Tis the season! It’s about time for pulling together all your contact and contributions information to identify the right people to receive your message and donor management systems are here to help! Here are a few solid tips to help you with your donor management system:
Understand how you work with donors.
Donor information is often detailed and includes complex relationships. Capturing, storing, and retrieving this information effectively requires a clear understanding of your typical procedures. Look at how you engage prospects, and how you encourage them to commit further. Consider the information you would like to collect, and how you would like to retrieve this information later for analysis and communications.
Think through your numbers
Many software vendors base their pricing on the number of staff members who will be using the system, and/or the number of supporter records you have. Consider both your current situation and where you hope to be over the next few years.
Consider your resources
How much money can you commit up front, and over time? How much time does your staff have to setup, learn, and maintain a new donor management system over the long term? What are the strengths and limitations of your current technology infrastructure? The implementation of donor management software is challenging for many nonprofits, and you might benefit from implementation support from the vendor or an experienced third-party consultant, particularly if you plan to move data from an old system into your new package.
For the full article, visit http://www.idealware.org/articles/few-good-donor-management-sys