tend to attract potential new donors. Don’t waste the opportunity! Use your online fundraising software to collect contact information for new attendees, and then involve them in your next campaign. Those new donors may even donate more after your event, now that the know more about you and your mission.

Affordable Fundraising Software

The best fundraising software is the kind that pays for itself. 

How much staff and volunteer time goes to waste every year trying to coordinate among many different platforms for online donations, events, and capital campaigns?

Manage all your donor data in one place so you can truly see the big picture. Imagine how much better you could understand your organization’s supporter base—and how many more, bigger donations they would give.